Monday, May 25, 2015

Blogging thoughts, Dr. Crazy, and why pseudonymity at this late date

Like other bloggers of years past, Dr. Crazy is hanging up her blogging spurs, to use what might be a Historiann metaphor, and is going public with her name instead if you know her on Facebook. I've been reading and enjoying her blog for many years, so like a lot of other readers, I'll miss reading her.  Part of her reason is this:
If tenure means never having to say you’re sorry (as a certain Madwoman once said), then full promotion means that you don’t need a flipping pseudonym. I have things that I want to say now that I want to own, and I want to write in ways that speak to the value of my discipline, of the humanities in general, and of the work that we as faculty do in higher education.
Dr. Crazy is right (always, am I right?) in a lot of ways, and now with the promotion to full, I shouldn't be afraid to post under my own name.  In fact, I do have another blog, but I don't post the same things.

But on that blog, I feel obliged to be professional and interesting.  As is amply evident, I don't feel the need to be either here, because I figure if you blogfriends don't care about the post, you'll just skip it and move on.

What can I post here that I can't or won't post there?
Recently, I decided to post over at the other blog and wanted to upload a picture using one of those little cards that you remove from a camera (can't remember what it's called). I have a Mac and absentmindedly slipped the card not into the card slot but into the DVD drive.  What followed was frantic and I hoped non-destructive probing into the DVD drive to get the little card out without killing the DVD drive.  It worked, and the DVD drive seemed to be fine.

But if you believe in signs and portents, then you would logically think that the universe was sending me a signal not to post over there, at least not right then.

It sent me here instead.

Your thoughts? 


18 comments:

Dame Eleanor Hull said...

Please keep posting here! And thanks for the list of past favorites. Sometimes I think we should just set our blogs (can you do this?) to randomly cycle through the old stuff.

undine said...

Thanks, Dame Eleanor! When I started putting together the list of what I don't post on the official blog, I realized that this is the space where I post to entertain myself (and a few readers). Since I don't keep a journal, this is the creative space.

I wish we could set blogs to randomly cycle through old post, but I don't know how.

Notorious Ph.D. said...

I'm going semi-pseudonymous: I'm not officially outing myself, but I'm not taking any effort to cover my tracks anymore. This means I can talk about my research, but not about departmental dirty laundry.

And I can post pictures from Blargistan without having to camouflage them!

Stacey Lee Donohue said...

I enjoy your posts here, too, Undine! I'd miss them (but of course now I'm curious what you do post on the professional blog). I tried to do a professional blog, but it was just too constraining. I kept thinking I had to keep up the output and thoughtfulness of Dean Dad or Tenured Radical, or others...

Fie upon this quiet life! said...

I don't want to fully out myself, even after tenure. Like you said, there are a lot of things you can do on an anonymous blog that you can't do on a professional blog. There are different audiences and different voices. I like the creative space way too much to give it up, even though I worry about it having a negative impact at some point. But I always shrug and think, "Well, if this blog forces me to do something else, all right then."

I like this blog and I have no idea who you are IRL. I hope you keep writing here. If you want to be FB friends, you should email me. The insanity continues at least a couple of times a day on the FB. ;)

Earnest English said...

Pseudonymity is good. Most of the things I want to post I don't want to own. I love that the blog is a place I don't have to be temperate. Stay with us, Undine!

undine said...

Notorious--I'm looking forward to your pictures from Blargistan (and even after that won't have a clue who you are in real life). Oddly enough, I'm less worried about what I've posted (what are they going to do to me at this point?) than that my RL identity would be somehow not congruent for my blog community.

undine said...

Stacey--Thanks! I try to keep the professional blog interesting and mostly post quirky things that interest me about my research area. But since it's professional (if somewhat informal), it feels more like work than this does--constraining, as you said.

undine said...

Fie--I take huge breaks (like months at a time from FB), so this is actually a more consistent place. Your comment made me realize that there are actually 3 voices: this one, which is the least constrained; FB, which is a little like the voice here but more restrained; and the professional blog.

undine said...

Earnest English--I hear you about not owning posts and feel somewhat the same. I read through a bunch of my old posts today in writing this one, and mostly they would be all right. But I'd hate to have colleagues combing through them to find things to be offended by, which could happen.

Flavia said...

I think whatever works for you, works for you. My voice and persona are still different on my blog than they are in places *really* attached to my professional identity, but I don't write with as much freedom as I did when I was (or believed myself to be) fully pseudonymous.

But that had been changing for a while anyway--I think it was around Year Two that I started meeting people at conferences who already knew who I was--so eventually I decided it was better to be able to reap the limited professional benefits of being tied to my blog than to both be constrained AND not be able to reap them! Still, though I don't want a fully professional blog, I'm still figuring out how to write in this mode.

The blogosphere contains multitudes. Write however and as whomever you like. I for one will be reading!

Notorious Ph.D. said...

Hey -- I noticed something about your blog: it seems to be redirecting automatically. Not sure what's going on there, but Fie's is screwing up, too. If mine starts going, I may finally switch to Wordpress. ::sigh::

Fie upon this quiet life! said...

Notorious - I just checked my blog on my phone, computer, and had hubby check it on his phone. I think the issue is on your end, because it's showing up fine here. Then again, I didn't quit the browser. I'll double check. But this blog is showing up fine for me, too, so it might be a virus or something on your end, Notorious. Thanks for the heads up, and I'll remain vigilant.

Z said...

My blog was not even conceived of as an academic blog, much less a professional one. I don't really read professional blogs -- I will use them as a resource sometimes, but not follow them, they are not as interesting as journals.

undine said...

Notorious--on the redirect issue: Thanks for letting me know. This happened to me the other day and is apparently happening to a lot of people; the problem is Sitemeter.

I removed Sitemeter and reinstalled the template the other day, so this shouldn't be happening now.

If it still happens after you refresh the page, though (so that there is no Sitemeter at the bottom of the page), let me know--thanks!

undine said...

Flavia--Thanks! That's interesting about people recognizing you from your blog and mentioning it at conferences, and it makes sense to bridge the semipseudonymous gap in that case. I don't know if anyone recognizes me from the blog (no one has mentioned it), but that's always a possibility, for sure.

Z--good point about professional blogs. The thing is that a lot of times they're just the publicity arm of the academic enterprise, which means that the blogs sometimes just repeat ideas developed at more length in journals, which, as you say, makes the journals more interesting. That's only going to increase as academics are encouraged to "promote their brand," which is about 50% of Twitter.

Belle said...

I'm all about multiple voices in the blog world (does anybody say blogiverse anymore???). Unlike Crazy, I don't think tenure provides that kind of safety to speak out, having been badly burned by this just one year ago. I keep blogging under a pseudonym, and will for the foreseeable future. That said, I do have a RLName blog coming up soon. But the pseudonym is another version of me - just as you noted. So please please please keep snarking and critiquing and thinking online!

undine said...

Belle--I"m sorry you got burned by blogging under a pseudonym. It's true: the real name blog and Undine are both me, but different parts. Thanks for the vote of confidence!