Reading List; Design; Slow

Books I have in the British Library today (as logged on bkkeepr) and some brief thoughts on design and the concept of Slow:

Filed under: reading

Taking Advantage of the British Library

From some discussions I’ve been having recently about public spaces where people can interact, and from the experience I had at Bookcamp, I’m thinking about trying to set up a wiki or blog of some kind to encourage/enable researchers to hold impromptu meetings/seminars/discussions.

There are so many people working in the British Library, it seems a shame that you might be working across from someone who’s researching similar things to you and you’d never speak to them.

Filed under: miscellaneous , britishlibrary

PhD To-Do List

Write proposal for continuity and change conference in Berlin (McSweeney’s as defined by change; the cannibalization of the American periodical tradition; subcultural identity defined against unstable cultural object) – for February 28 2009.

Fill out the chapter outline I worked on for Josh a couple of weeks ago. Teaching got into my head a bit and I got distracted, hence putting something like this online. I have a clear enough idea of my first three chapters, basing them on the presentation I gave at GLITS recently. I aim to have another three after that, but right now they’re generally just brief notes, whereas for my other two I can plot out sections – complete a new version for February 20 2009.

Read more postmodern theory, esp. Jameson and anything on metaculture – ongoing (but focus on in BL later today/tomorrow).

Work on a chapter draft of my synchronic analysis of McSweeney’s 1. I’ve written a lot of stuff in the year and a half I’ve been doing my PhD, but most of it is bunk by now. My recent reassessment of my thinking has meant I’ve not got anything solid that I think is good enough. So I need to start getting that down, probably. Longer deadline for this as I intend it to be something proper – should be in excess of 10,000 words, definitely – for March 27 2009.

Filed under: research questions , deadlines, phd

Quick Splurge of Ideas

Had a meeting with Chris Meade this morning. Hammered out a few problematic ideas about the project I’ve been talking about here. Rough plan of action:

- Set up a blog about the concept of a pop-up shop (open source creativity model) for creativity/literacy/imagination/engagement/everything

- Talk to people about education/arts-academic-community grant

- FIND MORE PEOPLE

- Put together a mini-project for Alex’s exhibition event day

- FIND MORE PEOPLE

Write more soon.

Filed under: popupshop