Sunday Notes

by Cliopatria

This is old news to those who care the most, but in early April New Kid on the Hallway was non-renewed at third year review and has resigned from her academic position. She's at the heart of a large feminist and medievalist part of the history blogosphere, so there's a huge outpouring of support for her (just scroll down), including offers to be a sounding board from some distinguished academics outside her institution. When academic institutions toss aside remarkable talent, this is one of the things that the blogosphere does reasonably well.

Marina Warner,"Virgin Territory," Washington Post, 15 April, reviews Hanna Blanke, Virgin: The Untouched History.

Steven Pinker,"A History of Violence," TNR, 19 March, is free to non-subscribers at Edge. Hat tip.

Bart von Es,"Muhammed on the Stage," TLS, 21 March, reviews Matthew Dimmock, ed., William Percy's ‘Mahomet and His Heaven'. Hat tip.

Edward L. Ayres,"Inventing the American Mainstream," Washington Post, 15 April, reviews Heather Cox Richardson's West from Appomattox: The Reconstruction of America after the Civil War.

Janet Maslin,"The Scale of Einstein, From Faith to Formulas," NYT, 9 April, reviews Walter Isaacson, Einstein: His Life and Universe.

Nicholas Dujmovic,"Two CIA Prisoners in China, 1952-73," CSI Studies, nd, tells a remarkable story from the Cold War. Hat tip.

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Ralph E. Luker - 4/15/2007

That said, my point was that NK's readers rally around in an admireable way to offer solace, consolation, and emotional support at a time when she is largely isolated from others in her department. Having been there twice, without that community of support, I can tell you that it is important.

Alan Allport - 4/15/2007

Nonetheless, I think the illusion of intimacy created by blogs can falsely convince readers that they 'know' the writer well enough to comment on traits and skills that cannot, in fact, be replicated online - presence in a classroom, for instance. I'm not knocking New Kid, who for all I know may be a wizard in the lecture hall and the victim of arbitrary institutional injustice. But that's just it; I've no idea. And neither, truth be told, do the vast majority of her other readers.

Ralph E. Luker - 4/15/2007

Sure, Invisible Adjunct, New Kid on the Hallway, and others less well-known are constructed personalities, but I think it's fair to assume that the construction is a function of the talent behind it. In the cases of both IA and NK, the construction has been attractive enough to draw remarkable ranges of other academics within their sphere. I can think of several cases in which the person behind the engaging construct differed from what I had imagined, but nonetheless the online persona was somehow a function of the person who created it.

Alan Allport - 4/15/2007

Hmm. Non-renewal must be gut-wrenching and I sympathize earnestly with New Kid, but I have to wonder whether all these commenters who are saying, more or less, this is an outrageous decision - it's obvious to me from your posts that you're a fabulous teacher aren't revealing one of the flaws, not the virtues, of the blogosphere. In fairness, NK makes the same point herself, which is worth restating:

"I'll be honest: I love reading comments that say, how could they do that! what idiots! I'm shocked! They are a balm to my soul. But I also want to be realistic: this is a blog. New Kid is a blog persona, one I think is extremely close to me in real life, but she is also inevitably a narrative construction, even though I don't try to make her so - it's the process of writing that makes her so. It so happens that many of you read New Kid as a dedicated and thoughtful teacher and researcher (unless, of course, you read her as a whiner, which is another option!). But unfortunately that doesn't have to translate into real life."