"Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds," The Nonist, 25 September, looks at Bernard Le Bovier De Fontenelle's Entretiens sur la Pluralité des Mondes (Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds). Published in 1686, Fontenelle's book was one of the earliest efforts to popularize science.

In Errol Morris,"Which Came First, the Chicken or the Egg? (Part One)" Zoom, 25 September, two sentences by Susan Sontag take Morris to the Crimea's Valley of the Shadow of Death and the puzzle of two Roger Fenton photographs of the same scene. Which came first?

New Kid,"Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you," New Kid on the Hallway, 24 September, finds satisfaction in a teaching career off the tenure track. More power to New Kid's freedom!

Timothy Burke,"The Obligations of Academic Freedom," Minnesota Review, Fall 2006, is an important essay that I had, somehow, missed seeing. It is his fullest response to Mark Bauerlein,"Liberal Groupthink is Anti-Intellectual," CHE, 12 November 2004, and Michael Berube, What's Liberal About the Liberal Arts? Classroom Politics and 'Bias' in Higher Education (Norton, 2006). With 14 Points, Woodrow Wilson would have brought An End To War In Our Time. Withy Windle has 18 points in reply to Burke!

Scott McLemee,"Mark of Zotero," IHE, 27 September, introduces the software that you'll want for doing your research. Like McLemee or I know from software, but Manan Ahmed and Bill Turkel do, so take their and Scott's and my words for it.

Finally, Mark Stoneman has launched"Blogging History" at BlogCatalog. It's"a place for professional historians, amateur historians, and history buffs to talk about history and blogging." He invites others to join the conversations there.

Nonpartisan - 9/27/2007

Err...yes, Patrick, that's what I said.

...am I missing something here?

Nonpartisan - 9/26/2007

could be really great if it didn't require that people not only register, but already have a blog to post on it. Why do people erect such high barriers to participation on supposedly-egalitarian blogs? Makes no sense to me.

Great article by Tim Burke, BTW -- I love the way he defends digital media as being peer-reviewed by a readership that's constantly in flux, an explanation I couldn't seem to find when talking to Barbara Weinstein last week about blogging.