Tomorrow I drop my 275th #ScholarSunday thread! In honor of that momentous occasion, I wanted to share a Saturday short meta-thread of a few things I’ve learned about public scholarship from working on these threads across all these weeks & years.
First, a note that I’d put that work, as well as this Black & White & Read All Over public scholarly website that Vaughn has put so much great work into (& especially all the Resources she’s assembled & continues to add to), in conversation with an important new book:
David M. Perry’s The Public Scholar: A Practical Handbook, out now from Johns Hopkins UP. Our copy has arrived, & can’t wait to dig into it & will share lots of takeaways & connections as I do, in these threads & in many other places I’m sure.
With that said, here are just a handful of takeaways from my work on the first 275 of these #ScholarSunday threads:
- There are more places to share public scholarship than ever! Check out all those places on Vaughn’s Pitchables list, or just look through every one of these threads. Especially the last 100 or so, as the options have really grown exponentially.
- It ain’t easy! Taking the first step into that public scholarly space might feel even more intimidating now, though, given how many other folks are doing so as well. I recommend Vaughn’s page of tips, as well as Perry’s book, for great advice. But most of all, I recommend experimenting with your writing & voice & ideas in this form, & one great way to do that is with a guest post—such as on my AmericanStudier blog (email me at brailton@fitchburgstate.edu with ideas!).
- Public scholarship isn’t just about responding to what’s happening right now! That’s certainly one option, which is why I have a Current Events section in every thread. But each thread likewise features tons of work—short- and long-form articles, newsletters and blog posts, podcast conversations—about subjects that aren’t in the news right now, but that audiences of all kinds will find interesting. I bet there are layers to your work, whatever you work on, for which that’ll be the case!
- Public scholars aren’t just academics! I hope this one goes without saying, but I’m gonna say it with my whole chest anyway. Every voice, every perspective, with something to contribute to our conversations, with knowledge and expertise and ideas and work to share, is a public scholar. I hope my threads include & reflect a huge range of folks, in every sense, and I’m always looking to expand further.
- Finding & sharing all this public scholarly goodness is hard! I started these threads because I worried that a lot was falling through the cracks, and that’s even more of a danger now, because of how much there is and because of [looking around] how much there is, y’know?! All of that means this work gets even more difficult and intensive as we near thread 300, but it also makes me feel that it’s more important still. And as much as I hope I’m offering solidarity through these threads, I also need it from y’all. Please share the threads every change you get, reach out with contributions and ideas (including your own work of course!), support and advocate public scholars of all forms in all spaces, and generally embody the solidarity and community that you want to see and be part of.
That’s it for today! I’ll see you tomorrow for the 275th #ScholarSunday thread!
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