Coming Back to the Blog After a Long Absence

In the course of becoming a faithful blog reader, we all encounter those blogs that simply vanish, or those bloggers that seem to press "pause" with a final post, never even notifying readers of their departure. I never thought I would be one of those bloggers I always hated, but it happened. Memory, Amnesia and Politics went off the air (and was even noted on Bat, Bean, Beam in an excellent post on blog vanishings which I can't seem to locate at the moment -- ha ha) without a blip on the radar screen (I sure am mixing my media in this paragraph!). I kept thinking, I'll get back to it, I should post on this, but other more important events began to occupy my time and I turned my attention there. Since my last post here, I have been busy with two amazing trips to Europe -- one for research and one for pleasure -- having a baby and raising him (he is now 6 months old!) and moving into a new home. It is only now that a year has passed that I feel ready to attempt to pick up where I left off. I have several posts pending -- unwritten, as of yet -- on the following:

• my visit to Spain in May 2011: "Memorials and Landscapes of 20th and 21st Century Spain" 
• review of Paul Connerton's How Modernity Forgets
• belated assessment of the Baltasar Garzón case
• overview of a course I taught during Fall 2011, "Narratives of Violence and Reconciliation in Contemporary Spain"
• review of Marianne Hirsch's new book The Generation of Postmemory (this will not be for some time, as I just got my copy in the mail)
• review of Paul Preston's The Spanish Holocaust (in installments, as the book may take me several years to read and process -- I am only partly joking)
• review of Patricio Guzmán's Nostalgia for the Light, which I saw in the days before giving birth
• an overview, with personal photos, of the Kent State memorial in Ohio

I would like to avoid, if possible, the "copy and paste" format blog which this blog, as well as (Re) generando memorias, often slid into (usually a product of desperately wanting to share the story and realizing its value, but not being able to respond to it in a timely fashion). I have certainly enjoyed writing lengthy, detailed posts, but I must recognize I cannot do so with the same regularity as in the past. Therefore, I am setting a lower bar for myself -- just two posts a month for now. If I go over that, wonderful. I am viewing this blog as a continually evolving experiment. In the meantime, if you have comments or suggestions, please let me know by contacting me here.