Deluxe apartment in the sky

Hey you guys! Guess what, guess what! I’m moving to the Chronicle Blog Network!

I know, I know. You hate it when people do that. You think it’s inconvenient to get a new login in order to comment, you don’t like the new location, and for some reason you think bloggers are less genuine or something when they’re hosted by a big network. I get it, I do. But I like the Chronicle, and I think it’s important that non-traditional academic types like myself are represented in these forums. I’m incredibly pleased to have been invited to do just that.

If you read this blog through an RSS reader, all you have to do is update the feed address and nothing will change. They will never put the blogs behind a subscription wall, and they have no editorial control over what I write. Plus they’re designing a snappy logo for me.

I have decided that it’s best for me to maintain my pseudonymity over there. The Chronicle is very supportive of pseudonymity, and in fact they only know my first name. I thought about going public – it would be so much easier to talk about how to run a Center if I could actually talk about how I run a Center. But I tried to imagine having “the” conversation with the Center PIs about blogging… and I just couldn’t do it. They get paranoid enough about being careful on our Center’s blog. I’d much rather self-censor than be censored by my employers.

Then I realized that I don’t really have a pseudonym in this space. “Research Centered” is the name of this blog, not the name of a blogger. It doesn’t really convey a personality.

So I would like to introduce myself to you as Minerva Cheevy.

Child of scorn.

Minerva is, of course, the Roman goddess known by the Greeks as Athena, goddess of wisdom and war — two things in which someone in a position like mine must be skilled.

It is also a feminization of the name of the rather useless hero of the Edward Arlington Robinson poem. Miniver Cheevy was “a child of scorn” who had romantic notions about the past, and was absolutely sure that his life would have been awesome had he been born in a different time. He was very unhappy about his actual place in life, but refused to do anything about it. Instead, he sat around complaining and drinking. I certainly do my share of scorning. And thinking. (And drinking.) But I hope the resemblance ends there – and I’d like to use the name as a constant reminder to myself of what I don’t want to become.

The move won’t happen for a couple more weeks. When it does, there will be a redirect here at this address. I hope you’ll follow me over there, and consider getting yourself a Disqus login so you can comment.

---