VIR‘TUAL SCHO’LAR – 1. n. a type of scholar who uses new media technologies to conduct and write up their research. 2. n. a scholar who attends no particular field of practice or interest, but who writes in a critical and scholarly manner. 3. n. an imaginary scholar who may one day come to exist.

This site has evolved constantly, and gradually it has given me the idea for an edited volume, to collate together a variety of articles and experiemental pieces of writing (including reflexive writing and image-based work). The elements to be included will generally to be drawn from distinct, published articles (see list of associated papers), rather than actual blog entries. Nevertheless, it is has been the working process of using a blog to ‘cut ‘n’ paste’ my ideas together that provides a rationale for the book – to explore (1) ideas about a fragmentary field of knowledge; (2) a transient mode of scholarship and scholarly writing; (3) the significance of new technologies vis-a-vis post-structuralist debates; and (4) the status of Theory and Theory as writing. Perhaps the book can be thought of as a contemporary response to Walter Benjamin’s One-Way Street:

‘Significant literary work can only come into being in a strict alternation between action and writing; it must nurture the inconspicuous forms that better fit its influence in active communities than does the pretentious, universal gesture of the book – in leaflets, brochures, articles, and placards. Only this prompt language shows itself actively equal to the moment’ – Walter Benjamin, One-Way Street

Benjamin’s enigmatic writing has proved to be a vital resource for contemporary criticism (offering for some a kind of methodological compass), yet equally we might ask where is the ‘prompt language’ he gestures towards? Elsewhere in One-Way Street, Benjamin presents – as part of his 13 theses on the writer’s technique – the wonderful line: ‘Do not write the conclusion of a work in your familiar study. You would not find the necessary courage there’. …what if, then, we seek greater courage still by writing everything away from the study? …And, what does it mean (and where does one seek) to write Theory today?

On topics varying from the use of mobile phones and wi-fi technology, Flaubert’s Bouvard and Pécuchet, the work of Paul Klee and contemporary filmmakers Patrick Keiller and Chris Marker, as well as Asian asethetics and popular culture, Virtual Scholars presents a collection of essays and photo-texts which explore the art of ‘moving theory’ – making Theory not only connect critically with the material world around us, but also to touch us, to be both affirmative and affecting. Of course, as with the site’s tagline, ‘An imgained form of scholarship’, so perhaps this might only be an imagined book project (indeed who will publish such a thing?), but I hope it might eventually be made real…

Associated Papers:
- ‘Yes! …but when?’ in preparation for Parallax [Abstract]
- ‘Lost in Translation, Or Nothing to See But Everything’ in Visual Cultures, ed. by James Elkins, Intellect Books. [Forthcoming]
- ‘Confessions of a Virtual Scholar, Or, Writing as Worldly Performance’ in Journal of Writing in Creative Practices, special issue: ‘Writing Encounters within Performance and Pedagogical Practice’, 2009. [Forthcoming]
- ‘Love Messaging: Mobile Phone Txting Seen Through the Lens of Tanka Poetry’ in Theory, Culture & Society, Volume 26, Issues 2-3, 2009. [Forthcoming]
- In the Study of the Letters in Red in Journal of Visual Art Practice, 2005, Vol 4, no. 1, pp 19-27. See also: Rodrigo Velasco’s Letters in Red
- Experimental Text-image Travel Literature in Theory, Culture & Society, 2003, Vol.20, no.3, pp.127-138.
- Picturing Berlin, Piecing Together a Public Sphere / ベルリンをイメージする、公共圏をデザインする (Bilingual English/ Japanese edition). Originally published in Invisible Culture, Issue 6, 2003.

Links:
Bouvard et Pécuchet
Letters in Red
lasilueta.com
R.A.W. The Network for Reflexive Academic Writing Methodologies