Thursday, February 07, 2008

Review this blog!

One of the more interesting facets of blogging is its basic narcissism. Bloggers are telling the whole world who they are and what they think presuming that somebody out there is interested. This, being an example of metablogging, is narcissism prime, or perhaps just literary or journalistic criticism. Or maybe it's philosophy. I'm sure that masters' degrees in communications and literary critical theory are being made with the blogosphere.

So, anyway, I will occassionally do a search on "Ester Republic", just to see if anybody's noticed I'm out here. Of course, most of what I get is my own posts and the usual Buy Ester Republic Weather Products Here kind of links. But sometimes, they are more interesting. Today I found a few review and listing sites:

Blogged: Blog detail page with space for comments and reviews

Placeblogger: find blogs by the location

Technorati: top tags, fans, recent posts, ranking, authority

Google Directory

Alaska Rants from AlaskaPen

The Sourdough (or, Life North of Sixty)

And--ho, ho!--the News-Miner's blogroll! Good for them.

Et cetera.

5 comments:

Tania said...

I just have you on RSS reader. Glad you enjoyed your trip, I should drop your dad an email.

Stay warm, and I will get around to subscribing to your rag real soon now. :)

Tony Ward said...

Kia ora from New Zealand,Deirdre,


Yes, there is someone out there! I just found you through my Google Alerts for Critical Theory and Critical Pedagogy. Noting your background in Critical Theory I think that you may enjoy my own website – which you are free to use as a resource. I am a retired academic with more than 40 years teaching Architecture at Universities on three continents (the UK, U. C. Berkeley and U. of Auckland, New Zealand). I have a PhD in Architecture – specialising in the interface between design education and critical theory/critical pedagogy – but my writings cover a whole range of fields. I have a distinguished teaching Award from the University of Auckland (where I taught for 20 years), and for the last five years served as Director of Academic Programme Development at Te Whare Wananga o Awanuiarangi, (one of three Maori Universities) in New Zealand where I also taught Critical Education Theory and Cultural Studies. This gave me a unique perspective on issues of Colonisation, Education and Cultural Pluralism and Critical Pedagogy. I retired a year ago and have set up the website as an educational resource. I am writing because I thought you might find my own website useful. It covers issues such as:

Critical Theory
Critical Theorists
Critical Practice (Praxis)
Critical Pedagogy
Critical Education Theory
Colonisation
Postcolonialism
Postmodernism
Indigenous Studies
Critical Psychology
Cultural Studies
Critical Aesthetics
Hegemony,
Academic Programme Development
Sustainable Design
Critical Design etc. etc.


The website at: www.TonyWardEdu.com contains more than 60 (absolutely free) downloadable and fully illustrated PDFs on all of these topics and more offered to students from the primer level, up to PhD. It also has a set of extensive bibliographies and related web links in all of these areas.

I would be very grateful if you would have a look at the website and perhaps bring it to the attention of your friends and colleagues for them to use as a resource.

There is no catch!

It’s just that I believe the world is going to hell at an unimaginable rate and I want to do something to help to turn it around – for my five children and my grandchildren All that I ask in return, is that you and they let me know what you think about the website and cite me for any material that may be downloaded and/or used.

I would also appreciate a reciprocal link to my site from your own so that others may come to know about it and use it.

Many thanks and best wishes

Dr. Tony Ward Dip.Arch. (Birm)
Academic Programme, Tertiary Education and Sustainable Design Consultant

(Ph) (07) 307 2245
(m) 027 22 66 563
(e) tonyward.transform@xtra.co.nz

Ishmael said...

Okay, I don't pretend to understand half of what you wrote in this post, but I did want to say I like the spiffy new lay out you seemed to have settled on. I really like the colors and may have to steal them.

Deirdre Helfferich said...

Tania: hiya, um, not sure who you are...

Tony: well, my background in critical pedagogy is pretty limited, but I've read some French feminist literary criticism (in the original), and that's got to be densest, most multileveled, philosophic writing I've ever read, and that includes trying to figure out quantum physics in my astronomy class with no calculus, or good Chinese poetry. At any rate, I took a look at your website and it's very interesting, although I have a sneaking suspicion that doing more publicizing than informing me about it..

Ish: good artists create, great artists steal. Have at it.

Deirdre Helfferich said...

PS: I HATE it when I write in typos, or in this case, leave out words. Years ago my mom gave me a t-shirt (girly pink) that says:

Read Carefully To See If You Any Words Out.