Over the last 6-8 months, there's been a fair bit of controversy about academic blogging. Will blogging hurt you in the academic job market? Will you reveal embarrassing things that will make a search committee scurry away to safer, more silent candidates? Forget MySpace - do you threaten to be a rabble-rouser in departmental meetings, a thorn in the side of administrative policies? Air your institution's dirty laundry in public?
I am pretty good at self-censoring but meanwhile I lurk and ponder how this new technology will affect how we learn and think. I am interested in how blogs can spark and shape civic engagement, for example.
Now comes Marc Lynch, a professor at my undergrad college, and his blog about the Middle East. Required reading for policy wonks - not too shabby! His bloggy sparring partner, conservative Daniel Drezner (undergrad college '90) has a book out on the topic: The Political Promise of Blogging. I'll have to take a look.
Posted by otto0114 at March 24, 2007 10:18 PM