Thread by @MarcosSGonsalez

read a scholarly journal & found myself saying, “Wow, I felt like twitter already covered all this material. This feels repetitive.”

if critique/close-reading/citing work is no longer just done by sanctioned scholars in academia, what does this mean for the scholar? [thread]

this means people are engaging with texts, getting higher educations, using methods that were supposed to be the exclusive tools of sanctioned academics.

The internet moves fast, has better, broader distribution—scholarly journals do not.

as this kind of critical work & critique is getting done in tweet threads/blogs/other forms of publications that move faster than academic journals how will scholars adapt? If more people are trained/educated to do critique/analysis, how will scholars distinguish what they do?

This is not to say the scholar function is obsolete but rather an inquiry into how the scholar can do more than just critique a text, noting shortcomings & the kind of work that could have been done when many can seem to do that now quickly & easily through other channels.

& was reading a journal where most of the articles were doing that—pure critique of texts & their limits which the internet had already done on those texts months/years ago in much more engaging & shorter prose.

this is an argument for more imaginative scholarship. In a time when consolidations & cuts to Departments & programs happen for any reason, having particular traditions & methods that others do equally as well & faster is to make oneself obsolete.

as someone who has been disciplined cause I was too imaginative with my prose/methods/inquiries, & has seen others get similar responses, seeing articles that reproduce Tradition & status quo but didn’t build my knowledge cause I saw it on the internet already, is frustrating.

scholarship is important. Scholarly work that takes time to think is important. but times change & the students of the masters are now out their moving quicker & using the same methods/texts & doing good work.

What other modes of scholarship are possible beyond just critique?

many scholars pose scholarship that speaks on behalf of groups: “I am critiquing X work on behalf of Y group or Z’s mode of thinking.”

what happens when said group already did that critique/thinking months/years ago? What happens when a model of scholarship becomes outdated?

I think those years of scholars having to speak and represent underrepresented groups are over thanks to the internet & access—those people can represent themselves & their critiques.

which this effectively puts into question how scholarship is done: methods, genealogies, audiences for work, exigency.

If not keeping up with what activist-writers-thinkers are doing on social media, which many have been trained in the academia, doing a disservice to yourself.