[This coming
weekend will mark this
blog’s 7-year anniversary (my November 5th debut post on Du Bois
has unfortunately vanished). In honor of that milestone, I wanted to spend the
week highlighting some of the many wonderful academic
and scholarly bloggers to whom this work has happily connected me. Leading
up to these quick reflections on my work, past and future, in this space!]
Two realizations
over the past seven years that have helped shape my work in and beyond this
space, and one that I’m still working to figure out.
1)
My Biggest Project: I’m not sure exactly when I
started to realize just how big of a project the blog was becoming, but I know
why I did so: the Word document in which I have kept all of the posts. As I
write this, that document is now 2744 single-spaced pages, the equivalent of
more book manuscripts than I care to figure out. Yet while such statistics
cause the occasional trepidation, in truth the dominant emotion they produce is
one of immense satisfaction at the time and work that have gone into this
project, as well as a recognition that it has become by any measure my most
career-long and extended piece of writing. That the blog has led to the kinds
of communal connections I highlighted throughout this week’s series, as well as
to each of my last few book projects and many other opportunities, only
reinforces how central it has become and will remain to every part of my
career.
2)
Valuing Digital Public Scholarship: Yet at the
same time, I believe that the current structures of academia and higher education—and
even the broader structures of public scholarship—remain largely unable to view
scholarly blogs as anything other than private journals, unrelated to the bulk
of what we emphasize and prioritize. I understand that they’re not
peer-reviewed, although many forms of online/digital scholarship are not (at
least not in the conventional sense of the peer review process). But they also
have the ability to reach and engage audiences far more directly and
meaningfully than do most peer-reviewed publications, and thus each form
complements the other as part of a 21st century scholarly career. My
experiences with AmericanStudier have thoroughly convinced me of the need to
value digital public scholarship as part of our institutional, communal, and
public conversations, and I’ve already done what I can to bring that
perspective to Fitchburg State’s tenure and promotion process.
3)
Further Conversation: As longtime readers of the
blog know, my most consistent wish across all seven years has been for more
comments, to hear more of what readers are thinking (including what brings them
here, but also and especially their take on my posts and topics). Stats seem to
show that I’ve gotten more viewers and readers each year, and that’s a really
nice thing to see and not one I would ever take for granted. But I can’t lie,
every additional reader also feels like another chance to hear a bit about and
from that person—who you are, what brings you here, what you find, what you’d
say in response, and so on. If adding a comment on a post doesn’t work for
whatever reason, you should feel free to send me an email with any such
thoughts as well. If I could average something like a comment or response per
post for my 8th year of blogging, I’d find this space even more
meaningful and satisfying than I already do.
October Recap
this weekend,
Ben
PS. You know
what to do!
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