Beginning The LitReview

Notes on starting a series of posts about random things that, hopefully, won't be so random any longer!

tags: LitReview

I read a lot of things on the internet. I read about programming and tech. culture. I read about intersectional politics and post-capitalist futures and surviving in a capitalist society. I read about art, media, and the sociology of everything in between. In essence, I read think pieces and more. I’m trained in both creative writing and computer science, and as this is primarily a blogging project, I’m going to actually take the approach of the former discipline, creative writing (or, perhaps more accurately, it’s more ‘rigorous’ cousin, English): a literature review! I’m stretching the scope of “literature” here to include things we read in our every day lives: blogs, news articles, and forum questions, as well as obscure, discipline specific works: papers, journal articles, other (“actual”) literature reviews, and essays.

What’s been on my mind lately are the topics of future-of-work and programming culture, but if I like the form of the lit. review I may try expanding this to a bunch of other purviews: education, diversity, programming languages, history of science and philosophy, and culture.

I come across so many links every day, I only save a fraction of those I think are worth reading, and a smaller fraction of those I actually read. Still, to process information this way is a real pain, because I develop ideas but then never really have the time to digest new thoughts — how does the relegation of medieval culture to the “Dark Ages” speak to narratives of progress and futurism? I don’t know the whole scope of the answer to that question, indeed people spend their lives trying to answer historical epistemological questions like that, but if I can do anything with all my reading, it’s to be able to point people toward interesting things to think about.

You can read the articles I read, which I’ll always link to, or just read my excerpts and my commentary. However you like, I’ll be trying to publish one a month. Here’s the first one. Enjoy!