Honoring danah boyd. You know it makes sense.
Mar 1st 2008NiaLLLarkinUncategorized & danah boyd & honorary doctorate
What no, danah boyd?
danah boyd will not be at SXSW, ETech and CHI this year.
What could possibly be keeping her away?
Is it a family thing? Something personal? No. She has to write up her dissertation.
Emperor’s new clothes
It’s a kind of absurdity. A kind of reverse ‘emperor’s new clothes’. We all know that danah has achieved natural social rank for her outstanding contributions to the field. We know that rank is admired by many ‘more qualified’ academics who regularly cite her work.
When an honor is a curse…
It IS a good idea to honor people for their work. But when doing so we have to consider the most appropriate way to do it. At its most basic, its counterproductive to interrupt someone’s work flow when they are doing a good job.
But this case is exceptional…
Encouraging danah to stop doing her work in the most effective way she knows how and to change tack to using a less effective process (ie writing a dissertation) doesn’t make sense.
It’s like saying
‘We want to recognize your exceptional effectiveness. But in order for us to do so we first insist you drop you existing work practices. In their stead we want you to adopt work practices that are anything but exceptional. Its true that this will prevent you from making effective contribution to the community for quite some time. Ehhmm…but that’s the way we work. (And possibly why you have been more effective than us in the first place) I know that may seem absurd and it probably is but… ehhhmm… that’s just the way we do things’
What to do about it…
Of course, danah’s case is exceptional and universities can’t make new rules for every new and exceptional case. But that’s okay. The universities already have a mechanism for overcoming such absurdities. The honorary doctorate.
I wonder is there a dynamic, progressive university looking at this disconnect right now?
What better way to mark your university out than to show that you recognize outstanding merit. Do the community a favor. Confer danah boyd with the honorary doctorate she deserves. ASAP.
2 Comments »
zephoria on 02 Mar 2008 at 9:08 pm #
I disagree. The process of holing up and writing a dissertation is not just a drone task; it’s one of the best gifts I could give myself. This kind of focused attention on data and analysis is how new ideas emerge. I’ve been running around to conferences and events for a while now and I’ve been saying the same things. I’m bored with myself. I need time to sit and focus and writing a dissertation is a blessing in disguise. It forces me to do precisely that. It forces me to think, to come up with new ideas, to find new connections, and to articulate those in a way that will be valuable to everyone. I’m not writing this as a lame exercise for my school, but as a learning exercise for me. This is my first attempt at a “book.” It just also happens to be a dissertation and have a hard deadline. But I’m definitely not sad to have time to focus. I just would prefer to be able to make time stop so that I don’t also miss really interesting things.
NiaLLLarkin on 03 Mar 2008 at 1:42 pm #
More power to you. I’m very much looking forward to the thesis and book. I have great belief in the value of the process you are undertaking. There will be benefits for yourself, which you articulated so well above. And of couse many additional benefits for the community at large. For one thing, I’m looking forward to being able to send people a physical book as a very effective way to anchoring their attention.
I still would love to see a school step forward and recognize your contribution in a special way. I’m sitting in BlogTalk 2008 today and you’ve been name checked by the speakrs today at least once per hour this morning. So it seems that even when you are not at the conferences, you are at the conferences. So all is well. Good luck with the dissertation. See you on the other side.