The problem with finding a slew of interesting academic blogs is that it's left me feeling intellectually unworthy.
When I was a graduate student, with time and energy to spare, there were all kinds of interesting research agendas I wanted to puruse. From examining online discourse (circa '93) in the context of Habermas' ideal speech situation to applying Bourdieu's sociology of culture to reputation and interaction in CMC.
And then the real world interceded, and I ended up at a teaching institution, with a 3-course-per-quarter load, 300+ students per year to teach, advise, and evaluate, and no time to think outside the constraints of the classroom.
With the burst of the dot-com bubble, our torrent of new students is slowing to a trickle, which brings with it problems (what will happen to the faculty hired at the top of the bubble?) but also blessings (a significantly more manageable teaching load). So like Rip Van Winkle rising from his 100-year-sleep, I now find myself looking around at a new landscape, blinking in surprise and confusion, trying to figure out how to re-establish my ideas for research and exploration in new communication media.
I've found little to indicate that others have taken and run with the concepts I was toying with in grad school. But I'm going to spend some of the upcoming quarter break digging a little more deeply.
Meanwhile, when I stumble across scholars like Kieran Healy in my net travels, I'm torn between excitement and envy. It's a feeling I remember all too well from graduate school, one that Anne Galloway has recently expressed in her blog. I'm thrilled that someone is exploring topics like "Digital Technology and Cultural Goods"...but I hate that I have contributed nothing significant of my own, ten years after I first starting exploring the topic. And I'm wondering if there's anything I have to say that goes beyond what's already happening, or that comes close to the level of clear articulation that so many others are displaying in their writing.
In some ways, I suppose, I'm hoping that saying this publicly here on my blog will force me to move forward. We'll see. Watch this space. By end of summer, my goal is to have at least two articles--perhaps based on those earlier grad school papers--out the door and into editors' mailboxes.
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