the ivory blog

I don't think this will consciously be an academic blog. For a number of reasons. Having just bailed/failed on the job market, I don't have students, grading, etc. at the moment to whinge about, so I don't tidily fit in the category. Moreover, I'm an academic-without-portfolio, as it were, and thus the invisible adjunct phenomenon that seems to have given rise to a group of blogs prominently self-identifying as academics doesn't appeal to me. (Though BitchPhD seems to have sparked a host of those emulating her 'pseudonymous kid' dead-pan. And a corner is tempted. Delivery is everything.).

More importantly, though, my interests are greater than the sum of my degrees. Which, of course, is hardly a contentious or unique statement. But 'intellectual' perhaps better captures that to which I aspire than does 'academic'. Eclecticism, even, whilst maintaining professional credibility. Thus, although it strikes me as likely that the odd post will be concerned with my primary field (literature; you'll see...) the self-imposed challenge here is precisely to find a writing voice in a middle space, both free of the constraints of professional accountability, and more constrained than self-analysis. (Have I mentioned I'm the King of Krap Jobs? I have rather a lot of office time on my hands at the moment.)

One wonders about the rise of the academic blog, however. I recall, going back about a year or so, there being a small core of a few dozen blogs, many of which were DOA, written by academics. (I'm not a compulsive linker, so I'll avoid referencing them individually). Now, though, even a quick scroll through, say, crooked timber shows how much the 'community', as it were, has grown. In reaction to the isolation of academia? There is something amazingly isolating about what we do/aspire to do. Even inasmuch as teaching is inherently a social activity, the power dynamic is such as to ensure - to some extent - that the solitary aspect of the academic life is preserved. Research is inherently isolating, toils in libraries and laboratories as we become ever more specialised, working to successfully communicate with ever fewer people about the details of our findings, thoughts, ideas. And admin, of course, being such a great way to form a sense of unified purpose... The academic triumvirate, isolating with its ivory fist.