This is overdue, but I am pleased to announce two new blogs on the future of books by friends who are also publishing books on books this summer, Andrew Piper and Ted Striphas. See: The Book Report and The Late Age of Print and on a not-totally-unrelated topic: Money/Speech — Okay, I’m off to California …
Author Archives: Jonathan Sterne
New Configurations of Academic Privilege?
So recently in my travels I encountered a colleague who has ascended to a high level administrative post at his school. We know each other as scholars and are academic friends. He’s the kind of person who I’m happy to see at a conference and with whom I’m happy to share a drink when the …
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Ten Words You Don’t Want to Hear From A Flight Attendant About Her Last Landing At Your Upcoming Destination
“I’d never had a flight where so many people vomited.” I finally got on a plane Friday morning and was talking with the flight attendant, who was on the Montreal-La Guardia flight that actually landed Thursday before the cancelled the rest. The above quote sums up her description of the turbulence. My flight was fine …
Baby’s First Skype Lecture
I am sitting at home writing this when I’m supposed to be in New York City. I had two flights cancelled today and after 5 hours in the airport was sent home, which was too bad since I was scheduled to give a talk at NYU this evening. Instead of giving up, we used Skype, …
A New Twist on My 2-0 Career Record
for working in historical landmarks. As a professor, I have never worked in a building that is not designated as an historical landmark. First the University of Pittsburgh’s Cathedral of Learning. Now, McGill’s Arts Building. So today I head over for my morning surf and what do I discover but that Salon.com has listed the …
On Spreading It Around
I took a grad seminar in Sociological Theory and the prof wanted to make a point about prestige and academic journals. He asked students if they could name the scholar who in the current generation is the most published in the American Journal of Sociology. Names of famous sociologists flew around the room. The prof …
How to Write a Book
Last week, I stumbled across a link to this article on how to write a book. Being part of the boing boing technogeek culture, it’s no surprise that there’s a heavy focus on tools. But I have to say that my eyes almost popped out of my head when I saw how many times Johnson …