[Air-l] Reactions to PhD blogs at conference

[Nancy Baym]

I really enjoyed this panel and Melissa's paper on academic blogs. My 
sense of the laughter was more recognition of our own experience than 
hostility. And yeah, a little envy from those of us who aren't 
labelling ourselves "bitch" on our blogs though we might at times 
feel that way (I used to fantasize about an anonymous blog called 
'the angry professor' where I could post all the aggravating emails 
students send -- like "I wasn't in class today, can you tell me what 
I missed?").

Regarding the PhD student/older academic split Mary-Helen alludes to, 
I guess I now qualify as the latter, and my sense sitting in there 
was that the PhD students might be romanticizing what it was like 
back in the old days. I don't recall a world where writing a 
dissertation caused no stress, where we were assured of rewarding 
academic employment, and so on. It was hard then too, we just didn't 
have blogs to share the experience. That said, one of the interesting 
things I got a little bit of a feel for in Brisbane was the 
differences between the Australian higher educational system and the 
American one, and maybe it is different for younger Australian 
academics than older ones.

Thanks to Fay and Axel for organizing such a nice conference, I 
really had a great time meeting so many new people and hope you'll 
all be joining us in Vancouver next year!

Nancy