Maybe I Should Quit While I'm Ahead.
What does it mean to be a legitimate scholar?
Is it something remotely possible to cultivate on one's own, without institutional support?
Is it possible without a perfectly up-to-date lexical and theoretical background in one's field?
Can one be an amateur scholar? What defines that?
I have three days to decide whether to submit an abstract to ImageText. And the timing of that decision happens to correspond perfectly with a discussion (read: bitter argument) on the comixschl listserv about what legitimate scholarship is and the distinction between it, fandom, and dilettantism.
Which is generally leaving me feeling rather shaky about my own credentials. I'm - nothing. No one. I'm "working" (researching? dabbling? foundering?) in a field other than the one in which I have the most solid academic background or the most extensive experience. I'm learning as I go, without much in the way of teachers and mentors, and I really don't know what I'm doing. I don't even have the credentials to advocate effectively for my own worth.
And yet, I cling to the hope (ideal? delusion?) that I might have something worthwhile to contribute. Am I crazy (stupid? presumptuous?)? Should I crawl back under my rock and leave the thinking to proper scholars?
The first conference I attended was the Southeastern Writing Center Association. Writing Center theory - and the writing center community - radically challenges the traditional hierarchies of learning and scholarship; WisCon, where I last presented a paper, does the same. Has the relative safety of those spaces coddled me into believing that my ideas are valid when they're really no more than crayons scrawls on the wall of someone else's tower?
And if you came to an academic conference and saw a young woman with bleached hair, facial piercings, and a bachelor's degree get up and read a less-than-perfect paper, would you feel that she'd wasted your time? Would her very presence be an affront to the years you'd spent in graduate school?
God, I wish I knew what I was doing.
Is it something remotely possible to cultivate on one's own, without institutional support?
Is it possible without a perfectly up-to-date lexical and theoretical background in one's field?
Can one be an amateur scholar? What defines that?
I have three days to decide whether to submit an abstract to ImageText. And the timing of that decision happens to correspond perfectly with a discussion (read: bitter argument) on the comixschl listserv about what legitimate scholarship is and the distinction between it, fandom, and dilettantism.
Which is generally leaving me feeling rather shaky about my own credentials. I'm - nothing. No one. I'm "working" (researching? dabbling? foundering?) in a field other than the one in which I have the most solid academic background or the most extensive experience. I'm learning as I go, without much in the way of teachers and mentors, and I really don't know what I'm doing. I don't even have the credentials to advocate effectively for my own worth.
And yet, I cling to the hope (ideal? delusion?) that I might have something worthwhile to contribute. Am I crazy (stupid? presumptuous?)? Should I crawl back under my rock and leave the thinking to proper scholars?
The first conference I attended was the Southeastern Writing Center Association. Writing Center theory - and the writing center community - radically challenges the traditional hierarchies of learning and scholarship; WisCon, where I last presented a paper, does the same. Has the relative safety of those spaces coddled me into believing that my ideas are valid when they're really no more than crayons scrawls on the wall of someone else's tower?
And if you came to an academic conference and saw a young woman with bleached hair, facial piercings, and a bachelor's degree get up and read a less-than-perfect paper, would you feel that she'd wasted your time? Would her very presence be an affront to the years you'd spent in graduate school?
God, I wish I knew what I was doing.