Yikes! Once again it's been a very long time since I posted on this blog. And, as you might guess, part of the reason is that I've become increasingly convinced (though reluctant about it) that it's kind of not a good idea to have a public blog. Period. I'm not happy about this idea, as I have strong thoughts about how distrust of blogging/internet presence especially, as I see it, blogging by women, relates to a discomfort with public bodies/writing bodies, but in the spirit of pragmatism (and what an equivocal spirit that is), I'm bowing to the pressure of paranoia.
What all that means: in a little while -- say two weeks, I'll be making this blog available only to those people who are already readers or are my friends. It's been a while since I actively tried to attract the internet attention of people I didn't know, anyway, so I doubt this will actually make much difference to who's reading. If you want me to include you leave me a comment. I won't publish it, so you won't be out there being all "hey I want to read the blog," but I will contact you back with the username and password so you can view the blog. If I don't already have contact information for you, you can leave me some. Again, I ONE HUNDRED PERCENT PROMISE I won't publish it, so no spambots will find you. And I won't be all "I'm e-mailing you every day!!111!!"
a) if you happen to come to look at the blog within the next two weeks and you want to keep reading
b) comment and say so, and I'll get back to you with the password
c) I'll add you to the list (completely safely for you).
I've had a public blog for seven years now, so it feels, to some extent, like a loss. On the other hand, I hope start blogging again with some increased regularity, so that's an improvement. Oh -- and one more thing: if you're already my friend on livejournal (i.e., SotL friends), I'll just post the password over there. So you don't have to comment.
Ah, what an awkward action this is: the reduction or drawing in of identity. I guess to some extent it means that I've decided, after all, that I cannot embrace a concept of identity that is infinitely expandable, at least, not an identity I want to own to. I do have such an identity, of course, and it consists of public actions -- but it turns out that some kinds of public-action writing are not, for me, at least at the present moment, desirable. I may in the future turn to public -- i.e., professional blogging again, perhaps when I have more professional statements I want to make. But as it turns out, at the moment I'm unwilling to embrace the full conflation of confessional and professional selves, although I find such a conflation semi-attractive, in both a post-confessional twenty-first century way and in a post-confessional sixteenth century way.
But, since I'm not willing to give over the blog either to praise of my glorious sovereign, like Spenser, or to praise of my glorious profession, like academic bloggers, retreat into an epistolary semi-private sphere it is. And so I will.
What all that means: in a little while -- say two weeks, I'll be making this blog available only to those people who are already readers or are my friends. It's been a while since I actively tried to attract the internet attention of people I didn't know, anyway, so I doubt this will actually make much difference to who's reading. If you want me to include you leave me a comment. I won't publish it, so you won't be out there being all "hey I want to read the blog," but I will contact you back with the username and password so you can view the blog. If I don't already have contact information for you, you can leave me some. Again, I ONE HUNDRED PERCENT PROMISE I won't publish it, so no spambots will find you. And I won't be all "I'm e-mailing you every day!!111!!"
a) if you happen to come to look at the blog within the next two weeks and you want to keep reading
b) comment and say so, and I'll get back to you with the password
c) I'll add you to the list (completely safely for you).
I've had a public blog for seven years now, so it feels, to some extent, like a loss. On the other hand, I hope start blogging again with some increased regularity, so that's an improvement. Oh -- and one more thing: if you're already my friend on livejournal (i.e., SotL friends), I'll just post the password over there. So you don't have to comment.
Ah, what an awkward action this is: the reduction or drawing in of identity. I guess to some extent it means that I've decided, after all, that I cannot embrace a concept of identity that is infinitely expandable, at least, not an identity I want to own to. I do have such an identity, of course, and it consists of public actions -- but it turns out that some kinds of public-action writing are not, for me, at least at the present moment, desirable. I may in the future turn to public -- i.e., professional blogging again, perhaps when I have more professional statements I want to make. But as it turns out, at the moment I'm unwilling to embrace the full conflation of confessional and professional selves, although I find such a conflation semi-attractive, in both a post-confessional twenty-first century way and in a post-confessional sixteenth century way.
But, since I'm not willing to give over the blog either to praise of my glorious sovereign, like Spenser, or to praise of my glorious profession, like academic bloggers, retreat into an epistolary semi-private sphere it is. And so I will.
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