Two Smart Boys

Over on the left side of this blog are my 'star' links to blogs in which I take a particular interest, such interest billboarded because it speaks so well of me, I think. I hang the walls of my mind with work I wish I could do.

Recently in 'silver in san francisco' we have Young Silver tracing the evolution of cyberstudies. Recently in the Professor of Pop we have Youngish Goodwin interviewing (in three parts) Nicholas Garnham about the evolution of Media Studies.

(Go look, lazy linkers. I want you to look at the billboards.)

In the latter I find this:


Nicholas Garnham: I was critical of community media both because in my view it over-emphasised the power of the media to change social conditions and because it took a sentimental view of community which has been carried forward into identity politics more generally.

As a sentimental man who fights a deep and pernicious tendency to take a sentimental view of change -- not forgetting the equally pernicious tendency to overreact to the previous tendency and sink into cynicism and its concomitant passivity -- I think I agree with NG on this point. May I recommend both essays?

As for myself, I note that with the semester done, I feel much less voluble, less inclined to 'think' simply to the end that I may 'say'. Professing is a talk-talk game: keep talking in the hope of saying something useful to your students, useful now or later; keep talking because it is the job description; keep talking even if it's not the job description because you fear the silence; keep talking because it's the necessary fuel for your self love and if you don't keep stoking the boiler, mightn't you end up coasting to a halt?

(I can't go on. I go on. Heh heh heh.)

So I praise youngblood with their Something to Say, since in fact they do. Good on you, lads.