I was searching today for blogs similar to mine... i.e. other blogs where people work out their academic ideas and interests, but it seems that there are only a very few.
Granted, I didn't do an exhaustive search, but all the candidates I ran across seemed to have either given up blogging (ran out of things to say, got jobs and were now too important) or left academia altogether.
So, my question is whether the blogging-inclined among us tend to leave academia or if the field itself makes it less productive/enticing to blog? Is there something incompatible about the worlds of grad school and blogging?
I do know of one academic blogger who does what I want to do in this space, but better. But, she's very deeply ensconced in History, which is not at ALL where my interests lie (yes, yes, important, etc., but it doesn't ring my bell), so I'm still looking for other literature nuts. Any tips? Anyone? Does anyone even read this?
Where are all the bloggers?
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5 comments:
You can't really get the depth of interest in a blog that you can in a paper or thesis or book about literary interests. It has to be short, punchy or unnecessarily opinionated. Which academic writing (usually) is not.
Even trying to write PULPable things, people are not going to stick with a long post about something very often, I would say.
I don't think blogging is incompatible, but it's difficult to concisely explore an interesting point in a blog post.
There's Eric and Ari's blog, Edge of the American West. They're not necessarily working things out, but they definitely post on their academic ideas and interests. (As well as their dogs, their gardens, and their political interests - though that last one sometimes in the context of being historians of the U.S.)
And I had a seekrit blog that collected all my theater write-ups from my Berlin year. Will tell you the name sometime.
Also SEK, who is a lit person (and who comments occasionally at Unfogged). I must admit I rarely make it through his posts, though.
Ooh! Seekrit blog! Must see someday!
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