Academic blogs: skeptic and enthusiast
Yesterday, Inside Higher Ed published two “opposing” articles: one from a skeptic of academic blogging (though this skeptic is an academic blogger) and one from an enthusiast of academic blogging. The former is written by Adam Kostko, a doctoral student at Chicago Theological Seminary, and the latter by Scott Eric Kaufman (see his blog), a doctoral candidate in English at UC-Irvine. The former actually seems to me to be more a skepticism about group academic blogging, especially when those group blogs have a particular shared “mission,” than academic blogging in general. He says that he hopes academic blogs might work to “[bring] new scholarly research to the attention of an interdisciplinary audience.” But at this point in the academic blogging game, Kostko concludes, “academic blogs seem to me to be best-suited as a social outlet for academics who would otherwise feel isolated, creating camaraderie and supplementing the social aspects of disciplinary conferences.”
I don’t know. I think that there is a lot of non-academic “clutter” in biblioblogs, which makes it difficult to keep up with, but I’d say there are two to four good, deep academic multi-blog discussions per month in the biblioblogosphere (not to mention many solid individual posts that don’t pick up multi-blog discussions). That’s pretty good!
And on Kostko’s other point, blogs as a social outlet for academics . . . what’s so bad about that? That is one of Kaufman’s main points when he says, “I consider the power of blogs to be supplementary and concrete: they provide atomized intellectuals a way to meet and remain in contact with fellow sufferers and their ideas.” Let us suffer together!
Busy Mind, Quiet Blog
I have to apologize to any of those who have been kind enough to subscribe to my blog. I have obviously not been producing as much as I used to. I will chalk it up to my mental preoccupation with doctoral applications. From now until early January, I will be sending in various forms, scrupulously adjusting my statement of purpose, contacting professors and all the rest.
Since my approach is to shy away from full disclosure when it comes to doctoral applications, the foremost thoughts in my mind do not have a public outlet. I am not going to change my “policy” on the matter, but I’d just like any readers to know the cause for my quietude.
Nevertheless, my quarter has begun and other thoughts are flowing as well, so you may see a few more than there have been lately.
Some Material (on this blog) May Be Inappropriate for Children Under 13
I don’t even know where I saw this first. It seems like everybody is doing it. Yes, there is minimal sex and violence on my blog: Be warned!
New Bread internship blog
I have started up a new blog to explore my experience as a Bread for the World intern this Summer. It’s entitled: “Hungry for What, Now?” The question relates to my own search for meaning in vocation, particularly as it relates to poor, hungry people in the world. It also could serve as a challenge to so many people, groups, and powers. What are you hungry for?
Anyway, I will be working on outreach to congregations and getting them connected to Bread, as well as developing and partially implementing some Christian education (i.e., Bible studies) on hunger for a more “Evangelical” audience, rather than just the “mainline” stuff, which they pretty much got covered. Hunger is an equal opportunity problem, mainline or evangelical, liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, whatever or whatever. So, you can expect to find my thoughts on there about hunger issue advocacy, how policy making works, creating Christian education materials on hunger, Bread events, news stories, and perhaps even a few silly things as well.
If you’re one of my readers (or even if you’re not!) and you’re interested in hunger issues and justice, I would love to have your input as I wrestle through these topics this Summer. Thanks!
[I will still be posting on here, but as I mentioned on my previous post, it is taking a little breather while I'm in my two week intensive.]
Opinionated blogging
James Spinti has an interesting thought about the importance of opinions in blogging. He says:
It seems that those of us who continue to blog have strong opinions, and aren’t afraid to state them. . . . Is it wrong to have strong opinions? I don’t think so. It just lays a heavier responsibility on us to make sure that our opinions are worth reading and considering.Ah! Therein lies the rub. Because we are so opinionated, we think our opinions are automatically worth reading. A little humility might not hurt.
What do you think?
It seems to be true. Mark Goodacre is one whose blog I don’t think of as “opinionated.” He, of course, has opinions, which he expresses on the blog, but if we go by the dictionary definition of “opinionated,” I don’t think his blog qualifies: “unduly adhering to one’s own opinion or to preconceived notions” (M-W). Everybody has preconceived notions, but the question is how much we let ourselves get carried away by them. On the description of my own blog, I say, “I belong to the Brethren in Christ denomination and hopefully that biases me just enough to make this blog interesting, but not quite so much to make me an ideologue.” I was thinking of this idea when I wrote that.
To be good, I think that blogs based on biblical studies, or any concept (e.g., politics, nutrition, engineering, ecology, etc.), should be more than simply an op-ed dumping ground. These blogs, in my opinion, should also be truly informative. For blogs that are more “online journals” of personal thoughts and experiences, perhaps unique personality and provocative opinions count for more. But then again, even these blogs (the good ones) are “informing” us of something: this person’s experience. So I guess I feel that information and opinion should be the primary blend of a good blog, and an ability to communicate ideas in an interesting way always helps!
This also makes me think of a reader’s purpose for reading a blog. I’ve seen many discussions on the purpose of writing a blog, but not much thought about the purpose of reading a blog. Why does one do it? Too many reasons to count here, but many of them are related to opinion. For example, I read some other Anabaptist blogs because I am an Anabaptist and I’d like to see how other Anabaptists are reflecting about the issues of the day. But many of these blogs have a readership far beyond loyal Anabaptists. Perhaps the non-Anabaptists are interested in expanding their horizons and open to dialogue with those who are different from them. Maybe some readers scour the blogs looking for heresy. Being open to dialogue sounds the best out of these, but certainly reading those who agree with you has its place. Looking for heresy may sound really bad, but if toned down a bit significantly, I suppose it’s simply another way of pushing forward a discussion.
In sum, I also don’t think it is wrong to have a strong opinion reflected in a blog, but I think a blog should be otherwise substantiated with informative content. And I think a good blogger should find the balance of revealing her or his own point of view in an interesting and provocative way, versus the extremes of being obnoxiously ideological, on the one hand, or tediously colorless, on the other.
Layout change: offshoring the links
My list of links on the right-hand side was getting to be a bit unwieldy, so I’ve taken a note from Jim West and have relegated them to a google page. Google pages are free and easy to use. I remember when the internet was just opening up to popular use while I was in high school. My friend Matt and I did all kinds of crazy stuff with HTML and weird psychedelic backgrounds. Nowadays, you don’t have to know anything about anything to make a webpage. I guess the same goes for blogs! I hope I didn’t just indict myself there. Over time, I’ll work on organizing the links and adding comments to make it more helpful.
All of this to say that I want to make more space on the side for other things. I will only keep the blogs that I personally visit most often, especially the less publicized blogs, because I would like to give a tip of the hat to a few worthy links. Don’t be offended if you’re not on the list! Like Mark Goodacre, taking a glance at my Google reader “shared items” feed on the right gives you an idea of what I’m reading from a much larger list of blogs (some unrelated to biblical studies, but perhaps of interest to bibliobloggers among others). If you want to see more than what is displayed, you can wander over to the page dedicated to displaying all of my shared items. That’s right, I’m using Blogger (owned by Google), Google pages, and Google reader. Google owns more and more of my life every day.
For what am I making room? Two things. I would like to copy others who have links to their most popular posts (like Chris Tilling) or have helpfully categorized some of their own favorite posts (such as April DeConick under her “Weblog Archive Highlights”). That’s a longer term project I’ll have to put together as I have time. Second, I am also jealous of other blogging platforms that allow you to show recent comments on the side, like WordPress (I’m particularly thinking of Shawn Anthony’s blog). A lot of interesting things happen in comment discussions and I don’t think you should have to click on every post to see where the latest comments are. I did notice that Blogger’s layout tool allows you to add a “feed.” If any other Blogger users are wondering, your comment feed should be “http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default”. The last five comments (including your own) will be shown with date and author. But it does not indicate the title of the post being commented on. I also noticed that Alan Knox uses a javascript widget created by hackosphere and modified by Beautiful Beta, which allows for all of these things, so I am giving that a whirl until Google perfects their tool for sharing comments.
[Incidentally, you know what would also be nice? If Google/Blogger told you all the comments that you left with your Blogger profile on other blogs. I can't keep track of all of them myself, so I don't always check back to see how the blog's author responded.]
This is all a work in progress. If any of you have suggestions for improvement, please let me know.
Blogging towards Academia
I would like to highly commend to you two recent blog postings by Mark Goodacre on the New Testament Gateway blog: Should Blogs Count for Tenure? and Blogging and Tenure 2. Dr. Goodacre, as usual, pushes academia forward in trying to think about the potential for new technologies, rather than getting hung up on the dangers. He suggests that a well-respected academic blog (and his own would certainly fit the bill!) should count as one of many “esteem indicators” in consideration of an academic who is up for tenure. I agree; I think we should recognize the dangers, try to avoid them as best we can, but ultimately utilize whatever may be helpful to the academic enterprise. This is the “glass is half full” view of academic blogging and new technologies in general.
One comment that he makes stands out for me, given my own personal educational situation:
But I know that I would always look favourably on someone who has an intelligent and energetic blog, whether as potential applicants to a graduate programme, or as job applicants, or as applicants for tenure. To me it is likely to suggest several things, a commitment to the dissemination of scholarship outside of the guild, a commitment to collaborative scholarship, and some degree of courage and public risk-taking. So I would be strongly inclined to treat blogging as a plus.
I have a particular interest in this comment (and the whole post, for that matter) after recently reading a 2005 article from the Chronicle for Higher Education, entitled “Bloggers Need Not Apply,” which has a very unfavorable attitude toward academic job applicants with blogs (even if those blogs aren’t mentioned in their documentation!). Consequently, I locked up my more personal blog so only registered friends could read it and I thought twice about some of my past postings on kata ta biblia.
Being a future applicant to doctoral programs in NT studies, I am a little confused as to what role my blog on NT interpretation will play. Dr. Goodacre has a positive view of “intelligent and energetic” blogs, but there are obviously a lot of academics who are not as positive on the potential of academic blogging. Then there is the question about whether a blog would be considered academic (let alone “intelligent and energetic”) enough in the eyes of various academic readers. With these great unknowns, therefore, does a doctoral applicant make mention of her or his blog on her or his application? I lean towards “no.”
I would love it if professors or admissions committees reviewing my application took a look at my blog and, thinking it simply wonderful, count it as one of many various “esteem indicators” for me as their perfect applicant (yes, this is a grand fantasy). On the other hand, I am dreadfully aware of my ignorance on a great many subjects. My educational pursuit is in many ways a fight against ignorance, my own and that of other individuals, groups, or society as a whole. But I would fear that in this online experimental exploration of ideas, I may accidentally reveal some dastardly wrong-headed and unforgivable ignorance on one of my postings. As a result, instead of being an “esteem indicator,” this experiment would constitute a “folly alert” for those reviewing my application.
What say ye? Do prospective students reveal their blogs to doctoral programs? Perhaps it depends on the program and its professors? Perhaps one could mention it at appropriate moments in conversation with the potential doctoral advisors (e. g., “That’s interesting because I was just blogging about this the other day…”). This question is particularly for Dr. Goodacre, as this started out as a (too long) comment in response to his post, but I’d like to read what others would say as well.
My friend in Mongolia
My friend Anthony, who is currently a Peace Corps worker in Mongolia, recently told me that he reads my blog. I was so touched by his words, I asked if he would mind if I shared his comments on here, to which he replied: “you’re welcome to use or misuse my comments in any way that helps you get to the heart of what I was actually saying.” Beyond just being an encouraging challenge to try to make my blog worthy of being read by my friends scattered across the globe (I’ve also got some good friends working with Mennonite Central Committee in Nicaragua who stop by the blog), the comment also serves as a reminder of how good I have it. I am so blessed to have access to an excellent education, fantastic library resources, and all the rest. And without further adieu, here are Anthony’s comments:
So, Pat, I’ve been reading your kata ta biblia blog fairly religiously lately. I’m really glad to have access to in depth seminary level biblical discussion that I can tap in on. I feel like I’m getting a seminary education and I don’t have any of the work of applying, getting financial aid, or doing anything in general. Vicarious study is what I’m all about. You read, do all the hard work of sifting through everything and I’ll stand on the other end and catch all the good stuff that filters out. Of course that probably means you’ll get the jobs too, but as long as I stay in Peace Corps, there’s nothing to worry about. But seriously though, it has been good to get an idea of what you’re wrestling with in your studies. I wouldn’t have thought it but over the past year and a half, we’ve had our share of discussions with other volunteers in our area about Christianity, the historical Jesus, the church, etc. The whole thing kind of started off when another volunteer in our area found out we are Christians and made it his mission for several months to try and undercut our faith in anyway possible. That didn’t happen and we’ve become friends with the guy but our continued conversations have challenged us to really understand our faith more deeply and try to whats going on in the debate/dialogue surrounding Jesus, the church, and the bible these days. As you can imagine, Mongolia doesn’t have a wealth of information available on these topics . . .
Thanks, brother. Keep up the good work (and I don’t just mean the faith conversations, of course) and I’ll try to keep bringing you some more of that fully paid seminary education. Maybe you should send me some reimbursement checks with all the riches the Peace Corps must pay you 
Some of the hard work of Anthony and his wife, Vita, in Mongolia (we miss them both!):
Changing my blog's name
I wrote a post a couple weeks ago soliciting opinions about whether I should change my blog’s name (“kata ton biblon”) to something else. I had discovered that it was grammatically incorrect. My intention was for the title to mean “according to the book,” referring to interpretation of biblical texts and also those who live their lives “according to the book.” Biblon is the accusative form of “biblos,” which is one of those funky second declension feminine nouns. I accidentally used a neuter article. It took me many months to realize my error. There is also another word for book: biblion, which is neuter but spelled differently.
I received many thoughtful responses to my post. Most of them seemed to either outright state that I should change it, or imply such. One person, Matt Barnes, suggested that I keep it because it’s part of the identity of the blog. I like that reasoning. I began this blog, not knowing really what blogging was and gradually learned more about what I’d like to do with it. All the while, my blog’s name has stayed the same. It’s nice to have a constant. On the other hand, I’d like to think that this is only the beginning of my blog’s life and that not that much time has really passed. And I don’t want to get five years down the line and have to keep explaining why its name is wrong.
Carl W. Conrad, Associate Professor Emeritus of Greek and Latin Poetry and Biblical Literature at Washington University at St. Louis, suggested (and Stephen C. Carlson agreed) that I use the plural of biblion, so: kata ta biblia. I looked things up in a few sources and decided that it doesn’t make too much difference whether it is singular or plural, biblon or biblion, since it seems it was used to refer to sacred literature (even the Bible itself) as any combination of those (see the Lampe entries below). Dr. Conrad’s suggestion, however, (and he should know more than me!) appears to be the most common way that the phrase is communicated in the literature. Also, it rhymes. I think it’s nice to have a blog name that sounds good.
So I’m changing my blog’s name to kata ta biblia. It can still mean “according to the book,” taking book in the collective sense. I like how the plural seems to imply many voices gathered together in one collection. I suppose the plural could also refer to other sacred books or various scholarly books. Of course, people don’t live their lives “according to various scholarly books” (I hope), so that sense of meaning is out. I do hope to continue my concentration on biblical studies, particularly New Testament, from an Anabaptist perspective. But I am also interested in leaving my blog a little open-ended to generally focus on the interpretation of texts, be they sacred, scholarly, or popular.
Below are the entries for biblion and biblos in G. W. H. Lampe’s A Patristic Greek Lexicon. I found them helpful and thought you might like to take a peek.
My Blog's Name is Wrong
I am a dolt. It has taken me a good seven months of blogging here to notice that my blog’s title (“kata ton biblon”) is grammatically incorrect. My intention was for its translation to be “according to the book,” as in “those who live their lives according to the book.” It could also be a reference to the process of discovering what “the book” says (i.e., critical interpretation). Taking the accusative, κατὰ does mean “according to.” That’s not what I messed up. The problem is that there are two similar words for “book”: βίβλος and βιβλίον. The former is feminine and the latter is neuter. I used the former (feminine) term (which apparently connotes, or at some point connoted, a “sacred book” while the other is more of a technical term for a scroll), but I used the masculine article! That’s right, I didn’t even use the neuter. So my blog should be titled either κατὰ τὴν βίβλον (“kata tēn biblon”) or κατὰ τὸ βιβλίον (“kata to biblion”), but “kata ton biblon” is just wrong. I even searched TLG in some vain hope that somewhere out there there would be some variation that isn’t in the grammar books. Alas, it was for naught.
What should I do? The blog has some name recognition amidst a small group of people. A few people actually find my blog by searching for “kata ton biblon” or “kata ton.” I am linked on a few other blogs as “kata ton biblon.” I have some fondness for it myself, after using it for this long. It rhymes! Plus, if I changed it to “kata tēn biblon,” I’d have to deal with that funky accent over the “e” and nobody will want to type that out if they’re referencing or linking to my blog. So this is not just a rhetorical question. These would be my reasons for wanting to keep the name, reasons to change would simply be that the name is wrong (and I don’t want people [who know the difference] to think I’m an idiot! Though, that may be a lost cause). For those who regularly comment on my blog, and those who frequent my blog without commenting (I know you’re out there… I can see your stats!), please kindly offer your opinion. Should I:
- Keep the name the way it is. I could be clever and chalk it out to some textual corruption; it would be a living lesson in text critical issues.
- Change the name to “kata tēn biblon” for accuracy’s sake.
- Change the name to “kata to biblion” for a slight change in meaning.
- Go with some other name entirely. Suggestions would have to be very good for this one.
N.B. A search of “kata tēn biblon” (the exact same wording) in the TLG brought up two sources: (1) Galenus, De musculorum dissectione ad tirones. {0057.102} Volume 18b page 926 line 8; and (2) Appianus Hist., Bellum civile. {0551.017} Book 1 chapter 7 section 55 line 10.
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Elsewhere . . .- Blog titles beginning with "A" to "Z" on your reader Mark Goodacre
- Of making many books there is no end Chris Brady
- Free Online: The Liddell-Scott Jones Lexicon S and C
- Does Higher Criticism Attempt to “Destroy the Bible”? II agathos
- Steven J. Friesen and the Identity of Satan’s Throne in Pergamum alan
- Does Higher Criticism Attempt to “Destroy the Bible”? agathos
- Bloomsbury buys Continuum Mark Goodacre
- Imperial America Peter J. Leithart
- C.F.D. Moule on the Birth of the New Testament d. miller
- Responding to Kostenberger (with comparisons to Marshall) Jeremiah
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