The question “am I a historian?” first bothered me after reading a blog post written by colleague Jason Heppler, in which he writes: I am a young historian — heck, I barely even qualify for that title when I have no book to my name and don’t hold a PhD yet. But as a researcher very early in my career… In fairness to Jason, I talked with him about it and he backs off of calling himself a historian in this post as more of a rhetorical device. However, when Sara Mayeux did the essentially the same thing, tweeting I’m…
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[Brian goes to a dark place after reading Evgeny Morozov’s The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom and Jaron Lanier’s “Digital Maoism: The Hazards of the New Online Collectivism” for UNL’s Digital Humanities Seminar.] Evgeny Morozov examines the Internet’s relation to authoritarian states, arguing there is a Western misconception, rooted in the Cold War, that the Internet, and information systems more broadly, create political change. This “cyber-utopianism,” as Morozov dubs it, assumes that the Internet inherently favors democracy and works against oppressive governments. Morozov warns that cyber-utopianists, combined with a misguided strategy he calls “Internet-centrism” creates the “Net…
One Comment[In lieu of readings this week, our digital humanities seminar chose sections of Writing History in the Digital Age on which to comment during their open peer review stage. You can find my contributions under my name here, or when you read through the two essays on which I commented (I have a feeling these links may not be permanent so my apologies if future people find them to be broken).] Open peer review is a great layer of scholarly discussion that should be added to, not replace, current practices of peer review. Peer review’s current practices of total secrecy…
3 CommentsThe Aporetic: What strikes me about arguments in support of open peer review is that they are often premised on a utopian vision of our digital future and a dystopian view of our analog present. The utopianism is neither surprising nor problematic. Proponents of change are understandably enthusiastic. Once experiments are launched, some of this enthusiasm will be tempered by experience. There is every reason to expect these models to improve through trial and error. I am concerned, though, about the extremely negative views of current peer review practices that seem to motivate the reform movement. There is no doubt…
Leave a CommentThe Aporetic: But peer review is a crushingly slow, turgid process. Established in the age when mail was delivered in horse cars, and no one expected or anything like fast communication, it coasts along on an earlier generation’s low expectations. Peer review is hard work for the reviewer, and more important, it’s both uncompensated and, for the most part, extremely unrewarding. You get nothing for your efforts except perhaps some books and a thank you. It’s a professional obligation, not a professional pleasure. … Suppose the editor were more like a moderator–someone who set an agenda, or a subject, and…
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