Readers will notice I’ve been doing a lot of linking and commenting lately. At the risk of being labelled a link and comment blogger (which I don’t think I am, at least not always) I now proffer the following defense of link and comment.
Some go all timorous and apologetic: “I know this is only a link and comment, but . . .” I say, go forth boldly! I link and comment things I find interesting, things that may see application in my research (I can find them in my blog, unlike my bookmarks), things I want to share with others. It’s like show and tell all over again: “Look at this great thing I found. Isn’t it interesting? I like it, and I think you’ll like it too.” Plus sometimes it’s all I have time for, and I like to feed the blog.
Linking and commenting, I remind you, are two of the things we once found pretty exciting about hypertext systems: they allowed us to link and . . . comment (annotate). Ah, you say, yes, but if all we had were links and comments then how impoverished the blogosphere would be. What truly makes blogs worth reading are the individual voices, the stylistic thumbprints unique to every writer. But wait a minute . . . here is the Romantic author redivivus! Have we learned nothing from the last thirty years of literary theory? We’re all just nodes on the grid, our prose ripples and vortices of feedback. The author is dead! Long live the author.
In the meantime, here’s a link . . . no comment.
Posted by mgk at November 5, 2003 07:40 PMi would rather be a link and comment than a 'rambling inanity' or a 'my life story' or a 'my opinion rules' or a wide variety of others, though admitedly some people do have nice 'interesting self-generated content' blogs.
Posted by: jeremy hunsinger at November 5, 2003 07:57 PM | Link to CommentLet me head something off at the pass: this is not meant to impugn anyone else's blog or stlye of blogging, and I did not write it with anyone else's blog or style of blogging particularly in mind. I'm just herdin'--as evidenced by the link.
Posted by: MGK at November 5, 2003 08:18 PM | Link to CommentUmmmm, the death of the author stuff and the rise of hyperlinking.... are you rehearsing a set of arguments to provoke students? It seems that the comment-link-stylistics theme could be milked more by reference to polyphony and dialogic form a la Bakhtin. Just chewing the cud.
Very interesting to study the very arresting double pun: is linking to hearding as commenting is to hearing? or vice versa?
Posted by: Francois Lachance at November 6, 2003 09:13 AM | Link to CommentSo, Francois, isn't it high time you started blogging yourself? ;-)
Posted by: MGK at November 6, 2003 09:59 AM | Link to Comment:)
You mean this doesn't count?
**points to results of a WWW search with the string "Francois Lachance blog"**