When I tell people unfamiliar with academe that I am a professor, they usually respond, “So you must feel a lot of pressure, with the whole publish-or-perish thing?” Rather than explain that I am a full professor, with few carrots dangling before me and no sticks prodding me, I typically say, “It’s fine. I really enjoy writing.”

And I do. The pleasure I take in writing has been a great benefit to me professionally. (I once overheard a fellow academic mutter, “She must not sleep” regarding my penchant for writing.) However, I also am aware that the pressure of writing “early and often” has led me, at certain points, to take an instrumentalist approach to projects. At times I have given up the kind of measured cultivation of ideas I highly value, in exchange for the designation “productive.” I know I am not alone in this, and even now, with tenure, I still carry a …

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