be your academic self

Why not keep blogs serious? On a daily basis, in most disciplines there are real – unfunny developments. An academic could show that they are on the cutting edge of things by commenting, on real time, on what is happening in any discipline.

While, of course, someone might use such a blog against someone (pointing to a grammatical mistake), academics who provide ongoing commentary on the state of the art, and stay away from politics, humor, or cattiness, seem to always do quite well for themselves. (Although I am not an academic, the blog I contribute to has netted me clients, and frequent inquiries from journalists. But I don’t talk about my life or how I feel or don’t feel about Bush.)

LArry, at 6:05 am EST on February 20, 2006

I think what you’re looking for is the difference between serious and solemn. Experimental and absurd/amusing can still equal serious. A large number of the blogs you talk about from “around the web” are by turns goofy, and then solemn and hang wringing. Ivan Tribble came off as solemn and self-important, but not serious.

Ray, at 8:25 am EST on February 20, 2006

Also, in encouraging anonymous blogs, those who do so are indirectly adding to the wealth of horrible material on the Internet. It’s surely not a good idea to whine about co-workers on a public website, but the anonymous blogs are filled with such whining. and talk about relationships and favorite albums and whatnot. If they’d post under their own names, the blogs might be more interesting.

As for conservatism and job searches, the only people I’ve seen who’ve looked for my blog (you can easily tell, with stats programs and IP location searches—I don’t get that much traffic) from academia during my current job search are people from schools I considered almost total long shots. That they showed up after looking for me was a big surprise.

And it’s a good thing that I had something interesting to show these folks. Without my blog, they would have found only entries from old chat boards and community websites that are, in the cases that showed up first, sort of embarrassing.

Please note that you’re going to be facing this sort of thing—blogs or ridiculous posts from the distant past—as more and more as those who came of age with the Internet come looking for academic jobs. It’s time to deal with reality a bit.

Ray, at 10:25 am EST on February 20, 2006

Hypertext as common space for wanting better humor writing

Dear IHE Readers,

Although Jeff Rice did not care to respond to “Hypertext 101” in the views column on April 4, 2005, and although Jeff didn’t discuss his comments about our disagreements with the ideas in “Hypertext 101” on WPA-L (a list we’ve both been part of for several years and which cyclically addresses the need for professors to gain more literacy with technology), he did use his blog to make some pretty unfunny remarks about “Hypertext 101.” I don’t recall them now, but I remember finding them hurtful, until reading some of the ideas that Chris Dean and I discussed in “Hypertext 101” used in today’s “Serious Bloggers.”

When Rice wrote “finally academia has the opportunity to play with digital form, content, and genre in ways previously denied because of the difficulty of learning hypertext or setting up webspace on university servers,” I knew we had some common ground. I find blogging technically easy to learn, and think it gives my students a good place to voice their thinking. In other words, we might agree it’s important to access hypertextual learning spaces easily and playfully, and blogging may serve this purpose well. However, Rice’s idea of using blogs for humor or less serious writing doesn’t address the way blogs can be “snarky” and mean-spirited while attempting or pretending to be lighthearted.

I have to admit that following some of the logic of Rice’s argument was difficult. I was distracted by polarizing phrases like “in the realm of super seriousness” and “super-hyped seriousness.” Seriously, isn’t a modifier like “serious” pretty subjective and dependent on context? Nonetheless, Rice and I might agree that academe is often silly in the way it takes things too seriously and to a depth that is not merited. However, I’m trying to tease out the idea that professors familiar with literary and rhetorical theory often find a nexus and academic linking in the idea that language is transactional. Maybe it’s as simple as meaning intended is not necessarily meaning received. My point is that we need a lot of care with humorous writing to avoid as much missing of meaning as possible. If a joke is hurtful to some people mentioned in the joke,” is it rightfully funny? Although I can imagine Rice calling for academe not taking itself so seriously, I am also aware of public misperceptions about academics that are not funny.

I’m willing to further discuss my differences with Jeff Rice in this space. I think humor and playfulness are important resources for academic progress, and I think that being funny in cyberspace isn’t easy but necessary. Perhaps more can be said about how bloggers may responsibly manage to avoid being solipsistic and use humor to reach readers? Cyberspace may not be perfect, but using language to articulate thinking and feelings as fairly and honestly as possible is one of it’s best building blocks.

Will Hochman

Will Hochman, Associate Professor of English at Southern Connecticut State University, at 2:15 pm EST on February 20, 2006

Honesty @ Shenanigans, PLC

I think some of the suggestions in this article towards formal experiment are intriguing, and potentially useful in pushing the boundaries of academic blogging into a larger (or different) recognition of its specific form, as opposed to more traditional outlets for academic commentary and thinking. However, I’m not sure that the critical focus on anonymity is that useful, per se. The academic blogs that Rice mentions: La Lecturess, Angry Professor, et al., are specifically anonymous in recognition of the vulnerability of junior or untenured faculty in the institution, and anonymous or semi-anonymous academic bloggers feel they can speak more freely without worrying about whether or not their colleagues, senior faculty, or administration are policing their thoughts. The alternative blogs and their methodologies mentioned in the article (Boing Boing, Soul Sides, etc.) don’t seem as focused on academic life and struggle as the more dedicated and explicitly institutional blogs are, and this is an important distinction. Many of us maintain more professional (and fully public) online faces while choosing to blog anonymously as well. We are young academics: we can multitask!

Does anonymity limit the form? Why, yes, of course. Rice’s quote from one blogger’s struggle over public vs. private identities succinctly captures the tension some of us may feel blogging anonymously. Yet, the anonymous form is not necessarily a limitation, and I would argue is obligatory protection in a rather unscrupulous profession (Shenanigans PLC aka the university), where people can get fired for incredibly petty reasons, from sartorial choices to not being submissive enough to producing work “of no value,” whatever that may mean. “S/he’s not collegial” would have a field day with an honest, frank blog that was public. In the contemporary academy, it’s not collegial to notice that the emperor has no clothes.

No one, certainly not unpleasant deadwood or voracious administrators, likes a snitch, and I think that, in its best form, anonymous academic blogging seeks to do exactly that: reveal the mechanisms of the machine, the meat grinder, the ugly reality behind the bucholia of brick buildings covered in Ivy and appropriately multi-culti students sitting on a lawn. Like Sinclair’s The Jungle, it’s not a pretty picture. And as Sinclair’s work indicates, such revelatory epistles can ideally support and sustain humane reform.

Unfortunately, the university does not inculcate independence of thought or initiative, for the most part, in its junior faculty. And as others have observed, this timidity may guarantee professional success, but it also makes for a lackluster senior faculty more concerned with institutional intrigue than other, perhaps more compelling issues at hand (such as the increasing irrelevance of the university to the world at large).

At least at this moment, anonymity is the only way that many academic bloggers can reveal a voice not completely constrained by the strictures of institutional hierarchy, although Rice is on to something when he details the increasing self-consciousness of academic blogging as a form, and the potential limitations this self-consciousness may impose. The situation remains fluid, the medium promising, so we’ll see what happens. But for now, I would agree with a previous commentator. Keep the wig and sunglasses, and do a JT Leroy as long as you can, if you actually have something interesting to say.

Oso Raro, Assist. Prof. in a Cold Place, at 3:40 pm EST on February 20, 2006

To blog

Thanks for the essay and its commentary. They have moved me to blog again.

About the way blogging threatens tenuring junior faculty: Level the playing field by getting rid of tenure. Then, include assesment of blog quality in contract reviews. That should raise the level of blogolic discourse a tiny bit.

Meg Klosko, writer, at 6:40 pm EST on February 20, 2006

Larry: Of course, one law prof talks only about politics—Instapundit, the model for so many (and the model for everything I don’t like about) political blogs. But I think you’re going overboard in seeing academic bloggers as going outside presumed boundaries of professional decorum. I was reading a blog by a journalist who goes around lecturing about urban policy, and what does his last blog entry involve? Movies.

Sometimes, that all can get embarrassing. Still, I would think it could help academia’s image for profs to be seen as human. How many are dead serious in class all the time? Few. And what’s the harm in writing for non-academics, or reaching out to the public just a bit? I read one academic blog yesterday (no names) that was as journal-dense at points, and yet there were helpful colorful pics to break up the type. You don’t see that in journals. Who’s the audience there? I was glad to see him experimenting, whatever the case may have been.

Ray, at 9:25 am EST on February 21, 2006

Ray, It is ironic that in law schools, where tenure is easier to come by (and professors could make quite a nice living not being professors) there are a few professors who choose to blog exclusively not about politics. Reynolds is one of them. As you say, his blog shouldn’t be a model for academic bloggers. (Nor should most of the VC contributors, with a couple of notable exceptions, one of whom I have serious disagrees with, nevertheless.)

However, I differ with you on whether people should be seen as human or not. Being seen as human seriously runs the risk of alienating people. For instance, some people like sports. While many Americans consider sports to be some sort of “lowest common denominator,” I think that anyone that talks about sports in public to strangers isn’t serious about their work (and I will not hire them.) Likewise, what about family relations. There are many gay people who lead very healthy, productive, and “normal” lives. But, if a gay professor were to mention his partner (even in a harmless way, such as noting that they redid their kitchen, or whatever gay people do on the weekend) the hoards of people that detest gay people would latch on to this and declare that person to be a bad human.

If you want to post color pictures, you can post a color picture of something related to your work. (Chemists seems to have the easiest time at this.) Likewise, you can post documents that are relevant (that might not be available elsewhere.)

Alex, There is such a thing as “serious” experimentation. One can propose an idea, and have it critiqued in the comments box. If one is misunderstood, then they have to consider whether they are a good enough writer to be writing a blog to start with.

Perhaps more people should consider group blog, where the “group” is truly diverse, and there can be ongoing discussions within the blog. Since everyone is “in” it together, the conversations will be kept civil, and there will be a sense that people are working together. Indeed, a blog in which practitioners, theorists, and the occasional student work together on would likely be quite rewarding for all involved.

Larry, at 10:15 am EST on February 21, 2006

Ray, There seem to be two veins of lawyer blogs. Ones which say, “look at me, I am am so cool” and others which try say, “Look, I am really an X nerd.” I think that one can’t go wrong with the latter. (Discussion of Ipods might be relevant, since not only are there legal issues relating to them, but also they can be handy professional tools.)

Larry, at 11:35 am EST on February 21, 2006

No such thing as an anonymous blog.

This point is worth keeping in mind during the anon/non-anon question. I blog under a nom de blog, but I do not use it as a space to vent my deepest darkest reflections on other members of my institution. I have colleagues who read the blog, and know who I am and I imagine someone else really persistent could piece it together, or figure it out by accident. As various facebookers have learned to their chagrin, other people can see the Internet, and it is wise to be thoughtful about what you put there. I have a colleague who blogs (anonymously) about material related to what they teach, and I’m waiting for some intrepid googler to turn in a paper with material boosted from the profs alter ego.

ACC Prof, at 11:40 am EST on February 28, 2006

Thank you!

Well said Liz. And I think that Jeff’s timely removal of his website from http://ydog.net/gm/ to http://ydog.net after a number of comments challenged his position and those of his supporters speaks to exactly what you are saying. Why be anonymous if you can just figure out a way to remove that which reveals one’s problematic thinking. Never happened, right Jeff? No consequences for you.

Anne, at 11:00 am EST on March 7, 2006