metacommentary: the I

With this particular blog I'm interested in exploring the typical norms of blogging, or the act when it isn't largely for personal consumption. What I keep encountering in my posting, or pondering of posting, is this line that seems to exist between the public and private spheres. The role of the author in a typical current events/culture blog can range from simply regurgitating straight facts and articles, to an ongoing opinions column with little reference to the outside media. Somewhere on the more conservative side of that continuum is what is interesting to me at the moment.

But, where does the border region exist? I come from a writing tradition that engages heavily with the author's subjectivity, both through playing with personal languages and through utter negation of an author's presence. The I is comfortably present within many blogs, but it's a very formal and detached journalistic I.

I have to admit that there is also, for me, the presence of a subtle self-consciousness that arises from the fact that I am a woman. Self-reflection & non-linear insertion as opposed to a more distant self-reflexivity occurring in the serving of facts, are elements often associated with "feminine writing." And historically this is a way of engaging with language that is less valued in male-dominated circles.

Point:
It's interesting to navigate these terrains. Fresh topographies can bring out the most generative (internal)discourses.