2016

I've kept this blog, on and off, since 2006. In 2015 I used it to chart daily encounters, images, thoughts and feelings about volcanic basalt/bluestone in Melbourne and Victoria, especially in the first part of the year. I plan to write a book provisionally titled Bluestone: An Emotional History, about human uses of and feelings for bluestone. But I am also working on quite a few other projects and a big grant application, especially now I am on research leave. I'm working mostly from home, then, for six months, and will need online sociability for company!


Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Literature, corruption, institutions, blogging

A few cool links from today's papers.

First up, a satirical contribution to the usual debate about literature, and its teachers, corrupting the minds of the young in an op-ed piece in The Age by a Year 12 teacher at the excellent high school just north of the university campus: yay for public education!

And second, a link to the blog of Macquarie University's Vice-Chancellor. Chaucerians will be pleased to know the motto of this university is And gladly teche. But this is what he says in the article about his blog in The Australian:
"To be frank, a great logo and a stirring motto mean little in these digital days when people can set up a blog or chat site and ask: "What is X university really like?"

You know that blogging has really hit the mainstream when the V-Cs are taking it up.

Is it a bit disturbing, though, that he admits he tracks when comments come from his own campus? Or is this just the reality of blogging? If we have time, it's possible to use a tracker to guess the identity of readers from their location (though it's also very easy to get this wrong!). I wonder if institutional blogs like that should really be using a tracker.

And there's the link back to Tony Thompson's article, since he also writes about 1984.

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