Tuesday, March 31, 2015

return of the dilatory #adjunct blogger…redux

…my last post here, March 4, signaled a return to a blogging routine that dipped during the buildup National Adjunct Walkout Day (and week and all the other names it went by) that did not happen, at least not here, on this specific blog, one of many. It happened on the others: check the feeds on the sidebars and at the bottom of the page. Content is continually refreshed but does not show up on feeds or appear on social media…there but invisible. How very adjunctly. If it's not Facebook, it didn't happen.
to and during

Recurring "going out of business" sales and comeback tours come to mind. Here's hoping this is neither. Just in case though, I'm introducing #returnredux tag. The month of March was like being there while not being there. I needed a longer NAWD recovery period than anticipated. Then came après NAWD recovery. A Rashomon Effect post is in the works. And others. #afterNAWD is, after all, the new NAWD genre.


Après-après would be de trop. So I opted for the busman's holiday version and took Two Writing Teachers' annual month (of March) long Slice of Life blogging challenge, not posting to this but to another blog, one (so far) less connected to this network. If I keep posting, then I'm back; if not, then not. If back but not the same, chalk it up to the spirit of NAWD: I feel like doing something different here but am not sure yet just what.

"What not" is much clearer than "what" Not straight up news. That I already do and better on Precarity Dispatches. Most curated re-blogging goes to As the Adjunctiverse Turns, with some to the Precarious Faculty (Tumblr). Not announcements. Facebook, PD and PF/Tumblr handle those. There are limits to being the adjuncts' adjunct. More Adjunct Stories? Yes, there (but not here. Maybe meta-stories about the genre, site reviews and where to find them, submit your stories, etc.

That declaration of impending yet indefinite change is no sooner made than modified: some ongoing projects will continue or (if also on NAWD hiatus) resume. Collating education, adjunct and other higher ed blogs and resource links on InoReader as open resources and working with the Education Bloggers Network will continue. The collation and bundling (feeds and downloadable opml file) may expand into other topics.

Labor news comes to mind. As Keith Hoeller recently reminded the adj-l list, mainstream media labor coverage is thin on the ground. What better voice to add to our own academic labor news and information stream than Keith's? Then there is organizing the massive collection of NAWD and related links and news stories into a manageable (searchable and shareable) public database. I'm still not ready to think about that.

To borrow from the Ad-Junked Professor, I'd rather be a thinkivist ~ and from myself ~ an informationist than an activist. Thinking + Information = Curation. The activists need us to give them material to work with, get ideas and information out and…especially…to call out fearlessly and without caving when they are when running around buck naked.

3 comments:

  1. This reminds me of ...

    A Coat
    By William Butler Yeats

    I made my song a coat
    Covered with embroideries
    Out of old mythologies
    From heel to throat;
    But the fools caught it,
    Wore it in the world's eyes
    As though they'd wrought it.
    Song, let them take it,
    For there's more enterprise
    In walking naked.

    Thanks for all you do, and welcome back, publicly!

    Ana/Adjunct Justice

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The poem is fine and with quotes I can see using, but what is your take on specific coment, my manifesto/challenge?

      It's not as though I was really that gone or page content turned stale for lack of refreshing.

      Delete
  2. I was going to write something completely different until I got to the end, and I read "The activists need us to give them material to work with, get ideas and information out and…especially…to call out fearlessly and without caving when they are when running around buck naked."

    That's what caused my complete turnaround, making me forget everything else I had been thinking about as I read your piece.

    As I was reading, I kept ruminating about how you were not gone at all, but you were "here, there, and everywhere..." (a Beatles' song this time?)

    So when we talk about "thinktivist", or "informationist," I like those terms, but I also like the more inclusive term I think you might be reaching for: a humanist informationist, because you do not limit yourself to one thing anymore now.

    As many of us realize, adjunct faculty are only one small part of a much larger slice of the pie, which we have to cover inclusively.

    And you do so beautifully.

    We cannot restrict ourselves to one thing only anymore: that's having horse's blinders on. We chucked those out long ago.

    I know you did so anyway... We should all do so and become humanists, fighting for ALL.

    Besos, not borders, Ana/Adjunct Justice

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