Shout outs

An insecure history student like myself, working in obscurity and isolation (as historians tend to), can expend a great deal of anxious energy pondering and developing ideas and concepts that seem tenuous and naive at best. Then, one reads a few comments by an established scholar that absolutely validates that nascent concept--tacitly giving permission to proceed with your idea. These are watershed moments--gratifying because of intellectual ratification. Beth Barton Schweiger did that early in this dissertation process, and more recently Catherine Brekus and S. Scott Rohrer have done so. I just wanted to acknowledge this. Thanks, folks.