The limits to pseudonymity

Undine, noting the migration of various bloggers to the Chronicle and similar spaces, comments that "the integration of blogs/Twitter/Facebook that sites are aiming for makes that cloak of pseudonymity even thinner than before," and goes on to say that "when I tried blogging a little bit under my own name, I hedged so much about everything that the posts were worthless (and I took the blog down almost immediately)."  By an ironic twist of fate, I similarly found myself "hedging" my posts (so much so that I think they may have developed sharp quills) during this blog's earlier incarnation on Blogspot many years ago...back, that is, when the blog was pseudonymous.  References to furniture-hunting (hey, it's nineteenth century furniture) and cats (they have Victorian names!) aside, this has never been a blog primarily oriented to my personal life or political opinions (actually, it's never been oriented to my political opinions).  My intention has always been to focus on a combination of academic life in general and my own scholarly adventures in particular.  And there's the rub: I couldn't talk about my scholarship in any detail when the blog was pseudonymous, because there are five other people on the planet who do what I do!  (That's not quite as hyperbolic as it sounds.)  

In my own case, then, associating my blog with my name was more liberating than otherwise.  Indeed, it has also proven professionally useful, in terms of establishing connections and, in some cases, creating opportunities (invitations to deliver papers or write articles/reviews, for example).  Heck, people sometimes cite the blog in print publications--that little post on writing neo-Victorian novels has gained a surprising amount of traction.  However, pseudonymity would no doubt look far more appealing if I were in a perilous position job-wise, or if I wanted to write about politics/my personal life/my hobby of collecting dragon-shaped bottle stoppers.  (Before you ask: no, I do not collect dragon-shaped bottle stoppers.)   

Comments

[jo(e)]

My blog has become less pseudonymous (I link to it from a name with my real name on Google+ for example), and I find it hasn't changed much. I think I always wrote as if I could be outed at any moment.

[undine]

Thanks for the link and this thoughtful post, LP. I can see why people would cite this blog, because it really is a scholarly enterprise with good information. Like jo(e), I try to write as if I could be outed at any moment but hope that it doesn't happen. It would be nice to be able to talk about scholarship, though, as a non-pseudonymous person could.