Wednesday, September 04, 2013

Academia.edu


Encouraged by the participation of respected colleagues like Larry Zimmerman and Fred McGhee, I’ve lately begun posting stuff to Academia.edu.  Described in Wikipedia as “a social networking website for academics," Academia.edu has some three million registered users, and can, says Wikipedia, “be used to share papers, monitor their impact, and follow the research in a particular field.
They’ll probably boot me off eventually for being too non-academic, but for the moment I’m using it as an opportunity to breathe a little new life (last gasps?) into ancient papers delivered at conferences, submitted to journals but rejected or just never published, done for forgotten government agency programs, and published in now-defunct media.  On traditional cultural properties (TCPs), for instance, and National Archaeological Research Topics (NARTs), as well as some Ameliana.  Mostly my own stuff but some that’s co-authored, plus some documents prepared and distributed by an anonymous 1980s critic of the Reagan administration’s approach to historic preservation (which, sadly, isn’t much different from the Obama administration’s).  Take a look if you’re interested, and consider adding your own papers; it’s remarkably easy, and might stimulate some discussion.