Welcome to My Blog

August 20, 2025 By Joshua Penrod

I’d like to think that it’s a truism that good historians are good listeners. That may or
may not be the case; historians are, like people, many and varied. I’m sure that odds
are relatively good that one can find a notable historian who sucks at listening, who
doesn’t record context appropriately, who can’t wait to wheeze interminably on at the dinner party about their latest documentary discovery that interests precisely no one, or who ignores other evidence or even, if they’re ensconced in academia (which many of
them are), ignoring their students or mistreating graduate assistants.

I like to think of myself as a good listener. Whether I’m a reasonably good historian or
not is certainly up for debate, but some people who really know their stuff told me that I
should have a website, and that website should have a blog, where interested readers
can land and get quick updates about what’s going on with my latest projects. Okay then.

My latest project is having an author’s website and, with that website, a blog. This is the first entry for that blog and I think it’s fitting that it’s kind of a meta-entry: a blog entry about writing and doing a blog.

At this point, the majority of my published writing comes in three forms. First, a few
peer-reviewed pieces related to my academic research and some professional publications; these are, I think, suitably dehydrated to evade the interest of most. Second, writing that I do in support of my job in a DC-based trade association in the biomedical sector, which can be for internal communications, work on facilitating information about the industry we represent, or short pieces for trade publication. Third, and presumably the reason you are here, is the writing that comes about as a result of my avocation of historian and public writer. That is, with a few exceptions, going to be where I focus in this space.

(NOTE: One of the books listed is, in fact, an outgrowth of my Ph.D. dissertation and
represents one of those overlap pieces…if I don’t list it, the inevitable question-begging
question arises: are you disavowing your work on Michel Foucault and neuroethics? No. And here it is.)

Nevertheless, with three other books published in the past four years, all of which are thematically linked via geography and shared history, it seems that there’s a relatively solid base for a website with an attendant “occasional” blog. We’ll be getting into each of these soon enough, but to just introduce you to them:

Right away, one can say—wow, really? We don’t hear from you in four years and suddenly you’re out with two in close succession to each other in 2025?

Well…yes, of a sort. But this is also why I mention the book on Foucault, because that did, in fact, occupy a few other months for its preparation (not to mention the work on my dissertation itself years before), along with a lengthy peer-reviewed journal article that stemmed from the other part of the same dissertation. I also published a few essays in some regional literary journals. I was starting to build my portfolio, such as it was, lining my own nest with a lot of editorial feedback and, like most writers, rejection notes.

Keep in mind as well that things come out sometimes in different order, depending on
other circumstances. These Restless Hills, for example, was written for the most part in
2022 and early 2023, but wasn’t ready for publication for some time. We’ll be getting
into that in another blog entry in the near future; suffice to say right now that my life
during the initial drafts of that novel was far from quiet and settled due to some
significant things going on in my professional domain.

Again – life happens. Which is as good of a note to end (and possibly cliffhang) things
on, at least for now. Thank you for having a look at my brand-new website and blog. I’d
be delighted for you to sign up below for updates. I’m glad you’re here!