Tuesday, October 11, 2005
Carnival of ideas. Henry Farrell of Crooked Timber writes in the Chronicle (52.7 B14) about the problematic role of blogs in the academy, casting his vote in favor of the fresh air they can provide.
I like his idea that blogs extend the usual academic persona. If we think of a writer taking on a voice or style or character or mask -- English teaches would say persona -- then certainly bloggers do the same. Even a university has a persona, as we can see from its home page.
The university takes great care with its persona. The home page, with its snapshots of smiling undergraduates and interesting professors and ivy-draped walls, is a carefully crafted character sketch. It is a role that has been stepped into, a mask that has been put on. Sadly, the home page often betrays some insecurity or narrowness -- we are afraid of showing ourselves as something other than a classic or even generic university, say, or our vision of a university is so narrow as to preclude anything very distinctive. The familiar mask we put on has come right off the retail shelf.
Blogs, however, crash through the familiar mask and replace it with one that's been crafted lately. The mask isn't so familiar, and it may even seem inappropriate, but it's fresh, for now. The mask of the blogger may even do what Farrell suggests: "challenge ... well-established patterns of behavior in the academy."
Farrell argues that individual academic bloggers can break out of the "traditional academic distinctions of privilege and rank" and "connect to a wider public." He mentions group sites, too, like Crooked Timber, where several bloggers create "a space for exuberant debate of ideas." This is encouraging.
But can we enlarge the circle further? Could the university behave like a blogger? Could the university set aside the mask it has worn so comfortably and risk creating another? I suspect that the answer is yes only at the bravest of institutions, but that the answer could really be yes. Farrell says that blogs can "[connect] scholarship to the outside world" -- and this is the opportunity for the university as blogger. The university can set aside the careerism of students and faculty that has lately been its main function and present itself, instead, as a publication, as a group blog that engages an audience from its community, using the tools of scholarship, over whatever matters there, right now. Casting aside careerism, the university can recover its roots in scholarship connected to the outside world. We can use writing a university blog as the way to make that connection, day by day on the read-write web.
Via Dennis Jerz. [0 & P]
I like his idea that blogs extend the usual academic persona. If we think of a writer taking on a voice or style or character or mask -- English teaches would say persona -- then certainly bloggers do the same. Even a university has a persona, as we can see from its home page.
The university takes great care with its persona. The home page, with its snapshots of smiling undergraduates and interesting professors and ivy-draped walls, is a carefully crafted character sketch. It is a role that has been stepped into, a mask that has been put on. Sadly, the home page often betrays some insecurity or narrowness -- we are afraid of showing ourselves as something other than a classic or even generic university, say, or our vision of a university is so narrow as to preclude anything very distinctive. The familiar mask we put on has come right off the retail shelf.
Blogs, however, crash through the familiar mask and replace it with one that's been crafted lately. The mask isn't so familiar, and it may even seem inappropriate, but it's fresh, for now. The mask of the blogger may even do what Farrell suggests: "challenge ... well-established patterns of behavior in the academy."
Farrell argues that individual academic bloggers can break out of the "traditional academic distinctions of privilege and rank" and "connect to a wider public." He mentions group sites, too, like Crooked Timber, where several bloggers create "a space for exuberant debate of ideas." This is encouraging.
But can we enlarge the circle further? Could the university behave like a blogger? Could the university set aside the mask it has worn so comfortably and risk creating another? I suspect that the answer is yes only at the bravest of institutions, but that the answer could really be yes. Farrell says that blogs can "[connect] scholarship to the outside world" -- and this is the opportunity for the university as blogger. The university can set aside the careerism of students and faculty that has lately been its main function and present itself, instead, as a publication, as a group blog that engages an audience from its community, using the tools of scholarship, over whatever matters there, right now. Casting aside careerism, the university can recover its roots in scholarship connected to the outside world. We can use writing a university blog as the way to make that connection, day by day on the read-write web.
Via Dennis Jerz. [0 & P]
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