Just look at the interest and engagement about content at Wikipedia, the thousands of hits a day at the History News Network, and the thousands of hits at day at CHNM projects. The “history” tag is one of the more popular tags on del.icio.us.

That is popular history. Innundate those sites with the theses of scholarly works (if you can figure out what the hell said theses are), and see how many non-specialists you can get to care about how vic turner’s theories are being applied to pre-aurangzeb mughal india.

And I’d say that the “who gives a damn” divide did shrink greatly when scholarly works (and publications more generally) were published in more languages and made more accessible to the public.

you think scholarly work is published in language accessible to the public? Thats rich. I can understand Seneca better than I can understand HRM Spivak. And I dont speak Latin.

most English poems are another kettle of macchliyaan, as each poem as a whole tends to express a particular theme. given that (except in the case of musalsal ghazals), every verse of the ghazal is a semantic unit unto itself, and relates thematically — or, rather, mazmuun-wise — to other shi`rs that might be in other ghazals, in other diwans, by other poets, performing mazmun-based criticism can be an exhausting task. believe me, i’ve tried.

the only way to do it without running your finger through kulliyat upon kulliyat is to a) have a million verses memorized, as some people still do, or b) have a whole whack of them indexed on a computer. no doubt as notebooks, blogs, and websites continue to usurp the place of the human memory (or maybe i’m just speaking for myself…) plan a will be less and less feasible.

basically, we need one of these for every ghazal-poet out there.

some monograph on shahjahanabad or the kakatiyas can be digitialized, hyperlinked, wikied, etc, etc, but its not going to make anyone any more interrested in the subject.

So, where’s your proof of this? How do we know that it wouldn’t make anyone any more interested in it?

It’s quite unsound to start with the assumption that no one would be more interested. I may be a hopeless optimist, but I believe that the “smoke and mirrors techno act” is more than just an act, and does in fact help bridge you “who gives a damn” divide.

I place far more blame on ivory tower academics, who stick their noses up at the idea of making their work freely available on the web and engaging with the public through digital methods. Just look at the interest and engagement about content at Wikipedia, the thousands of hits a day at the History News Network, and the thousands of hits at day at CHNM projects. The “history” tag is one of the more popular tags on del.icio.us.

And I’d say that the “who gives a damn” divide did shrink greatly when scholarly works (and publications more generally) were published in more languages and made more accessible to the public.

My issue is with seeing the actual compiling, etc., *as my work*. This could be a disciplinary difference. http://eliotswasteland.tripod.com/, for example, strikes me as a limited alpha version of what you’re getting at, but even so, it’s got this feeling of being merely “reference.” Annotation, compilation, etc., strikes me as so unsexy… as so… historical.

So like I said, maybe it’s a disciplinary difference, in which case I’m trying to wonder how English would react. Or I’m a snob. Or I don’t fully understand. Or some bombination.

Another beacon of digital inspirado, in addition to the terrific folks at CHNM, is my UWO colleague Bill Turkel and his weblog Digital History Hacks. Check it out, if you haven’t already.

Anyway, ‘from pundit to programmer’ we should be able to speak with ease to all, including the Public who should be the beneficiaries of all this expertise. No point in turning all this into a private cultivation of the self and attaining tenure.