Academic blogging

Jeremy Gans has decided to bring a halt to his Charterblog, which for the past year has followed the progress of Victoria’s Charter of Human Rights.  Although this is a loss to the Australian blawgosphere and to anyone interested in human rights and charters of rights, it is hard to fault his logic in bringing the blog to an end:

Why stop now?  I made the decision to stop the blog today back in around July.  Charterblog is, as readers will well know, a very intensive blog . I’ve managed it so far, but I’ve long known that it isn’t sustainable (especially for someone with two regular jobs.) My options were either to make the blog less intense or to make it finite. I didn’t hesitate in choosing the latter. Better an intense, temporary blog, than a perpetual and lame series of links,  one-liners and the odd meaningful post. A year-long blog makes aesthetic sense and matches the year-by-year nature of the Charter’s development too.

As well, 2009 is a big year for me in my academic job ... Finally, recently, it’s become clear that it’s probably too early for a perpetual blog charting the development of Charter jurisprudence, as the pace of that development (if, indeed, it is happening at all) is too glacial to sustain a case-by-case analysis.  The result is too many frustrated posts that begin ‘Yet again…’. If I kept this up, I might become jaded!

In wrapping his blog he also thanks his employers, including the University of Melbourne:

Blogging carries no cred with DEST and even the folks at Melbourne Uni who defined ‘knowledge transfer’ can’t seem to get their heads around the concept. And my particular blogging style and views bring political risks, not only for SARC but (as it turns out) for Melbourne Law School too. I’m fortunate indeed that neither has raised the slightest objection. That’s quite appropriate, of course, given Charter s. 15, but it’s also courageous, especially when there’s a bully on the block.

Finally, he endorses the benefits of blogging for academics:

I can’t recommend blogging highly enough to any academic whose field includes regular contemporary developments. A commitment to regular, public and comprehensive commentary forces an engagement with the subject-matter that exceeds any other academic endeavour, even a PhD. And the informality of blogging is a perfect antidote to the jargon and circuitous nature of formal academic discourse, not to mention the obsequiousness and pomposity of the law.

Read more here. 

Whenever I read statements like that, and academically rigorous blogs like Jeremy's, I always reflect on my little blog and wonder whether it is too frivolous or whether there is too much linking and pop culture and not enough original legal analysis.  However ultimately I always conclude that I like my blog the way it is - I think my mix of posts is part of what keeps it interesting to read.  And perhaps more importantly, it reflects me and what interests me, which means that I enjoy writing it.  So at least as far as my blog is concerned, I'm quite happy to be labelled as a bit of a pop academic.

Comments

[Jeremy Gans]

Thanks for your comments Peter.

My dig at 'lame' link blogs was strictly about the hypothetical blog on the Charter I could have continued writing. A narrow and self-important topic like human rights wouldn't fit well with posts (much less raves) about Battlestar Galactica, although I've been sorely tempted at times. But links and pop culture work perfectly for different or broad legal topics and, as you say, make both writing and reading them so pleasurable; hence the deserved nomination of your blog alongside so many other greats this year.

The dig at the end of my post was directed at academics who don't blog, rather than ones that do, and it was mostly about my own conflicts. Like you, I've often angsted that my blog wasn't academic enough - too glib, too smug, too narky - but concluded that that's just my personality coming through. And I was also conflicted about quitting something that I think all my colleagues should be doing.

Basically, I was telling my blog and the blogosphere: "it's not you, it's me." But, since quitting, I've felt relief, not regrest, so maybe that line is as false as always.