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Inspiration comes in many forms. I was reminded of this adage recently when my wife and I watched the excellent HBO-BBC production Elizabeth I, with Helen Mirren as the aging Virgin Queen. Fredrika Teute had recommended the movie to me shortly after I presented a paper at the Institute colloquium on the concept of “counsel” as it figured in colonial Virginia politics. The paper, which I had hoped to incorporate into my broader book project on the politics and ideology of polity formation in seventeenth- and early-eighteenth-century Virginia, generated plenty of thoughtful questions and reassuring smiles but none of the excitement I had come to feel about the idea of counsel as an especially animating but largely neglected concept in early Virginia political thought. Had I simply framed the argument ineffectively, or was the theme in fact a bogus topic worthy of a few remarks but undeserving of the emphasis I was giving it? Uncertain on the matter, I set the paper aside. Several weeks and an arduous cross-country trip to Southern California later, I recalled Fredrika’s suggestion and rented the movie. Instantly, I was transported back to those original feelings of excitement and, to my wife’s annoyance, eager to point out all the ways in which the actions of Elizabeth’s privy councilors paralleled the kinds of moves that early Virginia leaders made as they, too, evoked the ideal of counsel to serve their own political ends.

As I look back on my fellowship at the Institute, I realize that much of its value lay in the many small moments of inspiration that, like the one triggered by the film, were not particularly well planned. To be sure, I began the fellowship with concrete ideas about how I was going to convert my dissertation into a book. I knew the sources I still wanted to examine and the topics I wanted to explore more thoroughly, and during my two years at the Institute I tackled those matters diligently and often fruitfully. But the big windfalls came from less premeditated encounters.

Sometimes these encounters were of the sort that all researchers experience, such as stumbling across an especially useful book while searching for other materials in the library stacks. But many of my epiphanies occurred, I am convinced, because of the unusually rich body of resources that the Institute fellowship makes available to fellows, people whose junior status in the profession would normally keep such a wealth of resources out of reach. The fellowship interview itself indicates something of the intellectual treasures that lie ahead. Conducted by established scholars brought in from the outside as well as by the Institute’s own impressive personnel, the interview takes the form of a particularly constructive discussion of one’s dissertation that itself produces new ideas about how to turn the manuscript into a book.

Once lodged in the Institute, the fellow encounters yet more opportunities for inspiration. In my case, the “roundtable discussion,” another substantive dialogue about the dissertation involving external scholars as well as Institute staff, was especially invigorating, in no small part because of the extremely valuable input of the two outside scholars who generously agreed to participate, David Harris Sacks and Karen Kupperman. The Institute, however, is such a central hub of early modern Atlantic studies that scheduled discussions are hardly necessary for making beneficial scholarly acquaintances. During the fellowship, casual as well as more formal occasions brought me into contact with a large number of scholars whose friendship and conversation I have found immensely rewarding. They are too numerous to list here, but I would be remiss if I failed to acknowledge especially the kindness of Rhys Isaac, a much-beloved Institute fixture himself, who went out of his way to provide me with the intellectual comradeship that I craved.

Finally, the Institute staff itself is such an impressive and warm group that one cannot help but be stimulated. Ron Hoffman is a powerhouse, a constantly moving director who nevertheless always made time when I needed a sounding board for an idea I was batting around. The rest of the hardworking director’s staff keeps the whole operation buzzing along not only competently but, equally important, merrily. Chris Grasso and Karin Wulf liberally sent my way any William and Mary Quarterly materials that they thought might converge with my interests. Because the fellows’ offices are located in the Institute’s publications wing, fellows become especially integrated into the particular and altogether enlivening subculture of the editorial staff. In that milieu, where acerbic wit and contemplations of early American history and literature productively intertwine, the fellow need merely keep his or her door slightly ajar to benefit from all the discussion. Lastly, fellow fellows are among the greatest boons the Institute offers. Patrick Erben and Lisa Voigt will always seem to me like fellow travelers. Together we profited from the Institute’s uniquely inspiring environment and encouraged one another in our own particular explorations of early American culture and history.