My blogging

Along at Crooked Timber Henry Farrell asks some questions:

If you're an academic who blogs, what prompted you to start blogging?

Wanting to 'join the conversation', particularly as a member of the left with views out of harmony with much (most?) of the rest of the left on the post-9/11 world. And wanting to try it out, just out of curiosity.

And what keeps you going?

Wanting to remain part of the blog conversation. The fact that I (mostly) enjoy it. Some amorphous sense - which would once, probably, have been described as 'reified', and may still be by some for all I know - of obligation to what I perceive as the demands of my blog.

What do you try to do in your blog?

Discuss poilitical issues that I think are important or worth noting. Link to items that have come to my attention and which I find of interest. Try to cover a range of other things beyond politics in any narrow sense. Have fun.

Does your blog have any relationship to your scholarship?

Some. I ran a series on the concept of crimes against humanity, which is what I've been working on lately, and have posted a few other things directly relevant to my past or present work. There's also a looser general relationship between the political issues I discuss on my blog and my academic concerns.

[W]hat do you get from reading blogs?

A lot of interest. And tired.

(Update: amended at 2.50 PM.)