For several years I wrote a political blog. I quit because the demands of graduate school afforded me no time. I have enjoyed doing so again, under my anonymous moniker no longer so anonymous. I'm sure I was so when I posted at Howard's blog, however. She actually replied to my post on her blog, but only on her blog, and only half-condescendingly.
I have found our discussions here to be quite useful, particularly since blogging fit the topic of this course. I have learned from my colleagues, and hope that I have somehow contributed to our online discussion. I must confess, however, that I find some of the overheated and hyperbolic claims (not by my colleagues) made by some of the writers and specialists in the field to be full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Some of the authorship claims defy one's sensibility at times. On the other hand, I found the issues of copyright and fair use to be compelling. In fact, those issues sparked my political blogging spirit, and I wanted to march out of the room some nights, decrying the injustice of the corporatocracy (oligarchy, plutocracy, GOP - grand old plutocracy).
For the rhetoricians amongst us, I would recommend taking a look at Stephen Pinker, Daniel Dennet, Richard Dawkins, and James Q. Wilson. Using Foucault, Barthes, and Bakhtin as models for authorship and sources for cultural analysis is more than just primitive. It's like trying to study biology without Darwin.
Cheers!
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