Notes Toward an Article on Blogging and Reading

In a burst of creative/critical energy this morning, I decided to collect everything I have said about notable moments--on my original class blog, which is private, in a conference presentation I gave, in an article I wrote that was rejected, and on this blog--to prepare to shape them into one of the articles I've been avoiding.  I have a number of thoughts about the benefits of the notable moment post.  However, in the meantime I had a revelation about Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents...  I had latched onto Freud's idea that intellectual activity is beneficial because it helps us to stave off suffering, but I have decided that this is only the case when the intellectual activity itself is not the source of the suffering!

I get stuck on research.  When I research, I get lost in trying to be exhaustive, fighting the urge to completely disregard everything everyone else is saying because I'm saying something different anyway.  In the meantime, I become overwhelmed by the cacophany of voices who are not quite saying the same thing, and end up comvinced that I have nothing new to add to the conversation.  This is where I was at about 2 P.M. today, and I have not yet had the courage to look back at all of those open tabs of scholarly and non-scholarly sources discussing blogs and close reading.  The last time I researched blogs and education, I was ultimately rejected by an editor for not citing the right sources (which are pretty difficult to find, frankly).  Here is where not having anyone to ask "how's that article coming," and no real mentor from whom to seek advice really hurts me--because everyone who used to be a mentor has washed their hands of me, since I failed in finding an academic job that would lend intellectual community.  And because of that failing, I am doomed to continue to spiral into failure.  But enough of that.  Trying to lift myself out now!  

I wound up finding the outline I wrote last night, which goes something like this:

• What we think about reading on the internet

• What academics/teachers say about blogging

• Where close reading happens online

• How it can shape how we read

• How it can shape the way we teach

• How it can shape literary criticism

Perhaps if I stick to finding articles that can bolster each of these, I will not need to be terribly exhaustive in order to prove that I am saying something different.

In the meantime, at the end of the above outline was a second outline--this one a little more "conversational"--meant to be expanded into a book.  What I need to decide is who my audience would be, and why they would care...

Blogging the "Notable Moment"

It started with a class…

…and continued with a blog.

It happens on political blogs…

…and religious blogs…

…but is not typically a feature of book blogging…

…or online book reviews.

It can change the way we teach…

…and the way we interact with books.


It can change online literacy, or at least bring literary culture and reading online in a less shallow sort of way--don't you think?