[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!]
Three sides to a
unique but also illustrative public scholarly voice and career.
1)
The American Literary Blog:
I first met Rob through his daily American Literary Blog, which quickly became
an early and influential model for my own blog in many ways (perhaps most especially
the discipline to produce quality posts with that level of frequency). We then had
the chance to write
Guest Posts on each
other’s blogs, and that too modeled for me the way in which digital scholarly
connections can genuinely enrich each conversation and become ideal versions of
online and academic communities. While Rob has since moved on to other, ongoing
pursuits (including those I’ll mention), his blog remains accessible and vital
as an illustration of all those and many other goals.
2)
Performing Poe
and Hawthorne: As his Guest
Post on my blog reflected, Rob has been offering public scholarly
performances as these two 19th century authors for many years; but
as his information
sheet attests, he has stepped up the frequency and scope of those
performances in recent years. Too often, we (however you want to define that
we) treat living history, performance and interpretation, museums
and historic/cultural sites, and other such spaces as entirely distinct
from public scholarly writing; whereas in reality they’re all on a very clear
spectrum, one focused on the question of connecting history, culture,
literature, and related topics to public audiences. Rob’s career importantly makes
it impossible to miss those intersections.
3)
Public Education: Rob’s working these days as a
Student Development Specialist at the Community
College of Allegheny County, one clear reflection of his commitment to public
education. But (as I understand it) he began his professional public
scholarly career as a Park Ranger at Cambridge’s Longfellow National Historic Site,
which reflects another and equally meaningful side to his commitment to public
education. Earlier this week my younger son’s 5th grade class took a
field trip to Concord’s Minuteman
National Historical Park, and I’d say such moments represent not just fun
excursions, but the intersections of different and complementary forms of
public education. Rob’s been modeling those intersections throughout his public
scholarly career, and I look forward to seeing where he (like all my week’s
focal voices) goes next!
A few thoughts
on my own scholarly blogging tomorrow,
Ben
PS. Bloggers,
scholarly or otherwise, you’d highlight?
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