I wanted to draw your attention to a few recent developments happening in the blogosphere.
David Nye has crossed over, into the virtual ether with his own Blog, After the American Century. He's expected to guest post on occasion here at the AC. The layout is clean, simple and direct, a perfect format for an academic weblog. He's also included open-access links to some of his publications. Stop by for a visit and leave him a comment. Better yet, just add it to your RSS feed.
The American Studies Center at the University of East Anglia has had a blog up since June. The blog is run by Thomas Ruys Smith and the other faculty. Apart from relevant local information, you will find commentary about news items and other interests within our field. I'm also told that they may post podcasts of special lectures and other events. They have created a permanent link to us and vice versa. We received a friendly mention in today's post;
This is the first post in an ongoing endeavour to highlight useful research tools and websites of interest to those of us in the American Studies field. If you look in the sidebar to the right, you can see that there are two links already in existence. The first is a link to the British Association for American Studies. The second is a link to one of the only other American Studies blogs in existence, The Atlantic Community, run by graduate students based in Denmark who got in touch through the blog. Both, in their own way, contain much that is of interest.
The University of East Anglia is also a member of The American Studies Network, where they developed and host the American Studies Network Database.
Finally, as "one of the only other American Studies blogs in existence", we would like to welcome others to participate here directly on our site or as a linked-up members of our embryonic virtual community. We see blogging not so much as a replacement to traditional academic communication but as a [new] platform for innovative social scholarship, providing greater networking and contextual possibilities.
