Welcome To My Treehouse!
Naming Policy:
A number of people I know in LJ under their fan pseuds are posting over at blogs under our legal names (I consider my fan pseud totally real--I even have a tattoo!). I have a firm policy of not linking fan pseud and legal names for anyone in any space and would ask that you all follow that policy as well. I'm not moderating or controlling comments and would rather not do so; I much prefer to trust people until there is conclusive proof that I cannot. I am allowing but screening anonymous comments.
Having to start with this policy is in fact very connected to the topic and questions that led to my making this LJ active earlier than I'd planned and in ways I had not planned: the issue of academics who are fans, who participate in fandom under pseuds (although in a number of cases, many of us know each other under both names and don't mind other fen knowing our various names; the concern is more related to workplaces, especially for graduate students, tenure-track faculty, independent scholars who also work as adjuncts, etc.). A number of us do scholarship as well, on fan fiction, vids, other fanac.
Everyone I know who fits this category is a woman.
There are male scholars who are in media studies and fan studies and related fields; I don't know if any of them are *on* LJ in any participatory way (the general consensus is, mostly not). The association of "weblogs" as public/intellectual discourse spaces and LiveJournal as a fluffy, girly, social, emo diary/BFF space is one that has been around since before I joined LJ.
So I'm wondering (and will post a link in a few other places) about your experiences in LJ, in blogs, in other spaces, as an academic, or as a fan, or as both! Yes, this LJ is my academic one, but no degree is required to participate--just an interest in the questions I'm writing about.
Recently, a friend of mine in both academia and fan spaces, brought into public debate issues that a number of us had been talking about for some time, often in private (under flock, in chat, etc.): the issue of the gendering in fan studies, media studies.
You can see her blog entry here: http://kbusse.wordpress.com/2007/05/01/mit5-review/
I'm participating over there (at great length which will surprise none of you who know me in other spaces).
The impetus for this entry was attending Media in Transition 5/
It's important to note that what we're talking about is, I firmly believe, systemic in academia (if given the chance, I'd say in mainstream and other U.S. cultures--that being the only national culture/s I know well enough to judge.
Two things struck me as I participated over there the past couple of days: the first, is that a post made by Henry Jenkins on his blog (asking for feedback on the conference) received only 8 posts (until today when it went to 11) while comments on Kristina's zoomed to over 60 in a shorter time. In fact, for a while, I thought Kristina's link to her entry had stopped discussion over there (I see that at my university often: the feminists raise our issues, and most of the male faculty--not all--suddenly grow very quiet and have to leave. It's an interesting tactic.)
I want to note the post just made by Ron Robinson where he brings up the issue of marginalization of people of color. He notes the fears he had to face in posting what he did: I can guess at them because I know the fears that those of us who are (the ones I know in person) primarily Anglo-American women have felt at expressing what we have.
The second thing that struck me is the perceived need by Kristina and some of my other friends to set up a "blog" over there -- that despite (what I gather from my memory of conversations) efforts to get the fanboys over here to talk, they generally avoid L J. So in order to take *our* conversation about gender issues (and it's sad that we could not address race in any meaningful way) public, to include them in it, we had to go over to their treehouse.
I've been a declared feminist since the summer of 1982 (the first person to verbally shove me, challenging me to read feminist work, was a Dr. R.D. Brown, one of my favorite professors at WWU (and a male!) who was the life partner of a feminist who also taught there. Part of the reason I delayed going to my doctorate was that I spent years reading all the women's work I'd been denied until then; I only went back in 1988 when I knew I could do feminist work. But I had lots of experience of marginalization, exclusion, and prejudice against women in academia before then (I started university before the current policies against sexual harassment were in place). And although I am lucky enough to have tenure (and be a full professor) at my current university, many of those problems still exist here, in different forms than in the 70s and early 80s, but remarkably similar in many ways.
At this stage in my life, I'm not that interested in spending that much time trying to integrate with the male establishment--I don't care if I become any sort of "big name" in fandom *or* scholarship. I'm a contrarian, and in this very small and in some ways completely unimportant choice, I'm drawing a line for myself. I prefer to have a professional presence here, in LJ, and to see what discussions about the same issues can be generated here.
We've seen examples of women aca-fen going over to blog primarily because of the desire to engage in this discussion in public, under real names.
So I'm wondering if any men will come to (or are in) LJ--academics--aca-fans--and willing to discuss the issue in this space.
There's a lot going on in Kristina's blog, so maybe there's no need for this other complementing discussion, but I think there may be.
Since I will also be introducing my graduate students in the fall to LJ communities and some of these issues, I hope that they will be able to participate as well. I'm teaching a graduate course, online, that's part of a new focus in our doctoral program. The course is "New Media Literacies."
I'm open to suggestions about what else I might post about in this blog: some of the things that most interest me are mentoring women in my field, and related fields; the Human Subjects projection issues relating to internet research which have changed; interdisciplinary and collaborative efforts in writing and teaching.
A number of people I know in LJ under their fan pseuds are posting over at blogs under our legal names (I consider my fan pseud totally real--I even have a tattoo!). I have a firm policy of not linking fan pseud and legal names for anyone in any space and would ask that you all follow that policy as well. I'm not moderating or controlling comments and would rather not do so; I much prefer to trust people until there is conclusive proof that I cannot. I am allowing but screening anonymous comments.
Having to start with this policy is in fact very connected to the topic and questions that led to my making this LJ active earlier than I'd planned and in ways I had not planned: the issue of academics who are fans, who participate in fandom under pseuds (although in a number of cases, many of us know each other under both names and don't mind other fen knowing our various names; the concern is more related to workplaces, especially for graduate students, tenure-track faculty, independent scholars who also work as adjuncts, etc.). A number of us do scholarship as well, on fan fiction, vids, other fanac.
Everyone I know who fits this category is a woman.
There are male scholars who are in media studies and fan studies and related fields; I don't know if any of them are *on* LJ in any participatory way (the general consensus is, mostly not). The association of "weblogs" as public/intellectual discourse spaces and LiveJournal as a fluffy, girly, social, emo diary/BFF space is one that has been around since before I joined LJ.
So I'm wondering (and will post a link in a few other places) about your experiences in LJ, in blogs, in other spaces, as an academic, or as a fan, or as both! Yes, this LJ is my academic one, but no degree is required to participate--just an interest in the questions I'm writing about.
Recently, a friend of mine in both academia and fan spaces, brought into public debate issues that a number of us had been talking about for some time, often in private (under flock, in chat, etc.): the issue of the gendering in fan studies, media studies.
You can see her blog entry here: http://kbusse.wordpress.com/2007/05/01/mit5-review/
I'm participating over there (at great length which will surprise none of you who know me in other spaces).
The impetus for this entry was attending Media in Transition 5/
It's important to note that what we're talking about is, I firmly believe, systemic in academia (if given the chance, I'd say in mainstream and other U.S. cultures--that being the only national culture/s I know well enough to judge.
Two things struck me as I participated over there the past couple of days: the first, is that a post made by Henry Jenkins on his blog (asking for feedback on the conference) received only 8 posts (until today when it went to 11) while comments on Kristina's zoomed to over 60 in a shorter time. In fact, for a while, I thought Kristina's link to her entry had stopped discussion over there (I see that at my university often: the feminists raise our issues, and most of the male faculty--not all--suddenly grow very quiet and have to leave. It's an interesting tactic.)
I want to note the post just made by Ron Robinson where he brings up the issue of marginalization of people of color. He notes the fears he had to face in posting what he did: I can guess at them because I know the fears that those of us who are (the ones I know in person) primarily Anglo-American women have felt at expressing what we have.
The second thing that struck me is the perceived need by Kristina and some of my other friends to set up a "blog" over there -- that despite (what I gather from my memory of conversations) efforts to get the fanboys over here to talk, they generally avoid L J. So in order to take *our* conversation about gender issues (and it's sad that we could not address race in any meaningful way) public, to include them in it, we had to go over to their treehouse.
I've been a declared feminist since the summer of 1982 (the first person to verbally shove me, challenging me to read feminist work, was a Dr. R.D. Brown, one of my favorite professors at WWU (and a male!) who was the life partner of a feminist who also taught there. Part of the reason I delayed going to my doctorate was that I spent years reading all the women's work I'd been denied until then; I only went back in 1988 when I knew I could do feminist work. But I had lots of experience of marginalization, exclusion, and prejudice against women in academia before then (I started university before the current policies against sexual harassment were in place). And although I am lucky enough to have tenure (and be a full professor) at my current university, many of those problems still exist here, in different forms than in the 70s and early 80s, but remarkably similar in many ways.
At this stage in my life, I'm not that interested in spending that much time trying to integrate with the male establishment--I don't care if I become any sort of "big name" in fandom *or* scholarship. I'm a contrarian, and in this very small and in some ways completely unimportant choice, I'm drawing a line for myself. I prefer to have a professional presence here, in LJ, and to see what discussions about the same issues can be generated here.
We've seen examples of women aca-fen going over to blog primarily because of the desire to engage in this discussion in public, under real names.
So I'm wondering if any men will come to (or are in) LJ--academics--aca-fans--and willing to discuss the issue in this space.
There's a lot going on in Kristina's blog, so maybe there's no need for this other complementing discussion, but I think there may be.
Since I will also be introducing my graduate students in the fall to LJ communities and some of these issues, I hope that they will be able to participate as well. I'm teaching a graduate course, online, that's part of a new focus in our doctoral program. The course is "New Media Literacies."
I'm open to suggestions about what else I might post about in this blog: some of the things that most interest me are mentoring women in my field, and related fields; the Human Subjects projection issues relating to internet research which have changed; interdisciplinary and collaborative efforts in writing and teaching.