What Do Your Professors do on Sabbatical?

Mostly we write books or work on other long-term projects during our time away from the classroom, but this spring I've also got a couple of local-ish academic events to which I'd like to invite any St. Johnnies who are interested.

This weekend I'm going to a two-day conference at the John Carter Brown Library at Brown U. in Providence that I organized on "The Hungry Ocean: Literary Culture and the Maritime Environment."  Lots of great speakers plus live sea music in the library on Saturday mid-day.  Please come if you're at all nearby.  Details are on my blog (www.stevementz.com/blog), or here's the flyer --

After that, next Friday 4/29, I'll be part of a six-speaker mini-conference at Columbia on "Commons and Collectivities."  Here's the description, grabbed from the Columbia website:

Friday, April 29
A colloquium: COMMONS AND COLLECTIVITIES: RENAISSANCE POLITICAL ECOLOGIES
Speakers: Crystal Bartolovich (Syracuse), Drew Daniel (Johns Hopkins),
Jonathan Gil Harris (George Washington), Bryan Lowrance (Columbia),
Steve Mentz (St Johns), Henry S. Turner (Rutgers)
523 Butler Library
All welcome
Organized by: Bryan Lowrance and Emily Shortslef

Should be a fun event, and also interesting because it was entirely organized by two graduate students.  Something for some St. John's students to consider for the future, perhaps?

Please come to either or both of these events.  Email me -- mentzs@stjohns.edu -- if you'd like more information or help with logistics.  I think the Columbia event starts around 9:30 am and runs into the mid-afternoon.