Wednesday, November 1, 2017

November 1, 2017: 7 Years of Scholarly Blogging: Robert Greene II



[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 a few reflections on my work, past and future, in this space!]
On three ways you can read the unique, important, and compelling voice of the University of South Carolina History PhD student and one of my earliest Guest Posters.
1)      The United States Intellectual History (USIH) blog: I first encountered Robert’s work through the USIH blog, one of the most lively, rigorous, and exemplary digital public scholarly conversations and communities I know. His posts for USIH have consistently illustrated his ability to weave together African American, Southern, and American history, intellectual and philosophical history, and popular culture, among other threads of his powerfully interdisciplinary work. I don’t really want to highlight just one, but will note that one of his most recent posts, on Ta-Nehisi Coates’s new book, significantly shifted my sense of Coates and his writing moving forward, which is the kind of perspectival change I almost always get from reading Robert.
2)      His own blog, Forty Acres and a Starship: Honestly, if that title alone doesn’t make you want to check out Robert’s personal scholarly blog, I don’t know what to tell you! I’m certainly Robert’s ideal audience for such a blog, combining as it does sci fi and other “nerd” genres with history, American Studies, and many related topics. But everybody can learn a great deal from Robert’s interests and intersections, and we see a particularly compelling version of them on his personal blog.
3)      Everywhere else!: Over the last couple years, Robert has become one of the most prolific public scholarly writers I know, and so you can also read his work in Jacobin, The Nation, The Atlantic, and In These Times, to name just a few such spaces. Each and every such piece is well worth your time, but together they truly illustrate the possibility and value of public scholarly and digital writing and engagement.
Next scholarly blogger tomorrow,
Ben
PS. Bloggers, scholarly or otherwise, you’d highlight?

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