Some More Noted Things ...
At Inside Higher Ed, two pieces are especially worthy of note: Scott Jaschik's"Detente with David Horowitz" and Scott McLemee's"Locating Bourdieu."
My virtual son and sharp-eyed advisor in all things journalistic, Andrew Ackerman, pointed out to me that Patricia Nelson Limerick's column in the New York Times is not just your rare, one-time-only op-ed. For two weeks, Professor Limerick is filling in for Maureen Dowd, who is on book leave. Limerick's next column should appear on Saturday. Do not be embarrassed by that envious feeling welling up within you. It is shared by – what? – at least half of the historians in the whole country? The other half of us hadn't heard about it, yet. On the other hand, think of it this way: the University of Colorado needs the good news.
There's been an interesting engagement over the issue of pseudonymity among academic bloggers. Juan Non-Volokh is the only pseudonymous blogger at The Volokh Conspiracy. As it happens, I think of him as one of the lesser and one of my least favorite Conspirators. But his criticism of Brian Leiter's post about the case for the impeachment of George Bush rather deeply antagonized Leiter, who then posted"Who is Juan Non-Volokh?" More importantly, Leiter threatened to reveal Non-Volokh's identity, if he could discover it.
Brian Leiter is not someone that you'd be well advised to cross in certain circles of American academic life, so the threat had to be taken seriously. In some ways, the argument was simply one more Right/Left confrontation on the net, but the issue centered on Non-Volokh's pseudonymity. The contra temps was big enough to get noticed at several other sites, including Clayton Cramer on the Right and Crooked Timber and Unfogged on the Left. Finally, Ogged at Unfogged appeared to persuade Leiter that there's a reasonable case for pseudonymity among untenured academic bloggers and the latter appears to have backed down from his threats. But, given Leiter's temperament, I'd hold fast to pseudonymity if I were young Juan. Still pseudonymous bloggers do need to understand that their anonymity can antagonize those of us who post in our own names and are subject to attack by people who accept no responsibility for what they say.