21 lines
2.3 KiB
Markdown
21 lines
2.3 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: 'The Shape of Thought'
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date: '2012-09-13T09:55:22-04:00'
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permalink: /the-shape-of-thought/
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tags:
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- reflecting
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---
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I mentioned yesterday that I’ve been thinking about the next Big Project. I’ve been circling it for a while, trying to figure out what several of the various things I’ve written recently have to do with one another. And over the last week, I think I’ve at least started to get it; I’m starting to develop a sense of the overall shape of the thing.
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But here’s the problem, or at least the surprise: that shape, as it’s appearing to me right now, is awfully traditional. A Book. I’m not positive that the thing is best produced or conveyed that way, but that’s the shape that’s in my head.
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Now that I write that last sentence, it occurs to me that I may mean it more literally than I originally thought. The shape of the book is really in my head, a form that molds thought even as it occurs.[^1] I have no illusion that this is natural, and I’m pretty sure that this shape can be changed. But it is a sign of how deeply the structures of book culture are ingrained in all of the ways that I think: after ten years of blogging, after years of research and writing about the potentials that other forms of scholarly communication might take, I still reflexively sketch out book projects in my head.
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Of course, calling this a book only really implies that it’s a predominantly text-based long-form argument. It doesn’t necessarily call for print. And it doesn’t necessarily call for it to be produced in the traditional way — off-stage, in seclusion, only to be shared (except within carefully controlled circles) when finished.
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My hope is that I’ll be able to produce this thing in public, whether here or elsewhere, and perhaps as I work its shape might evolve from the book prototype in my head into something a bit more dynamic and fluid. Or perhaps it will turn out that this thing really is best suited to book-like form. I just want to be sure that I’m open to the possibilities, that I’m not defaulting to the shape I know because I know it.
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[^1]: I am now unavoidably thinking about those old Play-Doh toys that allowed you to extrude various shapes of goo by pushing the stuff through a crank-driven mold that bore an awful lot of resemblance to a meat grinder. I would prefer not to have one of those in my head, I think.
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