Word from on High

I have been formally chastised for my lack of blogging.

It has been too damn long, and I don't have a really good reason why. Yeah, yeah...busy reading, writing, conferences. Not good excuses for not posting. Reasons to post. Or at least, material to work with.

I've also heard some lamenting that academicians aren't doing anything different with blogs. Not going to point any fingers at who's griping/challenging and who's parroting written/institutional conventions. Am going to try to figure what might happen differently. The blog ain't just a journal. Usually, the blog ain't just a web log, either. What is new going on here? How am I (am I?) going to help this hybrid (whatever this hybrid is) do something different with discourse?

Do we rake over the ruins between oral and textual logics? Do we leave the print-based shores, and set adrift in abstract waters to discover a new (media) world? A remediated world?

I can't get out of the metaphorical mode, so I'll make my own. Writing in the university centers on the thesis statement. Is your argument clear? Is it well supported? Are you become effectively agonistic? The metaphor of militarism.

If I'm making a move, then I'll say let's build between the metaphor, let's write the demilitarized zones. The zones are not contested, and only the edges are critiqued and analyzed. Binary ideologies agree not to enter. We cannot, must not enter armed with argument. What is it we do there? It's time we start sneaking in...