[15 years ago this week, I started this here public scholarly blog. There have been lots of twists and turns since, and the best ones have been aided & abetted by wonderful folks. So for my 15th (!) anniversary series, I wanted to pay tribute to a handful of those moments and people, leading up to a special weekend tribute to my first and best reader!]
Eight years ago, as part of my 7th anniversary series, I paid tribute to Rob Velella, and started that post by highlighting what his American Literary Blog meant to me as I was starting my own public scholarly blog. I honestly don’t remember how Rob and I got connected, but I believe it was when he responded positively on Twitter when I first started sharing my blog posts (January 2011, that would have been). I know he was entirely supportive of this new AmericanStudies blog that seemed similar to his, which had been around for about a year by that point; he easily could have seen mine as a competitor, but that ain’t Rob’s style. If Rob’s blog provided an excellent role model for the kind of short-form daily public scholarly writing I was hoping to do, his actions, conversations, and whole online public scholarly identity offered crucial role models of their own. I’m sure I would have muddled through those layers of this new stage of my career and life in any case, but I’m equally sure that they wouldn’t have been as successful, and I know they wouldn’t have been as enjoyable. I’m forever grateful to Rob for helping get them off to a start that was both, and remains so these 15 years later.
Next anniversary tribute tomorrow,
Ben
PS. Please feel free to say hi and share any blog responses or ideas in comments!
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