Why Aspiring Scholars Make Excellent Bloggers

This post replies to another by Jim West who argues that aspiring scholars shouldn’t blog. His point: anything you say on a blog can and will be used against you. Say something that crosses a red line of someone else who might be in a position to make life difficult for you, and they will.

All of this is true. But Jim’s advice will be ignored by the best aspiring scholars for the following reasons:

(1) The world of scholarship is a rough-and-tumble world. Say something new, controversial, or relevant to a hot-button issue, and someone else will criticize you, attack you, misunderstand you, ignore your work, or be delighted by it, and recommend it to others. If this sort of thing is not your cup of tea, it’s true: you have no business blogging. But you also have no business being a scholar.

(2) Scholarship is a contact sport. But well-researched, ground-breaking work that conforms to a set of written and unwritten rules will always find a publisher. In fact, even poorly-written, poorly-researched, absolutely repetitive scholarship often finds a publisher. Blogging is a great way to practice writing in a clear, crisp, and informative style. If you blog well, chances are, you will also write scholarly articles and monographs well.

(3) Many of the best bloggers in biblioblogdom are graduate students, recent PhD’s, non-tenured professors, and others who have yet to publish that book or two they have in their bones. These scholars have not and will not follow Jim’s advice. They have the self-confidence necessary to take the online heat that comes their way. When scholars blog well, they attract the attention, first of all, of fellow-bloggers who are not necessarily scholars in the conventional sense, but tend to be incredibly smart and/or have EQ’s that are off the charts. What a great crowd to interact with! Even fellow-scholars who would not dream of exposing themselves on-line (I chose the metaphor carefully) read blogs more often than one might imagine. Scholars of the self-effacing variety respond to my posts by email on a regular basis.

Aspiring scholars make excellent bloggers. So do well-established scholars. The blogosphere is a rough-and-tumble world and is no place for shrinking violets. But then, neither is the world of scholarship.

Comments

[James McGrath]

I'm with you on this one (sorry Jim). I think the only exception would be those who are trying to do serious scholarship and are looking for a position at an institution connected with some particular fundamentalist form of religion. In those cases, saying what you think CAN get you in trouble.

It was largely because I had had enough of that that I was thrilled when I got my current position at Butler. I am particularly fortunate, however, that our relatively small department is a friendly environment in which people of different viewpoint co-exist in a context of dialogue and respect (or at least tolerance and collaboration on the few things we share in common such as love for coffee). It may be that the rose-colored tint my experience here has given to my glasses leads me to be optimistic in a way that will not reflect the experience of most other academics - if so, I hope further discussion of this and other comments here will make that clear! :)

[Jim]

Howdy fellas,

I'm glad you disagree with me. But John is wrong in his assessment. It sounds nice to say that good ideas are well received even if a minority viewpoint. But that's just rubbish and not practically realistic.

Ask yourselves, gentlemen, why it is that so few bibliobloggers say anything out of the ordinary in terms of the general shape of biblical studies.

[JohnFH]

You might help us, Jim, if you gave specific examples of the kind of minority viewpoint you would like to see represented in biblioblogdom and in biblical studies.

The well-received criterion is a tricky one. Call me a Pollyanna, but I think biblical studies is a field which has seen steady progress over the last couple of centuries. Sometimes it's two steps backward, one forward, or however you want to put it, but that's the trend.

[Phil Sumpter]

Maybe I'm being overly idealistic or naive, but if you're an aspiring biblical scholar, then surely you would take your cue from your subject matter in terms of how you relate to the big world of academia and the security or developing shape of your role within it?

[JohnFH]

I'm with you, Phil.

Whether we think highly of Jesus, Akiva, or both, it would seem to follow that we might be willing to pay a price for speaking the truth as we have been given to understand it.

[JohnFH]

Stefan Green and David Nyström are discussing this issue here. Both are PhD students who refuse to follow Jim West’s advice.

[Daniel Driver]

I noticed Jim's post yesterday, but I think/hope John has the better argument. I'll let you know if my blog keeps me from getting any job posts—I'm currently on the market.

Early on I did learn a few lessons, and I've since adjusted my approach accordingly. Blogging is obviously a less formal medium than traditional publishing, but online content is still on the public record. I once dashed off some dismissive comments about a senior scholar (German), thinking somehow he'd never find them. I was pretty embarrassed when he did. However, the discussion that resulted has led, I think, to my giving him a better reading in my work. We even met up at SBL in Vienna this summer, which simply never would have happened if I hadn’t slagged off his work online.

My site has also regularly put me in contact with other people who are interested in areas related to my research. The whole experiment has sometimes felt like a black hole for time (in fact this is what I worry about far more than that I’ll make myself unemployable), but it has also advanced my project in a few tangible ways.

Maybe when you’re junior it’s more important to limit yourself to higher quality content more; but if a more senior scholar blogs foolish things their reputation can also suffer. I’d be very surprised if a blog makes or breaks a person. It’s part of the equation, that’s all. Done well it could put a job candidate ahead. Do you disagree?

[JohnFH]

Hi Daniel,

thanks for checkin' in here. My, you have a nice site. It's time for me to update my blogroll again. I hope to make your acquaintance in San Diego.

Most colleges and universities look to hire a scholar's scholar but also care about other things. It's always important to be a scholar's scholar, but if that is all there is to being a professor, the bar has been set too low. It's important to be an excellent teacher, and to communicate the results of your research and the value of your field of study to a broader public.

A college or university that looks at a candidate's blog and discovers that the candidate presents his/her views and the views of others clearly and concisely, and interacts with people of sometimes opposing views with sensitivity, will think, "this is the just the kind of person we want on our faculty."

If they don't, I'm not sure you want to teach there anyway.

[Iyov]

John: your last comment is particularly insightful. I closely follow academic politics, and you are absolutely correct.

I can imagine that at certain religious institutions, blogging might be disadvantageous -- but at competitive secular research universities, it can actually be a big help. I have now seen several cases where blogs were cited favorably in cases of initial hire or tenure -- either because they illustrated the pedagogical strengths or have exposed research that otherwise would have remained obscure.

Neither is adherence to a party line necessarily helpful: creativity and originality are valued at most institutions, certainly at the best secular institutions. The commitment to academic freedom is real. (True, we sometimes hear about "scandals" that seem to counter this trend; but as I have argued elsewhere this is often because outsiders do not know the full story. (Most faculty members are careful to never discuss the topic because of privacy considerations.)

Of course, research is judged on its merits -- and if one is mediocre, inattentive, or incorrect, one faces criticism. Meticulous research is highly valued, regardless of personal ideology or belief.

[Shawn Flynn]

John;
Thanks for your comments here.
I likewise disagree with Jim, but acknowledge his cautions.
Regardless, it seems he has some assumptions about what makes a scholar and what a blog should entail. I have tried to interact with these in a post.
S.

[JohnFH]

Thanks, Shawn, for keeping the conversation going.

It may just be that Jim's main objective was to scare off children in the spirit of Halloween.

But I don't notice anyone taking fright.

[Mike Aubrey]

as a quite young and aspiring scholar (I'm 22 with a BA in NT Greek and in the process of applying for grad school), I appreciate your encouragement.

[JohnFH]

And you, Mike, have a very fine blog. I'm just discovering it since Ephesus and the NT are outside of my focus.

One of the comments you make there is worth repeating:

Blogging has the potential to be an excellent open forum similar to presenting papers at conferences and other such events.

When you think about it, a blog's potential as an open forum far exceeds that of a 20 min. presentation + 5-10 min. discussion format at a conference.