Instructions from Tim

So for my class visit:

1) The students can just poke around whatever they find in between now and then on the front page of the blog, get a sense of the kinds of content I keep there.

2) This entry, http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/tburke1/perma12605.html, from my old HTML blog, sets out some of my early views on the purpose of blogging.

3) Here's a sample of the blogging I've done at the site Cliopatria: http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/4496.html. One thing I can talk about a bit is why I've come to blog there much less than I did at first: there are some interesting problems about the intersection between format, collaborative work, and community caught up in that.

4) Here are two pieces from Terra Nova, where I also blog quite a bit, but generally in great bursts of activity. The second of the two is probably one of the three or four most heavily linked things I've ever written.
http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2004/09/dead_monsters_a.html
http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2005/11/order_66.html

5) Some representative entries from the current WordPress version of Easily Distracted from 2006-08 that should give the students some idea of the range of things I write. (I've left Africa-related entries off this list....)
"That Which is Discussable", http://weblogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/?p=437
"Angry at Academe", http://weblogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/?p=424
"Harry Potter as Complex Event", http://weblogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/?p=407
"Fun With Intellectual Property Issues", http://weblogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/?p=366
"Stuff I Like: Sinbad Movies", http://weblogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/?p=316
"It's a Fair Cop", http://weblogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/?p=287
"ACTA Report: How Many Ward Churchills?", http://weblogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/?p=201

6) A quick look-over Technorati will give them some sense of the conversations that a blog can be plugged into. http://www.technorati.com/search/weblogs.swarthmore.edu%2Fburke

7) Here's a chance to watch me lose my reserve and bait a guy that frequently annoys the hell out of me at a site where I frequently comment: http://www.unfogged.com/archives/comments_8498.html#804139
He takes the bait:
http://www.unfogged.com/archives/comments_8498.html#804459

Equally unpleasant: my exchange with David Horowitz at his hideous site. I was going to give you the links for that, but it's unspeakably long and annoys me no end even now to read it. But this will give them some context for why blogging and online writing also has a lot of problems.

P.S. from Anne (who was of course curious): for more on this last, see
Horowitz vs. Burke, By Jamie Glazov, FrontPageMagazine.com | Friday, April 15, 2005