Saturday, September 16, 2006

The seductions of blogging

Some weeks ago my dear friend Stephanie, a medievalist of international repute and definitely one of the more decorative full professors of my acquaint, set up a blog with the academic purpose of discussing and workshopping research proposals with colleagues and students. But her blog Humanities Researcher rapidly began to expand at the edges to include aspects of the personal (bikes, pianos, the frog in the creek) in a way that any blogger with a properly integrated life probably can't avoid for long.

Have a look, for example, at the lovely post for August 28, which resonated in my mind for a long time. It's a good illustration of the way that real scholars' (and real artists') minds work, going after and then mulling over tiny details and connections.

And while you're over there, click on the link (if you don't know it already) to Chaucer's blog, and discover whether or not he is hotte, and what he thought of the new cult movie, Serpentes on a Shippe! (spoylerez).

7 comments:

This old world is a new world said...

Thank you, dear P's Cat. I feel I still have a lot to learn about blogging; for example, how to explain to sceptical friends how I find the time to do it.

Kerryn Goldsworthy said...

I have got to the stage where 'I don't know how you find the time to blog' sounds a lot to me like 'I don't know how you find the time to read'. It's actually quite a hostile thing to say, and is meant as a putdown.

My advice: do not engage. Don't talk to them about it unless you know they're at least neutral and curious. I have found that for many such, it's a matter of pride to resist and scoff. Don't ask me why, though.

Zoe said...

Today, entirely coincidentally, I have very happily found both your friend's blog and Ancrenne Wiseass (who she links to). Both fantastic, but makes me wonder whether medievalists are only allowed to use the brown template?

Kerryn Goldsworthy said...

From memory that template is called Scribe; if I'm right, then I think that would be too hard for a medievalist to resist. When I was choosing templates it got down to either that one or the pink one, but I figured I was already going so far out of my comfort zone by taking up blogging at all that I might as well go OTT out of my comfort zone and go for über-girlie as well.

Zoe said...

Perhaps I was just scarred by seeing it first at Currency Lad's?

This old world is a new world said...

Hi all,
actually I chose it because Chaucer uses it! and because I thought it looked a bit retro, and because I have almost no visual design sense; and certainly no capacity to modify a template. Didn't realise how often I'd be reading or linking to Ancrene Wiseass's blog, which is the compelling voice of the US graduate experience I never had and which I find both similar and dissimilar to the Australian one.

Zoe said...

I actually like the template,and in particular the nice creamy parchment.

Could use some cats, though.