I got back from the political science conference yesterday, had a few glasses of wine, and slept the sleep of the just. Well, the sleep of someone who was really glad to be back in her own bed. I’m turning into an old fart and can’t sleep in hotel beds anymore.

The conference went well. We had about 50 people at the politics of blogs panel, which is good for this sort of thing. My presentation went fine. It helped that I was talking about blogs and was in a major comfort zone. The chair provides us with some helpful suggestions, and we fielded excellent questions from the audience.

Here’s the paper It’s about single interest bloggers and their unique angle on blogging.

I was a bit disappointed about the lack of awareness among academics about blogs. Very few political scientists blog. Well, who can blame them? The professional risks are high, the time commitment is huge, and many are sensibly adverse to dealing with the wingnut element (not you, of course). I still think that there are advantages to academic blogging — testing out ideas, networking, and acting as a bridge between academia and the public. There’s a way of flying under the radar (having a clunky website and forgettable title), which keeps the readership high quality and at a managable level. It’s possible to do it in the spare minutes of a day. Maybe we should have a panel on that at the next APSA.

It was also a bit disappointing to learn that few academics are reading the blogs. They don’t see the relevance of blogs and don’t even know about some very excellent, non A-list blogs. Even ones that are directly relevant to their research. There’s been some amazing online discussions in the past few years that have been completed missed by academics and the media. Somebody should probably be writing this stuff up and giving proper credit to online sources.

On Friday night, I tagged along to a dinner with a friend and her colleagues. I had some first rate fish and first rate chats with some new people. Two other women and I discussed how terrifying it is to attend APSA as a young, female graduate student. The profession is so overwhelmingly male, dressed in conservative dark suits and ties. There’s no way to blend as a woman. And clothes is such a big issue. Guys have their uniforms that give them credibility and respect. For women, there’s just so many ways to go wrong. Some either go too butch or too femme. Many just don’t have the money to spend on good conference clothes. All three of us commiserated and shared our secrets.

I caught up with some friends, though I missed more than I saw, because I was only around for a short time. I talked with my dad’s publishers. I missed my kids.

So, this is a long post for a holiday weekend, when absolutely nobody is on the Internet. I’ll be back on Tuesday, when there’s more folks about.