Blogging Issue
Blogging Issue Publication Announcement
Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture
In the latest issue of the on-line journal Reconstruction several aspects of weblogs are being discussed. Craig Saper wrote an interesting article on ‘Blogademia’, where he discusses the phenomenon of academic bloggers (sic). There is an interesting passage on the relation between blogs and academic writing:
“Catherine Liu notes that although the blog is “a supplement to my own activities as a writer […], I hope there is a sense of risk and outrage that I don’t allow into my academic work.” Michael Benton concurs and also worries that if academia accepts it as legitimate then it will become much more “formalized, regulated and restricted.” Jeff Rice, in an email correspondence with me, puts a slightly different twist on the personal when he argues that “Blogs take the academic out of the single minded masturbatory feeling of working onto one’s self. They enact the conversational nature of rhetoric – the give and take – the parlor sense of rhetorical discussion that Burke noted – the antagonism Lyotard highlights, the intertextuality literary studies loves.” Although it does not seem academia has caught up, Rice calls for patience: “Word processing is a great example. It took time before folks realized how important word processing is to writing (most dismissed it in the early ’80s). If weblogs become influential and change our practices, it will take a lot more time.” He concludes by returning to the complaints discussed here (i.e., that narcissistic anonymous exhibitionism seem key components to blogs including those by academics).”
Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture,Vol. 6, No. 4
(2006) themed issue, “Theories/Practices of Blogging,”
can be found at http://reconstruction.eserver.org.
The rest of the issue contains the following:
* Craig Saper, “Blogademia”
* Tama Leaver, “Blogging Everyday Life”
* Erica Johnson, “Democracy Defended: Polibloggers and the Political Press in America”
* Carmel L. Vaisman, “Design and Play: Weblog Genres of Adolescent Girls in Israel”
* David Sasaki, “Identity and Credibility in the Global Blogosphere”
* Anna Notaro, “The Lo(n)g Revolution: The Blogosphere as an Alternative Public Sphere?”
* Emerald Tina, “My Life in the Panopticon: Blogging From Iran”
* Various Authors, “Webfestschrift for Wealth Bondage/The Happy Tutor”
* Lilia Efimova, “Two papers, me in between”
* Lauren Elkin, “Blogging and (Expatriate) Identity”
* Various Bloggers, “Why I Blog”