some academic blogs

A quick post that follows on from Whitebait updating his blog roll (scroll down the right hand column of this page).

On Friday evening Whitebait went to the book launch of Ken Gelder's Subcultures: Cultural HIstories and Social Practices at a Melbourne institution, Readings bookstore  in Lygon St, Carlton. For a  long time--before Amazon was popular and before some of the mega-chains like Borders opened up in the city (in fact, one went in right across the road)--Readings was the only place you could go to get a decent selection of books in the humanities area. It had a comprehensive academic section that used to be run by one of my first student friends in the English Department at the nearby University of Melbourne. In fact Readings is one of those places where any number of students and aspiring writers seem to end up working  for a while; the more actorly types became waiters at Mario's in Brunswick Street. Anyway, the launch was surprisingly fun, helped immensely by the rather droll and 'anti-launch' speeches of Justin Clemens and Ken himself (both of whom are old colleagues of mine). A whole crew of staff and students were there from Melbourne University - it was rather interesting to check the fashion of the students as it is so radically different from those I teach at RMIT. This lot seemed very boho chic (for want of better adjectives - I really needed the keen fashion analysis skills of A Wild Young Under-Whimsy to decode what was going on there).

The nicest surprise of the evening was running into humanities researcher (aka Stephanie) and being able to tell her that I'd been lurking and enjoying reading her beautifully written and moving blog. Strangely enough I'd had a rare chat with her partner, who is a Professor down at my University, just that day. Though I've known Stephanie since my postgrad days I haven't run into her for quite a while (ie, back before she started her blog) and Whitebait had that weird moment of misalignment between the everyday and the virtually augmented me as I wondered whether to immediately say something about her battle with breast cancer or whether that was 'private' stuff I shouldn't leap into conversation about. After all, I hadn't known her that well previously. Silly really (but also interesting in terms of thinking about differently established social relations that aren't always straightforwardly ready to be articulated together). And as FrauleinDrDr commented to me afterwards, Stephanie was looking great so it probably wasn't going to be one of those times when my foot gets firmly stuck in mouth in a train wreck sort of way. Though Whitebait's capacity in that respect is formidable ...

And Whitebait also wanted to mention a couple of other academic blogs he is enjoying. First of all, Savage Minds, an anthropologist group blog. Always has interesting discussions. I have been particularly enjoying posts on the role of organisational bodies that oversee ethics processes in American universities - not everyone's cup of tea as a topic to be sure but I'm involved in this stuff pretty heavily at RMIT so the comparisons are interesting to me! And also I enjoy the lovely collection of bits and bobs that comes from Purse Lip Square Jaw (aka Anne) who is also the manager and most regular poster at Space and Culture. Anne recently posted one of the best responses I've ever heard or read to the perennial  'When will you get your dissertation done?' question.

Finally, for those interested in the world of web 2.0 check out craigbellamy.net. Whitebait first picked up on Craig's interesting work when someone referred him to milkbar.com.au, Craig's "‘hypertextual history’ documentary about the inner-city suburb of Fitzroy, in Melbourne, Australia" (where Whitebait now lives). A great project - but unfortunately only parts of it are still accessible now. Craig filled in and taught one of Whitebait courses at RMIT last year but has now gone on to better and brighter things(!) at Kings College in London.  I hope he is enjoying life there. For those still around Melbourne, and interested in similar academic discussions and upcoming events concerning technology, communication, democracy and the whole shebang you might also want to sign up to my energetic colleague, Terry Johal's RSS  feed. Terry (via Mr Brown) also alerted me to this terrific instructional video, which you should watch if a teacher, on the latest crafty strategies being employed to visually lengthen essays.

Comments

[elsewhere]

Thanks -- I enjoyed this evocation of a Melbourne book launch.

>one of those times when my foot gets firmly stuck in mouth in a train wreck sort of way. Though Whitebait's capacity in that respect is formidable ...<

Naah. Not your problem...

[Pavlov's Cat]

Very sorry to have missed the launch. I think those sorts of occasions are what I miss most about Melbourne, actually, apart from the dear Melbourne mates themselves.

I love the answer to 'When will you get your dissertation done?' Strangely, it's very like the answer I usually give when asked 'When will you finish examining that dissertation?'