Name: Charlotte
Posts by admin:
- I have learnt how to blog, how to set up a blog site and how to write for different audiences,
- I have learnt how to use Twitter, to network, to establish a professional identity, to share resources, to chair and manage a live chat (#acwri) and a large scale online project (#acwrimo),
- I have also learnt how to use a range of different social media and applications including Twitter, Storify, Paper.li, Dropbox and Google Docs.
- University College London has an project index(link) and blog(link) exploring the anthropology of social media.
- Cyber Anthropology – a blog maintained by Diana Harrelson, exploring the anthropology of social media, gaming and online communities (link) ;
- The Cultural Magazine (link), primarily in Italian, with articles in French and English, maintained by Melissa Pignatelli. Explores cultural anthropology and social media’s impact on contemporary society.
How to be a Hackademic #34 by Charlotte Frost & Jesse Stommel
May 13th, 2013
Hybrid Pedagogy’s Jesse Stommel and our very own Charlotte Frost rethink academic life and writing productivity in this on-going series of hints, tips and hacks.
BE ADAPTABLE. You’re going to need expertise in more writing styles than just thesis/dissertation writing. When we write academic dissertations, we are learning how to write for a very niche academic audience. Now you need to adjust your writing style for a new audience (the one that isn’t examining your PhD). For example, if you are writing for a more popular or generalist audience, you’ll want to use a lot less jargon. When writing a dissertation, we laboriously chose and qualify our terms, such precision ensuring the intricacies of our argument are clear. The typical dissertation is very different in tone and structure from the typical academic book. While a dissertation is usually directed toward a very small audience, a successful book must be accessible to a wider audience. This modulation of tone may take time to master so it is worth practicing early on.
How to be a Hackademic #33 by Charlotte Frost & Jesse Stommel
May 6th, 2013Hybrid Pedagogy’s Jesse Stommel and our very own Charlotte Frost rethink academic life and writing productivity in this on-going series of hints, tips and hacks.
WRITE IN MODERATION. If working in pre-specified blocks of time isn’t your thing, and writing in excess fills you with horror, then break your writing tasks into moderate daily or weekly word counts. We all have different ways of working. Some of us write lots quickly and then edit into more refined copy, while others might take more time but write a near perfect text that requires little editing. Some of us research and write at the same time and some of us like to get all the research done before even attempting to put words down. Once you know which type of researcher/writer you are, test yourself to see how much writing you can get done in a day. As you get into a groove, you might challenge yourself to do a little more each day. For some people 250-500 words will be more than enough, but others might find they can get to 1000 or even 1500 words in a day. Find what’s comfortable and measured and go with it.
How to be a Hackademic #32 by Charlotte Frost & Jesse Stommel
April 29th, 2013Hybrid Pedagogy’s Jesse Stommel and our very own Charlotte Frost rethink academic life and writing productivity in this on-going series of hints, tips and hacks.
GRAMMAR. If you haven’t done so before, now is the time to start taking an interest in grammar. Unless you’re an English super-scholar, nobody is going to expect you to have perfect grammar, but anyone interested in writing should be interested in writing well. There are lots of basic guides to grammar that can help you tidy up some common mistakes, but it’s also a good idea to start paying close attention to details in everything you read. This will help as you put your own mental map together of what good writing looks like. Editors will be there to help polish a final piece, but you’ll find your entire writing process easier if you write carefully from the start.
When is a Hashtag a Journal Article? by Charlotte Frost
April 24th, 2013
Right that’s it, I’ve done it, I’ve gone and put my money where my mouth is. Or rather, I’ve put my open access politics where my REFables should be.
I’ve written a journal article on the nature of art historical knowledge and its philosophical relationship to its physical archives. But rather than present that article all nicely peer-reviewed and in a high impact journal, I’m publishing it free online and inviting anyone and everyone to peer review it – publicly. I wanted my first full-length academic journal article to be in line with the online areas of art history that I research, where art and art history are freely shared. Because I am interested in the on- and offline networks that create and support our ideas about art, I wanted other people’s opinions to be integral to the piece. And as I run an academic book series that experiments with the relations between the form and content of art history books, I wanted to dig my own publishing sandpit (or rather, extend the one I already built when created PhD2Published).
As it’s not enough that I’ve gone all open access on art history’s ass, I also wanted to consider – along with the media-aware ideas in my article – what post-digital art history might be. Partly this is reflected in the fact the article is not print-published but it is also reflected in my decision to work with media artist Rob Myers to manifest what might be best described as a physical version of the article. Embedded within the text itself are links to a project where you can order your own version of a 3D printed hashtag of the phrase ‘art history’. This draws attention the fact all art historical writing takes some sort of physical form – whether it’s printed words on pages or tweeted hashtags on Twitter – and re-enforces my argument that art historians need to better understand our own media. It also allows the article to generate a number of new research objects. That is, as #arthistory is interacted with beyond the space of the article itself, it can become new things – crowdsourced things – which also (if not quite directly) support the article’s theories about the value placed on participative modes in online art contextual activity.
So here’s what happens. To read the article itself you can go here: http://www.gylphi.co.uk/artsfuturebook/
Or if that’s too long winded, you can also get the gist of the #arthistory component here: http://hasharthistory.net/
Ideally you’ll then either offer your peer review comments on the article and or you’ll purchase your own hashtag and start sharing photographs of it in use.
And then let’s all meet back here or on Twitter (I’m @charlottefrost) and discuss what we think of this as a project. Does it represent a step in the right direction for open access scholarship, the digital humanities and new forms of publication and research, or does it try to do too much at once? Does the theory at the heart of the article suffer due to the playfulness of the #arthistory project? Should such projects be evaluated and if so, how?
How to be a Hackademic #31 by Charlotte Frost & Jesse Stommel
April 22nd, 2013Hybrid Pedagogy’s Jesse Stommel and our very own Charlotte Frost rethink academic life and writing productivity in this on-going series of hints, tips and hacks.
TIME YOURSELF. Use something like the Pomodoro Technqiue, named after the iconic tomato kitchen timer. The idea is that you measure your working time in “pomodoros” which are blocks of time comprising 25 minutes of work, 5 minutes of rest. Each block of time is known as a “pomodoro” and signifies a unit of productivity. Even if you only do one pomodoro a day, you’ll find your writing output will increase greatly. Better still, though, try for 2 or 3 pomodoros a day. You can even use a focus boosting app – there’s lots based on the Pomodoro Technique which give you audio/visual reminders.
How to be a Hackademic #30 by Charlotte Frost & Jesse Stommel
April 15th, 2013Hybrid Pedagogy’s Jesse Stommel and our very own Charlotte Frost rethink academic life and writing productivity in this on-going series of hints, tips and hacks.
LOVE WHAT YOU’RE WRITING. Jesse often tells his students when they’re working on class projects that if they’re not having fun, they’re doing something wrong. This doesn’t mean that every moment of the process will be fun, but it does mean that the overall trend should be to have the work be fun-inducing not pain-inducing. Countless studies have been done that show how much more we remember when learning is fun. When something is painful, we try to forget it as quickly as possible. Thus, if you love your project, you will learn more from the process and your learning will illuminate the page, improving the quantity and quality of your writing.
Baby on board, so time to take my leave (at least for a little while!)…by Anna Tarrant
April 10th, 2013
The time has come to announce that this is my last post for PhD2Published for a little while (boo! 
because I am going to be taking some time off to have a baby! 
She (yes apparently it’s a girl!) is due at the end of April 2013 so my attentions will be re-directed elsewhere for a while.
I have thoroughly enjoyed being the Managing Editor for PhD2Published and given that my body is being incredibly productive, I thought I would also take this opportunity to reflect on my time with PhD2Published to share some of the things I have learnt.
Becoming Managing Editor was a ‘seize the moment’ type affair (my first tip; seize any opportunity that you can – but be strategic!). I was working as a Senior Teaching Associate at Lancaster University (a teaching only position) at the time and I felt really disconnected from the world of academic publishing and research. In identifying a need for support and guidance in publishing I embarked on an online search for resources and that was when I came across PhD2Published. As luck would have it, Charlotte was looking for someone to fill the Managing Editor role so I jumped at the opportunity and just over a year later I am so grateful I did. Here’s why:
I have learnt about how and where to publish
One of my roles as Managing Editor is to source material relating to topics relevant to academic publishing. With a desire to publish myself I sought information that would not just help me, but others too, in all our publishing journeys. This helped me to collate useful material that also built a strong personal, but openly accessible narrative about publishing. In the past year I have invited academics of various career stages to write blogs, ranging in focus and including (but not limited too): contemporary publishing models such as Open Access; developing academic writing (see the benefits of writing in groups and collaborative writing); and reflection on publishing and emotion (e.g. Publish or Perish). I have even written my own resources for the site (see my series of #acwri summaries and what not to send for peer review) and for other reputable blogs including Guardian Higher Education.
As well as publishing blogs, I have gained a great deal of knowledge and confidence in publishing in more traditional ways. In the past year I have had three journal articles accepted, have had a book chapter published, with another on the way, and have been asked to peer review for several journals – all skills I needed to acquire but felt less able to in my teaching post. Needless to say, I am now a Research Associate at the Open University and can boast a much-developed CV.
I have upskilled
Networking: online and off
Networking and contacting academics from a variety of backgrounds, disciplines, geographic locations and so on has also launched me into a supportive, active and engaged community across multiple social media platforms; the website itself, Twitter and Facebook. Meeting people at conferences who know of me through Twitter has undeniably enhanced my ability to network and to meet people in my fields of research. Get known on Twitter, it helps to enhance your networking skills and visibility at conferences!
I have become involved in emerging academic debates about publishing/writing
Finally, PhD2Published has also expanded my research interests and expertise, so much so that I gave a conference paper about it at the SRHE Annual Conference 2012. This has afforded me the opportunity to reflect critically on academic use of social media for knowledge production and there is even a publication in the pipeline about this very topic, so watch this space!
Last but not least, as well as acquiring a range of skills I have also found a great colleague and friend in the one and only, charismatic and creative, Charlotte Frost. She is a quirky, selfless lady (with a penchant for pretty, purple, glittery things) and a true inspiration. I have the utmost respect for her and she has truly shown me that respect is earned; through hard work, tenacity, friendship, intelligence and a lust for life. I have a lot to thank her for and everyone who I have had the pleasure of working with/meeting in the past year or so.
Of course, I am not disappearing completely so hope to see you online soon!!
How to be a Hackademic #29 by Charlotte Frost & Jesse Stommel
April 8th, 2013Hybrid Pedagogy’s Jesse Stommel and our very own Charlotte Frost rethink academic life and writing productivity in this on-going series of hints, tips and hacks.
KEEP SCORE. Writing is not a contest; however, as much as we’d like to say, “academic publishing is not a contest,” we can’t. There are winners and losers in academic publishing, so it makes sense to start keeping score. How many writing projects have you finished? Where has your work appeared? How many people have read it? How many times have you been cited? How many copies of your book have you sold? You can’t get to any of these larger questions without starting first with a more foundational one like, “How many words have I produced today?” So to start with, create a spreadsheet or just jot your daily word count onto a calendar. You can make yourself even more accountable by tweeting the numbers. The number of words is meaningless, really, except in the way that it inspires you to keep making more.
How to be a Hackademic #28 by Charlotte Frost & Jesse Stommel
April 1st, 2013Hybrid Pedagogy’s Jesse Stommel and our very own Charlotte Frost rethink academic life and writing productivity in this on-going series of hints, tips and hacks.
LOVE WRITING. A friend of Charlotte’s who finished her PhD a couple years before her once talked about the strange pleasures of the final writing stage. Charlotte thought she was mad when she told her about an unparalleled pleasure derived from delving deep into her thesis and thinking and writing intensely for hours. She spoke of a level of focus that was like nothing she’d experienced before and a connection with her work that was all-consuming and effervescent with ideas. Charlotte figured this was some strange state she’d invented to compensate for the final weeks of PhD work where bodily hygiene and a balanced diet would go out the window. But, later, as her own work reached that same stage, Charlotte discovered her friend was right. Let’s face it, we wouldn’t be doing this if we didn’t find some kind of pleasure in thinking and writing, but deadlines and writer’s block often loom large and eclipse those moments of personal-writerly-discovery. Quite the best way to approach writing projects is to embrace the real joys of writing and keep them foremost in your mind throughout all the low points. As with relationships, all too often we tend to share the pain and anguish, but if we talk more about what is good, we’ll soon foster a better attitude to writing.
OMFG! I just got re-tweeted by Justin Beeber!?!?! Social Media Academia by Ben
March 28th, 2013
Image from Mochimochiland.com
This blog post by Ben (author of the Literature HQ blog) is part of a series that asks after new forms of scholarship and demonstrates how academic out-put is changing in the digital age.
From blogs like the Thesis Whisperer to Twitter communities like #PhDchat there are a number of ways in which academics are harnessing digital communication technology to support each other and their work within and without institutions. And some are even outright reinventing what academic scholarship might be. We are well beyond the early phase of academic listserves and blogs and into a – perhaps third wave – of digital discourse design.
In this series I’ve invited the people responsible for these types of projects to share what their intentions were when they established them. How their projects have changed the way they (and we, as participants) work, research, share, support and interact with each other as global colleagues. And how they might describe what the emerging skill-sets are and their benefits and pitfalls.
Today’s celebrities are more accessible than ever before. It’s not uncommon for me to see my friends gushing after being mentioned by a minor (or sometimes major) celebrity on Twitter. While this may seem trivial, for me it’s amazing. I think it represents the shrinking of oceans between us and people who we thought were totally inaccessible. This includes vacuous celebrities, but more importantly, it also includes the greatest minds of the 21st Century. This incredibly powerful phenomenon has become the new focus of my growing blog.
So where did it all begin? Well, I suppose my site is first and foremost an experiment. Now I have some idea of how I want it to progress but at the start I certainly didn’t. I just wanted to make a “complete” resource for people doing an academic literature review. By complete I mean that I didn’t just stop half way through but made it into something that someone could ultimately use to succeed with their own project.
Based on my early goal and the vision that I had the site has far surpassed my initial expectations. However, as the site has grown so have my ideas hopes for the future of the project. It has been a great vehicle for me to experiment and learn about communicating useful information through digital media such as Twitter, You Tube and Webinars.
Initially it was just me rattling around on the blog, not much of a community or input from others. Now I think that the community and the other contributors are the most important part. Perhaps the most influential section of the blog is a podcast that I use to talk to experts from all different academic fields to try and help my readers/listeners with their literature review. This was popular when it first started but I’ve recently been hosting the podcasts live with input from the audience which has been a huge success. I think it highlights the changing tide of media in general. It is no longer acceptable to just preach to crowds from a pulpit. Our audiences expect to be engaged by the people who are providing them with information.
Is this novel? Am I feral, hybrid and outstitutional? When Charlotte asked me this I couldn’t help but smile. I’ve never really thought about it before but yes, this is how I feel at the moment. I feel that what I do is provide an alternative to the way that a lot of skills training (especially writing) is done in universities. I feel like I’m providing an education that I needed myself about 3 years ago! I’m ok with this. It’s certainly not that the academic institutions are doing a bad job, but it’s very difficult to cater to everybody. That’s why I like what I do and I like providing an alternative resource and an alternative point of view. I think it’s ok to be feral as well. This way we are all a little bit leaner and meaner, ready to adapt to the ever-changing tides as larger institutions simply can’t be.
How would I describe Literature Review HQ now? Well I’d say deep down it hasn’t really changed. I still want to make a “complete” resource for anyone doing an academic literature review. However my definition of “complete” has changed. Now it’s not just about me sharing my experiences and advice. I feel like now it is my responsibility to find the very best experts in the world and to try get them to impart their wisdom to my audience. In the future I also want to focus even more on engagement. I think it’s really exciting how we can deliver information online. I also think it’s exciting how accessible people genuinely are. We really have the best information within reach. If we want we can talk to experts and learn an awful lot. I feel that it is my responsibility to use my blog as a platform to aggregate all this information for the benefit of anyone who wants to really write an amazing literature review.
How to be a Hackademic #27 by Charlotte Frost & Jesse Stommel
March 25th, 2013Hybrid Pedagogy’s Jesse Stommel and our very own Charlotte Frost rethink academic life and writing productivity in this on-going series of hints, tips and hacks.
PURGE YOUR THOUGHTS. Instead of asking yourself to practice writing, you might instead think of your daily writing as a sort of mental purging. You could, for example, start or end your day with a diary-style cleansing of your thoughts. Why would so many people write diaries if it wasn’t so incredibly useful in making sense of your own head? And besides, therapists can be really expensive! Sometimes we can’t see the forest for the trees, so siting down and writing whatever comes to mind can be a good way of getting some of distracting ideas out of your way. Likewise, engaging in a free-form writing session can spark some untapped creativity, helping us see some wilder connections in our ideas that we hadn’t considered before.
#PhDchat – a Doctoral and Academic Research Community – by Nasima Riazat
March 21st, 2013Image from Mochimochiland.com
This blog post by Nasima Riazat (an instigator of the ‘#PhDchat’ Twitter discussion) is part of a series that asks after new forms of scholarship and demonstrates how academic out-put is changing in the digital age.
From blogs like the Thesis Whisperer to Twitter communities like #PhDchat there are a number of ways in which academics are harnessing digital communication technology to support each other and their work within and without institutions. And some are even outright reinventing what academic scholarship might be. We are well beyond the early phase of academic listserves and blogs and into a – perhaps third wave – of digital discourse design.
In this series I’ve invited the people responsible for these types of projects to share what their intentions were when they established them. How their projects have changed the way they (and we, as participants) work, research, share, support and interact with each other as global colleagues. And how they might describe what the emerging skill-sets are and their benefits and pitfalls.
#phdchat is a twitter hashtag for doctoral researchers and early career researchers which was set up by a group of doctoral researchers in December 2009. #Phdchat is a professional community for academics and researchers to share resources, highs, lows, pieces of blogging to get feedback and to tentatively test thoughts and ideas with like-minded colleagues. I have been asked to write this post by Dr Charlotte Frost reflecting on what the chat is about, why I started it, discuss the nature of the chat and to offer some personal thoughts and reflections on the degree of its success.
The #phdchat hashtag was established when a few tweets were posted by doctoral students and a live chat was organised to be held each Wednesday evening for all UK doctoral researchers to enable us to have a community to share the journey with. As word spread about the hashtag to people’s networks, a large community was contributing informally and partaking in the live chats.
Reflecting back in 2013, the hashtag has flourished beyond all expectations and #phdchat has gone from strength to strength. On the 14th March 2013, an analysis of the #phdchat hashtag showed that it had reached an audience of over 650,000 people and had over 560 posts within 24 hours (info gathered via https://www.hashtracking.com). I am both thrilled and humbled by the worldwide success and how #phdchat has become an invaluable and useful community to researchers. We have people at various stages of their research careers contributing regularly, whether they are starting their PhD journey, are early career researchers, supervisors, lecturers or Professors.
When I started my own doctoral degree it became apparent that a support network was needed for the much anticipated joys and lows of PhD life. I had a busy full-time career as a Curriculum Leader in a high school and it was not feasible to make long journeys to network with PhD students or to regularly attend research conferences to build up my research network. My supervisor (@janshs) suggested using Twitter to make links with other researchers to test my thoughts and ideas for my grounded theory research design. Initially I was extremely wary and came across very few doctoral researchers on social media. Having located a few PhD students, an ‘online’ conversation (albeit not in live time) about grounded theory inspired the desire to start chatting more regularly with PhD students in live time and #phdchat was born.
The idea of a hashtag and a live chat was not originally my own idea and evolved through tentative discussions by myself, @janshs, @ianrobsons, @janedavis13 and @lizith before others such as @jefferykeefer, @emmaburnettx and @andycoverdale started to join in and make this the vast research community it has now become. At this time the only ‘live chat’ on Twitter that I was aware of was the #ukedchat hashtag where teachers ‘met’ online at the same time each week to discuss a topic of relevance. I particularly liked how this chat inspired me to get involved and bravely put out a few tweets and thus gaining a few followers and colleagues to share thoughts and ideas with and used this experience to adopt the same model for #phdchat.
A poll was posted for the community to choose a topic and a time was collectively chosen so we could get together each week and share our research thoughts and ideas. The chat element of the hashtag is, in my opinion, what has made the thread so resoundingly successful as this is when the community really started to develop professional relationships and, what were to be long term friendships, which enabled us all to quickly gel with each other. The chat element also provides a ‘safe’ place for those who are new to Twitter and don’t have any connections as yet to build their network and feel confident to talk. The live chat gives us all a topic to focus on (whether we contribute regularly to #phdchat or not) and a chance to ‘test the water’ of social media before launching straight into posting tweets and links of our own. People often are a little wary of contributing when they don’t have a common topic, don’t know the community, or feel worried that someone may not reply to them and I feel a live chat encourages them to be drawn into the conversation. It was a challenging task as moderator in the early days to get everyone involved and drawn into the discussion but now the chats tend to run themselves.
Most of my professional development as a teacher and researcher has been through the knowledge I have gained through #phdchat. I know many of us have become lifelong friends, there have been some #phdchat meet-ups and great friendships have been born due to this hashtag. Due to the immense global success of #phdchat, people from other time zones indicated that this model was a good idea and that they too wished to start a version phdchat of their own which was more convenient for their time zones which resulted in Dr Inger Mewburn (@thesiswhisperer) launching an Australian version of live #phdchat and there has been some discussion around possibly launching an American version.
Another great success of #phdchat is that as the community has grown people have started their own versions of live chats more focused to their field or stage in their research career which is fantastic to see. I have also seen other twitter chats take on the similar setup of #phdchat (such as #sltchat started by @teachertoolkit) which follow the same model of informal posts throughout the week and a live chat once a week to develop a real active live community.
Although all members of the community are equally valuable, I feel that a special mention must be made to @lizith for setting up and maintaining the #phdchat wiki and to @gawbul for uploading the #phdchat tweets to the wiki.
As I approach the final few months of my own thesis I feel thankful to all who have helped, supported and advised me through the #phdchat thread – too many of you to mention here personally. It has been wonderful to share my thesis journey with my doctoral colleagues on #phdchat and to see many of you come through at the end with your degrees. As the first generation of #phdchatters come to the end of their degrees, I hope that #phdchat continues to flourish and provide support, friendship and thesis-related knowledge to the next generation of PhD students.
How to be a Hackademic #26 by Charlotte Frost & Jesse Stommel
March 18th, 2013Hybrid Pedagogy’s Jesse Stommel and our very own Charlotte Frost rethink academic life and writing productivity in this on-going series of hints, tips and hacks.
FIND AN AUDIENCE. Without an audience, you have no real motivation for writing. Your work becomes an exercise in speaking to an empty room, which is – to be fully honest – kinda crazy. So first it is a good idea to really think who you are aiming your work at? Who would you like to speak to and why? And then think about building this audience more literally. For example, students can be an excellent audience for rough pieces of writing and early ideas. Blog posts and conferences are other great platforms for building an audience for your work as you’re writing. Of course you need the writing to really win an audience, but building an audience one step at a time works really well. Then, once you have an audience, the demands of that audience will keep you writing.
On Independent Arts Scholarship – by Hasan Niyazi
March 14th, 2013
This blog post by Hasan Niyazi (independent art history blogger/originator of the ‘3 Pipe Problem’ blog) is part of a series that asks after new forms of scholarship and demonstrates how academic out-put is changing in the digital age.
From blogs like the Thesis Whisperer to Twitter communities like #PhDchat there are a number of ways in which academics are harnessing digital communication technology to support each other and their work within and without institutions. And some are even outright reinventing what academic scholarship might be. We are well beyond the early phase of academic listserves and blogs and into a – perhaps third wave – of digital discourse design.
In this series I’ve invited the people responsible for these types of projects to share what their intentions were when they established them. How their projects have changed the way they (and we, as participants) work, research, share, support and interact with each other as global colleagues. And how they might describe what the emerging skill-sets are and their benefits and pitfalls.
In the year 1500, the German artist Albrecht Dürer inscribed the following on a self-portrait:
“I, Albrecht Dürer of Nuremberg portrayed myself in everlasting colours aged twenty-eight years.”
Writers of art history view this work as a significant turning point, or “moment” in Western civilisation.[1] The wildly gifted artist portrayed himself in not only a manner resembling traditional depictions of Christ, but added the force of his own presence to the work with the inscription, including his own “AD” monogram, which to many reading (to this day) recalled “Anno Domini” – the Year of Our Lord. From a perspective perhaps best granted by hindsight, Dürer’s inscribed portrait heralded the age of the individual. Dürer may have been the possessor of a large ego, yet he was also a capable disseminator of his work. His engravings and etchings, mechanically reproduced as prints on paper traveled across Europe, spreading the fame of his skill, and often encouraging copyists.[2]
Dürer not only embraced technology to aid in the distribution of his work, he was also an able networker. Eager to reach out to others, Dürer traveled to meet and learn from other artists. He sought Martin Schongauer and Andrea Mantegna, missing both shortly after their death, but did meet an aged Giovanni Bellini in Venice. By 1515, Dürer sought to exchange gifts with the most celebrated Italian artist of the age, Raphael of Urbino, then at the height of his powers in Rome, his career overshadowing both Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci.[3]
In whatever context one seeks to frame Dürer’s life and career, it is evident that he was successful at spreading an awareness of himself and his work across Europe. I wished to introduce Dürer’s use of technology to spread his work, and seeking personal connections to improve his knowledge as a precursor to a discussion about blogging. At the very least, Dürer’s example provides some interesting and relevant historical parallels.
I have been asked by Charlotte Frost to provide an account of my experiences in the blogosphere, exploring Renaissance art history in a level of detail than was not occurring in an open forum on the web. I presently spend my days working as a clinician and most nights reading and writing about art history. In late 2009, after having spent over a decade online, on message boards and advice forums dedicated to technology, I found my mind always wandering back to art history, a topic I had studied at a younger age. Hence, with little more than a vague notion of wanting to write about “cool art stuff” I began “art history blogging.” I created a free blog using Google’s “Blogger” platform, which I found favourable compared to WordPress as it allowed users full access to the blog’s underlying html code, allowing me to learn about this along the way. Three years on, I find myself pleasantly occupied. My clinical work continues, yet my reading and writing in art history has wrought great changes to me and my writing. I maintain regular contact with important Renaissance scholars, and am working on an ambitious project dedicated to the artist Raphael.
My blog, 3 Pipe Problem (3PP), became a platform to disseminate the idea that a more detailed appreciation of Renaissance art history is not restricted to those who can access universities, expensive books and journals, or belong to a particular community. Many bloggers have a personal motivation. For some, this motivation comes foremost as an intellectual pursuit that captivates the mind. Applying it to art history, I sought to understand its narrative of the past, and the evidence that had formed the common perception of this period in history.
Raphael’s famous self-portrait at the Uffizi has a complex attribution history, with a number of scholars disagreeing on it author, and likely date of creation.
This search for understanding – to my mind at least – arrived in its purest form when examining the attribution of a Renaissance artwork. It is a magical experience to walk into a gallery and stand before a work on panel or canvas labelled to be by the great Raphael, Leonardo, Titian or Giorgione (etc). Purchasing the catalogues offered by museums and galleries for these works often brushes past attribution issues entirely. It is only when one is brave enough to wade into the scholarly literature that we find an almost endless procession of heated debate about the authorship of a work. In Raphael studies in particular, this discussion is protracted across many works attributed to an artist whose style dramatically changed across the short span of his professional life.
Because Raphael had acquired great fame during his own lifetime, we are blessed with a greater number of surviving sources on his movements and actions than can be found for other artists of the period. It is the evaluation of these sources, and the physical characteristics of the works themselves that enable us to describe a painting “by Raphael” in full. Indeed in the scope of Renaissance workshop, Raphael’s involvement in a particular work needs to measured against visual evidence gleaned from observation of the work itself, and related technical images and preparatory works – a mode of analysis traditionally known as connoisseurship.
It is the distillation of these complex quantities of information that I attempt to bring to my posts at 3PP, and inform my work on the Open Raphael Online project. In doing this work online, I found I gained the most when openly sharing my learning experiences as they happened. The most efficient way to do this was via the social media platform twitter, where I encountered a range of individuals with similar interests, including professionals and students engaged in the study of art and history. This resulted in an ongoing exchange of information and resources, and a pleasing type of social interaction that occurs when one encounters kindred spirits.
In November 2012, I was pleased to be awarded the honour of representing “art history bloggers” at the Florens cultural heritage event in Florence. Traveling back to the heart of the Renaissance is a perennially emotional experience, and in my mind the city of innovation and endeavor that Florence once was seeks to regain its place again, with an increasing number of progressive online voices discussing the art and culture of the city.
Being part of the team of bloggers covering the Florens2012 event was a rewarding experience, providing insights into the great potential for new media to inform and promote a deeper experience of Italian culture than is presently being achieved.
What is blogging and where is it headed?
It is at times daunting finding oneself working in a space populated by very few others, and without a real sense of the activity being viable as anything other than an intellectual exercise. The blogs I admire the most are mostly written by academics as an independent exercise that fed off their experiences in teaching and research. Although I had started blogging “for fun” I quickly found myself wanting to occupy a similar space as far as the quality of detail and critical analysis being offered at blogs such as Thony Christie’s The Renaissance Mathematicus and Monica Bowen’s Alberti’s Window. Hence, each post became a research project in its own right. I would often start at scratch, or from an idea sparked by another blog post or discussion on twitter and develop a post from there. This process allowed me to further develop my own style, and improved my research skills – which of course are still evolving.
There is an increasing amount of discussion about the roles bloggers have in the space traditionally occupied by specialists and journalists. A recent post at the London School of Economics (LSE) Impact Blog specified “academic blogging” as defining a new space between academic writing and journalism.[4]
With specific reference to art history, the 2012 Kress Foundation report into digital art history and its research centers also identified the role of an “instigator”:
“A more radical suggestion is to bring in “instigators” or individuals from outside the research center who possess a unique set of technology, humanities, and people skills. Their role would be to push against institutional barriers without being intimidating to others nor easily thwarted themselves.”[5]
These descriptions seemed to describe blogging being recognised as a new space, and sought to address why blogging exists and whether it is important. It also became apparent that communicating ideas within the context of a blog also demanded a new mode of language, where the individual acting as “instigator” must be able to address both specialists and the interested public alike. This form of writing has no real precedent in art history, the closest analogues being reviews of exhibitions or publications penned by art critics/historians in newspapers and magazines.
Anthropological excursus
Of the various academic disciplines that are bravely experimenting with or observing blogging, that which tended to more completely grasp the “what and why” or meta of blogging was the field of media anthropology, and the related area of cyber-anthropology.[6] This relatively new branch of study, which seems to have forged its presence somewhere between media studies and the social sciences has burgeoned into a thriving discipline, with a proliferation of case studies demonstrating use of blogging and social media being used in social activism. The events around the Arab Spring and Occupy movements seem to be of most enduring interest to the media anthropologists I have encountered, with those tracing the impact of blogging in a broader, cultural sense quite rare.[7]
While many studies/books (of varying quality) can be found on the impact of blogging in a political sense, primarily in the American context, there is at present no study that seeks to track the impact of blogging on elements of cultural discourse, which is arguably the most globally inclusive human activity.[8] From art and archaeology, to regional variances in customs and language, the definition of “culture” is now so broad and complex, that such a study would be daunting to any investigator considering tackling its interaction with the forms of new media represented by blogging and social media. Until such studies are completed, this small excursus, embedded within this account of my role as an art history blogger, will hopefully be a marker for the consideration of new media’s impact on cultural discourse in an anthropological sense.
Conclusion – evolving beyond the primordial ooze
We are still in the primordial ooze of blogging and social media acting to serve a mired field of study, which art history can unfortunately be described in certain contexts. In some cases, quality blogs are helping to demystify aspects of cultural discourse to a global audience.
It is always pleasant to hear from readers who have been to museums and have questioned the assigned label of a work, and have been unsatisfied with the explanations offered in their catalogues. This desire to seek more detail in an independent sense is the true blessing of the information age. This gift of access to knowledge the web can provide recalls the famous, if not grandiose point made by Timothy Leary in Pataphysics in 1990,
“Today the role of the philosopher [and the artist, we might add] is to personalize, popularize, and humanize computer ideas so that people can feel comfortable with them…In every generation I’ve been part of a group of people who, like Prometheus, have wrestled with the power in order to hand it back to the individual.”[9]
Comparisons to mythological titans aside, what can be taken from Leary’s statement is that those with experience navigating the seemingly disparate fields of technology and cultural historiography are ideally suited to analyse and interpret the seemingly rapid changes being experienced by all disciplines defined by large slabs of text and images, traditionally locked within the confines of books. Blogging is just one of many available means of re-purposing and amplifying these images and texts to a more global, and potentially dynamic audience.
I would like to emphasise that my example represents a combination of circumstances that has occurred naturally, and is only a snapshot taken at this point in time. At present, art history blogging exists because it does, and discussing it from the perspective of becoming a viable business model seems a point no one is yet prepared to deliberate on. For academics and students trying to figure out how a blog may fit into their workflow, there is no easy answer other than trying it and finding what works for you, and ruling out what does not.
Ultimately, blogging does not need to supplement anything else. It is its own form of expression, requiring a mixture of skills. Blogging is a mode of communication where any individual with a passion to work hard and have their voice heard can participate in a global dialogue that attracts scholars and laypersons alike. Art, culture and knowledge transcends boundaries, and so does the web. As such, they are a perfect match.
References
1. Koerner, JL. The Moment of Self-Potraiture in German Renaissance Art. University of Chicago Press. 1997. pp.40-46 preview available at Google Books link ; the author is aware of the antecedent self portrait by van Eyck and its comparatively boastful frame inscription. Less is known about Jan van Eyck’s travels and how widely his work was disseminated.
2. Pon, L. Raphael, Dürer and Marcantonio Raimondi – Copying in the Italian Renaissance. Yale University Press. 2004. pp.62-68.
3. Nesselrath, A. Raphael’s Gift to Dürer. Master Drawings. Vol. 31. No. 4. Essays in Memory of Jacob Bean (1923-1992). Winter, 1993. pp. 376-389 JSTOR link
4. Carrigan, M. By opening up a distinctive space between academic research and journalism, a thriving academic blogosphere mediates between them. London School of Economics Impact Blog. February 4 2013. Accessed March 6 2013. link
5. Zorich, D. Transitioning to a Digital World: Art History, Its Research Centers, and Digital Scholarship. Kress Foundation website June 1. 2012. Accessed March 6 2013. link
6. Rothenbuhler, E. Media Anthropology as a Field of Interdisciplinary Contact. E-Seminar October 22 – November 05 2008, European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA), Media Anthropology Network. http://www.media-anthropology.net nb. An excellent overview of media anthropology and its history as a field of study. (pdf link) ; another recommended overview paper is presented by Mihai Coman (pdf link) ; A foundational article introducing the concept of “cyber-anthropology” was published in 2005 by Libin and Libin: Cyber anthropology: a new study on human and technological co-evolution. Studies in Health Technology and Informatics. 2005. 118. pp. 146-55. (link)
7. There are a number of well known blogs dedicated to anthropology – Savage Minds, and its blogroll is a great starting point (link). Less prevalent are blogs dedicated to media anthropology, with the site maintained by Dr. John Postill a notable source of information and resources (link). Blogs exploring specific examples of culture and their impact in a new media and anthropological context are more rare at this stage. Some quality examples include:
8. Baldwin, J. (ed.) Redefining Culture: Perspectives Across The Disciplines. Routledge. 2006. This landmark publication identified over 300 prevailing definitions of “culture”, highlighting the challenges in demarcating the parameters of culture as a field of study. For more on this in a new media and reporting context see Niyazi, H. The convergence of culture and new media – Florens 2012. Posted at 3 Pipe Problem. November 22 2012. (link)
9. Leary, T. Pataphysics quote is included in premable of Chaos and Cyberculture. 1994 edition online at archive.org (link)
How to be a Hackademic #25 by Charlotte Frost & Jesse Stommel
March 11th, 2013Hybrid Pedagogy’s Jesse Stommel and our very own Charlotte Frost rethink academic life and writing productivity in this on-going series of hints, tips and hacks.
WRITE SOME MORE. Write regularly to improve your communication skills in all areas of your work and ward off that dreaded writer’s block. Try to allot a bit of quiet time – even half an hour is enough – to get some thoughts onto paper/screen every single day. At first it will seem like a chore, but all too quickly you’ll notice how productive you can be. Some of the material you produce might well make it into your book or article, or perhaps it will become a blog post, or some other way of publicly discussing your work. In fact, blogging regularly can really help. It adds an important level of accountability if you imagine you have to blog once a week or you’ll lose face. Reporting on the ideas you’re processing in this lighter more chatty style will be easier and it will help you get to the crux of the matter – don’t underestimate how important it is to be able to communicate widely. Try to keep this daily writing routine no matter what else is going on. So, even if you’re traveling, consider setting aside just a small amount of time to do some writing, even if you’re just pecking letters into the notes app on your smart phone. It doesn’t have to be academic writing; every bit of writing we do ultimately helps hone our craft.
