Welcome. Thank you for being here. 

Written By Morgan Ridgway

In some ways this is a long time coming. Perhaps a millennial cliché or the current cultural obsession with making “content” or the slightest creeping FOMO I feel but here we are, bringing blogging back.

As a child of the internet, blogging is in my DNA. While I failed to be chronically online in my youth in the proto-social media age, I did come of age during the heydays of Myspace, Tumblr, Instagram, and the niche subcommunities found on Reddit, AO3, and Livejournal to name a few. 

My lack of full participation in these social digital landscapes aside, I am of the generation of recording and documentation. Historically, my preferences have been analog. I would keep journals that I would feverishly scribble any and everything into. As an only child with a single mother often out of the house, the page was my most consistent companion. I would have notebooks for observations, for rants, for fears, and for thoughts that would otherwise get stuck inside my brain. 

Blogging, as opposed to other digital forms, is historically much like a zine: open to all and a mode to resist traditional forms of publication, community development, and access to knowledge. It brings the power of the analog into the digital sphere. My hope then is for this to become a digital library where my curiosities, references, and aspirations may find a home. This will be a space to take the world seriously without being so serious. It is tempting to fall into another cliché here: that of the “public” intellectual. In recent history, there has been a rise, particularly in the humanities, of “public-facing” work that often retains its academic jargon but promotes itself as “different” because it is not in a peer-reviewed journal. I understand the impulse to find relief from the ivory tower (although whether that is the always the intention in all “public” work is a conversation for another day) but academia has a way of coloring everything and exorcising the fun out of writing and thinking. 


So, this leads me back to this post and why you (and I) are here. This blog is my attempt to return to the roots of the internet. To think out loud, in public, without needing to build some sort of impenetrable singular argument about something. Instead, this is a place for the things I have observed or have occupied my mind and interest. It is for the niche and for the mainstream. I did spend years in PhD training and this undoubtedly informs how I write, talk, and see the world but my goal here is to notice the present such that I can reclaim a small sliver of knowledge production on my own terms. 


In this era when knowledge is increasingly paywalled and we are forced to subscribe to services to even see the world let alone understand it, I hope this blog is a reminder that knowledge is our birthright. We should not have to pay to know something is happening nor should we have to receive our information from a single resource that is trying to convince us of a singular thing. If we do choose to spend our money some place, may it be on our terms and with intention and purpose. Knowledge is democratic in that it is best when it is diverse in perspective and believes that through dialogue a better future is possible. So, to the best of my ability I will share links throughout my posts that you can engage with on your own time and on your own terms. Self-directed reading can change your life because a true practice of reading is a practice of understanding and empathy. The biggest benefit of completing my PhD has been access and I believe it is a duty to share that with as many people as I can. 

But I digress.

I wish for this to be a space for freedom. A place for my brain to follow thoughts and discover new reasons and ways to engage the world. Today, like many times before, is a deeply lonely and heartwrenching time. The sky appears to be falling and death is everywhere around us. And still there are delights. And questions. And opportunities to think the world differently and in the process uncover avenues of connection which are, I believe, the true stuff of living. 

So, welcome to my little corner of the internet and thank you for being here.

*I will end this (and all other posts) with a few citations and links to things that have been staying with me. 

Morgan Ridgway