Monday, August 22, 2005

Other blogs again

I just realized that I have nothing what so ever in common with most other academic bloggers. In point of fact I am not an academic since I have never held an academic post. It is kind of like being a member of the nobility I gather. You get to put on certain airs. I think this lack of any common ground is the reason for my exclusion from the carnivals and general hostility I have sensed from academic bloggers. Interestingly the really positive feedback I got on my blog entry on the Russian-Koreans did not come from history bloggers. It came from other people. It also came from non-Americans. This is not surprising. My work has always had a much better reception in Europe and the Middle East than in my homeland. Orthodox Americacentric academic thinking is quite narrow and far less open to dissent than scholarship in much of the rest of the world. It seems strange, but I have found that the academic conferences I have attended that had the greatest range of free discussion were in Turkey and Lebanon. In contrast alot of taboos and unwritten parameters shackle free scholastic dialogue in the US.

4 comments:

Jonathan Benda said...

Maybe you've answered this elsewhere, but have you considered trying for a position outside the U.S.? The schools are less Americacentric, obviously, and they may be less worried about your lack of teaching experience (though of course I can't guarantee that). Or perhaps there are research positions you could apply for?

J. Otto Pohl said...

I have applied for positions outside the US. I almost got one in Kyrgyzstan. Or at least I got an interview.

Jonathan Benda said...

Ah, that's right. Now I remember you mentioning that.

I have to agree with you, to some extent, about the narrowness of U.S. academia and academic blogs, at least from the perspective of my discipline, rhetorical studies. Most of the rhetoric bloggers that I've come across are very focused on U.S. concerns. Perhaps I should be looking for blogs in languages other than English to get a broader perspective on the field.

J. Otto Pohl said...

Well I certainly don't look at blogs to keep up with historiography. But, given the wretched state of academic listserves I thought maybe blogs could be used to discus ideas before they reached publishable form. But, it hasn't worked out yet. The gap between my ideas and the what are considered "hip" subjects is just way too great.