Man, last year at the MLA bloggers were still scarce enough that Scott Jaschik of Inside Higher Ed furtively interviewed six of us in his hotel room, with questions like “How do you feel being a blogger at MLA?” This year the blog coverage is massive and intense. I had a good time at MLA: I gave a paper I was reasonably satisfied with, heard some other really good ones in my field, saw a bunch of friends, met some new people, and got introduced to a truly phenomenal Mexican restaurant in Adams Morgan to which I want to return, like, yesterday. That’s about it. I didn’t even spend as much time (or money) as usual at the book exhibit. I’m not sure I feel the need to produce nine theses on the MLA or three observations or whatever else. The Valve especially seems in need of a release.
The MLA is what the MLA is. Sometimes it’s big and alienating, sure. So what? But I felt a lot of the same connection to a “community” at my first MLA eight or nine years ago from meeting people I had previously known only through listserv email. A few of the accounts I’ve read of bloggers flashing their badges at other bloggers have been just a little bit precious, the kind of thing that would frankly make otherwise reasonable people think Ivan Tribble might have been on to something after all when he essentialized the lot of us.
Harrumph. Happy new year!
Posted by mgk at January 1, 2006 09:41 AM