Academic Blogging & Public Intellectuals

Scott, This is, indeed, an interesting look at blogging, especially in the light of the helpful article by Adam Kotsko in this same Inside issue. I’m recommending to our entire faculty to read both of your articles. A couple of things jump out—the way Adam frames the blog world, and your comments about key scholars being intimidated. There indeed are key blogs, and those new tend to stumble into them. The intimidation factor is in line with Mark Prensky’s wonderful insights on digital natives, esp. his advice for veteran professors to ask their students for help with such things instead of going to workshops. This is somewhat in conflict with your approach to having a workshop of five successful bloggers—though this seems to be a helpful approach. Personally, I find Insidehighered discussions about as helpful as any blogs. As for me, the value of blogging is discovering brilliant minds that think systematically, and personally I enjoy those with a wide range of applications. The entire concept of Public Intellectual becomes more tangible. Keith Drury’s Tuesday’s Column (with 10s of thousands of hits) is such a column. www.TuesdayColumn.com. In fact, see his recent “Big Blog Bust” piece, and note he T-shirt pictured ("More people read this T-Shirt than my Blog"). Granted, many would find several of his entries outside their interests because he’s a practical theologian—outside my field, too—but his thoughts and mind are fresh. It’s like walking to hear Abelard, but doing so on a keyboard. I agreed to blog for Paxton Media as the Accidental Author, but only after seeking serious counsel from Keith. I suppose much like your workshop with the five bloggers, it was a necessary step. Among his tips were not to pay attention to the number of respondents. If you find yourself driven by the number of comments—it’s time to shut down. He told me, “I’ve often seen people take on controversial subjects just to generate responses. . . ” Instead, stay focused on your interests and your voice. Also, although a prolific author, he sees blogging as practice. He is very systematic in how he approaches it, and from his blog he gleans ideas and perspective for his books. However, like Wikinomics and The World Is Flat, the blogs do not write the book—also a caution by those authors. I recall a couple years back being quoted on Drury’s blog and receiving a flood of emails (after one sentence on his blog). Another time I was speaking west of Atlanta and a professor drove over five hours because of citation on Drury’s blog. In short, people with well connected dendrites have a wonderful outlet, especially if they have a Drury perspective. It also goes without saying that both of these blog articles today are from graduate students—perhaps a statement in and of itself. BTW, I find your site engaging, free flowing, and good for an occasional check of one of the “pulse points” of the academy. Not data points, but pulse points, and for that I thank both you and Adam. Appreciate these articles as I stand on my chair slapping my keyboard in applause for Inside’s tandem (or bookend) approach to this subject by having both of you in the same issue. Sincerely, Thanks for this/these articles. Hope your defense goes well. JP

Jerry Pattengale, AVP for Scholarship and Grants at Indiana Wesleyan University, at 11:25 am EDT on November 1, 2007

Blogging and Community

This is a great take on blogging Scott. I would add that in my community college English department a group of us have managed to become closer and more intellectually engaged with each other through blogging. Blogs can supplement the communities we already have. And so often, we’re not even interested in what our colleagues are doing. Through my colleagues blogs, I know that one is finishing a manuscript in poetry and submitting it; another recently won a state writing award; and yet another colleague attended a writing center conference. Rushed hallway chats and department meetings don’t allow for the kind of social and intellectual engagement that we’ve found through blogging.

Jason Pickavance, Assistant Professor at Salt Lake Community College, at 2:25 pm EDT on November 1, 2007

Disciplines and Discipline

I’m struck by the way in which academic disciplines seem to produce somewhat different blogging cultures. I haven’t formalized this impression yet, but it seems to me that some disciplines will translate better into blogging than others, and each will translate a bit differently.

And I think that any generalizations about academic blogging which don’t take this into account are destined to produce lots of people saying “But....”

Jonathan Dresner, at 7:05 am EDT on November 2, 2007