Yea Verily! Tis the Saturday Roundup #3

The Spring Break Reading List!

Gender, Sex and the Body

1. Robert C. Allen Horrible Prettiness: Burlesque and American Culture
2. Nancy Etcoff Survival of the Prettiest
3. Brenda Foley Undressed for Success
   
4. Anne Fausto-Sterling Sexing the Body
5. Toby Miller Sportsex

Erotic Space/Build Environment

1. Leslie Peirce The Imperial Harem

Consumption and Economics

1. Daniel Miller Acknowledging Consumption
2. John Kenneth Galbraith The Affluent Society
3. Wolfgang Haug Critique of Commodity Aesthetics

I am nearly finished making my archived posts public in this here blog, and I’m a little nervous about the page hit increase Confessions has received since going public.  I know my posts are rife with comma splices, incomplete thoughts, fragmented sentences and spelling errors and all the new scrutiny is unnerving.  Ok, ok – this is a personal blog and I’m pretty sure no one comes here looking for academic brilliance. It is also pseudoanonymous (I use that term very loosely – I am well aware that anyone with 30 minutes and a penchant for research could easily find my true identity) which means that I do tone my content down to some extent, not only for the sake of family members but because future employers, fellow students, conveners and god knows who else has easy and instant access to a pretty biased representation of my personality and intelligence (or lack thereof).

On that note, I found an alarming amount of literature warning graduate students of the inevitable horrors of blogging as well as a smattering of good posts on academic blogging (here, here, here and here).  “Ivan Tribble” leads the debate, doing a great job at dissuading pretty much anyone from using an online blog:

A blog easily becomes a therapeutic outlet, a place to vent petty gripes and frustrations stemming from congested traffic, rude sales clerks, or unpleasant national news. It becomes an open diary or confessional booth, where inward thoughts are publicly aired.

Worst of all, for professional academics, it’s a publishing medium with no vetting process, no review board, and no editor. The author is the sole judge of what constitutes publishable material, and the medium allows for instantaneous distribution. After wrapping up a juicy rant at 3 a.m., it only takes a few clicks to put it into global circulation.

There are certain arguments from these articles that I completely agree with, most notably that anyone with a computer, internet access and the ability to type can create a blog and start spouting off some really horrid stuff.

Regardless, I really do love the idea of academic blogging. It allows non-academics and students access to new fields of study that they might not normally run across in research, written in a format that is still intellectually stimulating but can be rather funny as well.  These types of sites also provide a low-stress environment for students to air academically slanted concerns without having to worry about a scrupulous assessment from an adviser.  And while most posts are not formally peer-reviewed, I guarantee that fellow bloggers and readers have no scruples with leaving comments calling you out on the intellectual quality of your work and will be happy to feed you fat slices of humble pie if they find your opinion faulty.

That being said, there are certainly biases inherent in reading academic blogs, especially as a student.  Currently, my three academic blogs of choice are Culture Matters, Neuroanthropology, and Savage Minds.  In terms of bias, I definitely turn off my bullshit meter when reading posts because the authors write in ways that I want to write and initially, I trust them implicitly (what a horrible student, I know!).  Posts are succinct, intelligent, well thought-out and on many occasions, freaking hilarious.  These blogs provide a new pedagogical platform for my independent study and give me a foundation for both casual and formal academic writing. I read, I have several “aha!” moments, I laugh hard enough to choke on something and I leave thinking to myself “that’s what I want to be like when I grow up.” 

Stepping away from Tribble; academic blogging poses a few interesting questions for me, namely what sort of ethical responsibility do I have as a student to sites that I link and share?  For example, If someone hops onto Blog A, finds a link to me at Blog B, sees something he/she doesn’t like on my Blog B and develops a negative opinion of Blog A, whose problem is it?  Am I to be held responsible for both my content and the potential for making another site look bad in comparison? To add more convolutions, what sort of considerations need to be taken by students who blog as guests, comment and link to academic blogs of fellow students or faculty?  Just how far can you push the boundaries between personal and academic?

I’m sure most of us would agree that as a blog author, I am responsible for my blogs content only and not for ping-backs from other sites.  After all, the easiest way for a concerned writer in preventing unwanted pings is to moderate all incoming comments and spend a couple of minutes browsing the pinging entity. I would also argue that many academic bloggers are aware (and if they are not, they should be) that much of their prospective audience is non-academic and as such, the chances of their blog appearing on a host of personal sites is not uncommon and shouldn’t be discouraged (unless said site is completely inappropriate, very mature or rife with glaring inaccuracies).  That being said, I (and I speak only for myself here) make an effort to keep posts in which I link to other sites as innocuous as possible.  I try very hard not use this blog as a stage to air dirty laundry and to keep unsubstantiated claims to a minimum because I don’t want people to draw faulty conclusions about my opinion based on shoddy intellectual processing.  Which is doubly ironic in this post, but…now I’m just blathering.

At any rate, academic blogs have an important role in the dissemination of information to a wide audience, and to demand that all academic bloggers keep every shred of the personal out of blogs is ludicrous.  For this reader the anecdotal quip and occasional sprinkle of personality is what makes blogs worth reading – the same can be said about seminars, colloquium and lectures.  If one of my favorite authors writes a passionate (if a little hasty) post, It makes the content that much more exciting then the sometimes dull and lifeless journal articles that I read on a regular basis for my degree. Like any public medium, blogging is a double-edged sword and to deny responsible writers (and even irresponsible writers to some extent) the spontaneity of blogging by enacting mandatory peer-reviewed processes (I realize that no one is suggesting this, I’m only speculating) is silly at best.  After all, if someone is intent on destroying their good name with inaccuracies, slander and a disregard for professionalism – more power to them.

Good lord I waffle on.  Here’s the roundup:

A Fnersh Rambling is brimming with awesomeness this week (though I still have no idea what a “fnersh” is. Errmmm…I probably don’t want to know).

Your weekly dose of Onion hilarity here, here and here. And here.

A friend and I went to a free screening of “Garbage Warrior” on Monday.  It was an interesting look at the built environment and how completely contained, self-sustainable architecture is not nearly as hard to build as you might think.  Like most docos, it had me asking far more questions then it answered.

Thanks John for passing along a fantastic article on evolution from the Guardian – Church owes Darwin an apology.

I may or may not have a geek crush on Richard Dawkins, creepy I know.

Student Body tries to answer the age old question of “What Kind of Body Do Men Really Like?”.  To quote the immortal Sir Mix-A-Lot:

So cosmo says you’re fat,
Well I ain’t down with that.
Cuz your waist is small and your curves are kickin,
And I’m thinkin bout stickin.
To the beanpole dames in the magazines,
You aint it miss thing.
Give me a sista I can’t resist her,
Red beans and rice didn’t miss her.
Baby got back.

A fascinating piece on “The Economy of Desire” from the New York Times.

Oh Violent Acres, you speak to the very core of my being:

You see, it always makes me sad when self proclaimed ‘nice guys’ and ‘dorks’ start acting like arrogant, cocky, assholes because they think it will help them get women. Self confidence helps, sure, but that alpha dog bullshit will only take you so far. Men, if you really want to know how to woo a lady, you’d do better to remember 3 important words: Funny Trumps All. Back when I was a young college girl, if a guy made me laugh until my sides hurt, the panties were coming down.

I’ve wasted many hours of my sad little life creating snarky little images here, here and here.

Finally, as most of my post dealt with professionalism and tact, I offer these; my two favorite YouTube videos to you, my dearest readers:

And I’m spent.