Antiquitopia

I posted several years ago an article from the Chronicle of Higher Education on the relative merits of using blackboard versus using blogs.  I had, at the time, never used blackboard as an instructor, but now I am at an institution that does use Blackboard.  I have, nonetheless, been toying around with creating a blog for some of my courses for students to present material to one another, comment on each other's work, and ultimately present it in a format that is accessible outside of the university in a public (hyper)space. For disseminating course materials, I think one would have to supplement a blog with dropbox or google docs, but I think it is worth reconsidering. Here is the old link .

Mark Goodacre has, as per usual, some very interesting thoughts about the phenomenon of blogging, this time regarding the rare case of a peer-reviewed article offering a full critique of a blog post. I think Goodacre's comparison with a conference paper is nearly apt.  I tend to think of a conference papers and blog posts as "thinking out loud," as a works in progress, as ways to informally experiment with new ideas that is often difficult to do in more formal contexts.  A conference paper is, however, more formal and goes through a peer-review process of acceptance and rejection (even if not as rigorous as a journal or a book) and, at least for me, longer than a blog post (I know some of you like really long blog posts--I simply don't).  And, indeed, some of these things do develop into more formal contexts.  Goodacre mentioned this; my series of blog posts on "God and the Senses," which were a series of posts of me thinking out loud, will be making thei...

I just noticed that Chris Keith and Anthony LeDonne--both formerly of Lincoln Christian University--have started a blog dedicated to historical Jesus research, called " The Jesus Blog ."  Both are smart and engaging scholars--in person and in writing--and so their posts should make for interesting, thoughtful reading.

Today (June 13) marks five years that I have been blogging.  My inaugural post marked the beginning of my dissertation writing--in June of 2007 I would have been working on my proposal.  2007 was an interesting year.  I went to Italy, and now realizing that it has been five years think I should go back soon!  In the fall of 2007 I met my wife.  Much has changed over the years.  Last year my academic adviser, Alan Segal, passed away.  He saw me to completion, but will never see the book that comes from my research.  There are some continuities.  I am still living with the project that I proposed then, although extraordinarily transformed from proposal to dissertation and transformed greatly again from dissertation to monograph.  I am now thinking of developing my next major project.  I have a lot of the interests I noted then: The name of my blog reflects a combination of interests. I study antiquity, but I am also fascinated by...

A friend of mine from Columbia University, James Hare, has started a new blog, " True Simplicities ." He is a specialist in South Asian religions, but this blog seeks a wider audience, as he writes in his inaugural post: Welcome to True Simplicities. I intend this site to be a space in which to explore the relationship between religious traditions and voluntary simplicity. I'll say more in upcoming posts about what I mean by religion and by voluntary simplicity since both these terms are difficult to define, but I am not especially concerned with definitions. I intend to be inclusive. I am open to discussing anyone who has made a deliberate effort to live their life more simply, from early Christian monastics to today's "technomads," and I plan to consider how a wide range of religious--and not-so-religious--traditions have encouraged or discouraged the simple life.

One of the most enjoyable and best -attended sections I went to at the SBL this year was the panel on Biblioblogging. While as the speakers noted that blogging has been greatly expanding the past five years in the field of biblical studies (broadly conceived), it is measured not only by the number of bloggers but the number of unofficial and now official gatherings of the bloggers (many of whom know each other by their blog names rather than their real names--even when their real names are not secrets). As has been the case the past few years, there was a dinner (which I was unable to attend), a lunch organized by J ohn Hobbins . This year, the bloggers have an official group that meets to discuss issues of blogging, online publication, and burgeoning online technologies in research and instruction. The meeting I attended had a nice panel from a well-established scholar to a more recent dissertation defender and all in between; it included scholars on the Dead Sea Scrolls, New Test...

My old banner subtitle of "my musings on antiquity, religion, and other phenomena and ephemera," while perhaps complete, since all things perhaps fall under "other phenomena and ephemera" still seemed incomplete to me given the many postings I have done on Proust, Shakespeare, etc--basically the increased occurrence of non-antique literature. Thus, I have included "literature" into my subtitle to represent more accurately the content you might find here--still heavily biblically and anciently oriented, but inclusive of a great deal of musings on other literature. Thank you for reading!

Mary Beard, the prominent Classicist and always-provocative and insightful writer, has turned her blog, A Don's Life , which is associated with the London Times, into a book . The book reprints some selected posts, as well as including quite a few comments (and I think that debate actually makes the book). It also has an essay, by yours truly, on the nature of blogging -- and why I am a convert to the genre, despite many initial misgivings about dumbing down etc etc. I hope you'll like it. This of course raises a publication question: why would anyone buy the book if they could just look at her blog for free? Nonetheless, it sounds very intriguing: I'd like to think that anyone planning to apply to a so-called "elite" university would find some reassurance here: Oxbridge interviews really aren't as mad as they are made out to be, and you'll find some useful reflections from someone on the "wrong" side of the interview in the book. You'll also...

The Chronicle of Higher Education has an article weighing the pros and cons of using Blackboard software or using free blog software (such as blogspot or wordpress). It is a discussion that recently occurred at CUNY. I know the link may not be accessible if you do not have an account (personal or institutional) with the Chronicle, so here are some snippets: Instead of using a course-management system to distribute materials and run class discussions, why not use free blogging software — the same kind that popular gadflies use for entertainment sites? The approach can save colleges money, for one thing. And true believers like Mr. Groom argue that by using blogs, professors can open their students' work to the public, not just to those in the class who have a login and password to a campus course-management system. Open-source blog software, supporters say, also gives professors more ability to customize their online classrooms than most commercial course-management software does...

So...one of my favorite websites (ever since I was in college) is www.despair.com . It is a site for your inner pessimist. They make "demotivators," which are basically posters (and t-shirts, etc.) that satirize "successories." One of their latest demotivators...or, at least one I hadn't seen before (I haven't been on the site for a while)...is about blogging, in their typical barbed wit: Isn't that the truth! ;) Go check out their other slogans.