working and blogging
I realize that in saying that blogging makes our work (the teaching, the research) public, I am implying that blogging itself is not the work we do. I'm saying, in effect, if I blog about writing an article, then I'm making my work public. However, if I post a blog entry about an issue related to language and literature, then that's just blogging.
Hmm.
Clearly that's an arbitrary boundary I'm drawing between blogging and work.
I thought about this after reading a thoughtful post by The Little Professor concerning historical fiction, a post that is both about the work that she is doing, but also an example of the work that she is doing.
One might say that the question should be something like, Will your blogging count towards tenure? or perhaps Can you list this blog on your CV? If so, then what you blog is, in fact, your work.
No, those questions aren't really satisfactory, are they?
Comments
Yeah, I've been thinking about the same thing. For me it's not "does blogging count towards my cv," but "does blogging pay money" (obviously not). But then I think, well, academic publicationsn don't pay money, and I think of those as work. And frankly I'm more invested in the blog in a lot of ways than I am in my work right now (I know I shouldn't say that, but it's true), and it has a wider audience and surely does more good in the world. More and more I'm thinking of it as part of "my work," if not part of my current job, and trying to figure out how to move forward into something that will let me integrate and expand on *this* work while still doing something that pays enough to live on...
Posted by: bitchphd | July 14, 2005 10:38 AM
Academic publication only pays money in a roundabout way: the better your publications, the more leverage you have to negotiate for raises or, perhaps, a position at a higher-paying institution.
I guess I was just thinking of the substantial posts on academic topics that people like The Little Professor and others write, compared to my own Attention-Deficit-Disorder style of blogging.
Oh look! Shiny things!...
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July 14, 2005 11:23 AM