Here’s an interesting post from Jeremy, at Progressive Historians, who’s wrestling with several issues, including the lack of professional rewards for scholarly bloggers.
There’s a lot going on in Jeremy’s post. But it pivots on the provocative question of how blog comments differ from peer review. After writing up a response to that, and some of his other points, I decided that my arguments were cramped — very old media — and curmudgeonly. So, I’ll pass his post along without further comment and hope to generate a discussion about the point of history blogging, professional rewards for scholarly blogging more generally, and the nature of peer review.
11 comments
January 28, 2008 at 2:08 am
Jeremy Young
Thanks for the link — I’m interested to hear your “cramped and curmudgeonly” thoughts on the subject as well. One of the things that surprised me at the AHA was how many of the history bloggers I met there really didn’t feel the blogosphere should have an expanded role in academia. I’m curious as to whether that’s a reflection of the specific bloggers I hung out with — most, though not all, of whom are associated with Cliopatria — or is reflected in the history blogosphere in general.
January 28, 2008 at 5:59 am
eric
Timothy Burke, I have an idea, has been here first; I know he’s indicated reasons for skepticism about peer review:
especially with reference to teh Great Blogging Controversies:
So, you know, you should “read his blog” before saying anything.
January 28, 2008 at 9:11 am
Jeremy Young
Heh, fair point — I hadn’t read that piece by Burke. Very interesting.
January 28, 2008 at 9:42 am
ari
I’m working on a comment, Jeremy, and will try to have it up by this afternoon. I just didn’t want you to think I was ignoring you.
January 28, 2008 at 10:08 am
Jeremy Young
Ari, not a problem. Anyway, don’t you have to, like, teach or something?
January 28, 2008 at 10:18 am
ari
I’m on leave. The only thing distracting me from my real work, blogging, is the book I’m writing. A large section of which, it turns out, I screwed up last week by not including anything of interest. I’m now fixing that mistake by peppering the chapter with scenes filled with gratuitous sex and violence. So, back to work with me.
January 28, 2008 at 11:39 am
bitchphd
At least you’re finally at the fun parts.
January 28, 2008 at 12:12 pm
Jeremy Young
Heh. Happy writing!
January 28, 2008 at 8:01 pm
urbino
I’m for it. Blogging as reviewed, professional activity, that is. Well, sex and violence in history books, too. But mainly the former.
January 30, 2008 at 10:11 pm
ari
Okay Jeremy, my reply was going to be something like this (to be read in the voice of the adults from the Peanuts cartoons) Wah, wah, wah, wah wah wah wah, wah wah. Wah? Wah wah. (To be read in Ari’s voice.) And stay off my lawn.
The substance though, went something like this. First, I don’t think blog comments are anything like peer review. But not because either the one or the other is better, worse, more valuable, or less. I just think they’re different, two clearly distinct cultural forms, rooted in their own conventions, one pretty set, the other evolving rapidly. And more than that, I don’t think that peer review – at least in the humanities and social sciences – is worth emulating. It’s a pretty iffy proposition – no matter its professionalizing functions – as far as I’m concerned, as are scholarly reviews more broadly. I say all this despite having received terrific comments on my first book manuscript from an anonymous reviewer and the fact that I’m still active as a peer reviewer.
Second, I don’t think that publishing books with scholarly presses, despite the professional imprimatur such a choice carries with it, is necessarily more prestigious than going with a trade press. Even within the academy. As above, I say this as someone who chose to publish his first book with a university press and then made the same decision for my second monograph (which I’m writing now). My decision, the first time, was based on the prestige you talk about in your post. For the current book I chose to go with a scholarly press because I liked the editor and wanted to know that the book would stay in print even if it doesn’t sell like gangbusters. But my choices are idiosyncratic — not representative. I’m not convinced that anyone turns their nose up any more at good books published by good trade houses. Perhaps it’s still safer to publish one’s dissertation with a university press. But I’d like to see some data suggesting that’s true.
Third, and this was my most important quibble: why would any decision-maker within the academy decide to give credit toward tenure or promotion for blogging? Until someone demonstrates that there’s scholarly value in blogging, I just don’t see how this makes sense. Also: the onus is clearly on the bloggers to demonstrate the value of what we do. There’s no reason that Barbara Weinstein should read Cliopatria – until someone convince her that she should expend the scant resource that is her time in that way. Now, last year, Eric invited three excellent scholarly bloggers to Davis for a panel on the subject. And the closest anyone came to offering a rationale for rewarding blogging within the academy was Brad DeLong, who suggested that informal compensation would have to do for now – though he also argued that deans should be happy to have respected bloggers on their faculty, as blogging raises the profile of an institution. Tyler Cowan then came her last fall – again at Eric’s invitation – and he suggested that blogging should be viewed as something like a loss leader for scholars: a way to attract attention, maybe sell some books, but certainly not something that will lead directly to merit increases or consideration come time for promotion. That seems right to me. At least for now.
Finally, I was going to argue that I thought your argument about the significance of scholarly blogging was too narrow. I would suggest that people blog for their own reasons. And that’s precisely because there are no formal rewards for the practice. Until there are, until blogging becomes a professionalized activity, bloggers will have a wide variety of reasons for putting up posts. I, for example, blog for several reasons: 1) I have worries about the more traditional platforms for circulating historical scholarship. 2) I like making my work public. And blogging allows me to do that quickly and easily. 3) It’s a great writing exercise for me. If I’m not writing, every day, I’m not happy. And blogging is a good way to play with my prose. 4) There are others, having to do with actual scholarship, but Eric and I haven’t gotten there yet. So stay tuned.
Anyway, I enjoyed the post and love your blog.
March 24, 2008 at 8:01 pm
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