stevenberlinjohnson.com: In Which The Blogger Returns To The Academy

I spent around seven years of my life (roughly from 18 to 25) thinking that whatever I ended up doing with my writing career, I'd do it out of some kind of academic base. The plan for most of that period -- particularly when I was working towards my doctorate in English Lit at Columbia -- was to get tenure somewhere nice and play the university game a little, but also write for a larger audience outside the academy. (A model that I'd taken from one of my old advisors, Edward Said.) But then FEED came along and pulled me off my dissertation (never finished, alas) and while I've had some wonderful semesters teaching seminars as an adjunct at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program, I've never had a regular home base in the university system. For the most part, that's worked out fine, because I have no interest in a full-time position anywhere -- I'm traveling too much now giving speeches, and I love spending the rest of my time working at home with the kids in Brooklyn. And I'm trying to write a book every 18 months or so, which takes a lot of commitment.

Still, I love teaching, and there's part of me that is still attached to the academic world. So I'm very pleased to report that the NYU Department of Journalism has appointed me a Distinguished Writer In Residence. I'll be teaching one course a semester there -- one grad seminar followed by an undergrad lecture. I start in the spring, teaching a seminar on new media ecosystems, based loosely on the ideas in my Discover column this month. It's a great honor to join the faculty there: the other Distinguished Writers make my bio look undistinguished by comparison, and I've long admired the work of many of the colleagues there, including Mitch Stephens, Mark Dery, Ellen Willis (all of them FEED alums) and Jay Rosen, who made a valiant effort to revive FEED in the months after we went dark, before 9/11 ended up killing off the idea.

This should be a lot of fun.

The Basics

I'm a father of three boys, husband of one wife, and author of eight books, and co-founder of three web sites. We spend most of the year in Marin County, California though I'm on the road a lot giving talks. (You can see the full story here.) Personal correspondence should go to sbeej68 at gmail dot com. If you're interested in having me speak at an event, drop a line to Wesley Neff at the Leigh Bureau (WesN at Leighbureau dot com.)

My Books

Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation
An exploration of environments that lead to breakthrough innovation, in science, technology, business, and the arts. I conceived it as the closing book in a trilogy on innovative thinking, after Ghost Map and Invention. But in a way, it completes an investigation that runs through all the books. Sold more copies in hardcover than anything else I've written.
The Invention of Air
The story of the British radical chemist Joseph Priestley, who ended up having a Zelig-like role in the American Revolution. My version of a founding fathers book, and a reminder that most of the Enlightenment was driven by open source ideals.
The Ghost Map
The latest: the story of a terrifying outbreak of cholera in 1854 London 1854 that ended up changing the world. An idea book wrapped around a page-turner. I like to think of it as a sequel to Emergence if Emergence had been a disease thriller. You can see a trailer for the book here.
Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter
The title says it all. This one sparked a slightly insane international conversation about the state of pop culture -- and particularly games. There were more than a few dissenters, but the response was more positive than I had expected. And it got me on The Daily Show, which made it all worthwhile.
Mind Wide Open : Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life
My first best-seller, and the only book I've written in which I appear as a recurring character, subjecting myself to a battery of humiliating brain scans. The last chapter on Freud and the neuroscientific model of the mind is one of my personal favorites.
Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software
The story of bottom-up intelligence, from slime mold to Slashdot. Probably the most critically well-received all my books, and the one that has influenced the most eclectic mix of fields: political campaigns, web business models, urban planning, the war on terror.
Interface Culture : How New Technology Transforms the Way We Create and Communicate
My first. The book I wrote instead of finishing my dissertation. Still in print almost a decade later, and still relevant, I think. But I haven't read it in a while, so who knows what's in there!

Comments

Congratulations on the appointment at NYU.

Posted by: Anthony | October 11, 2005 at 01:09 AM

Scary. I've just given up on my own dissertation (with that being the only thing left to do) in English lit. Hopefully that means I'll have the same success as a writer that you've had!

Posted by: Chris | October 11, 2005 at 03:34 AM

Oh, excellent. I'll be there Spring term too, though no one is calling me DISTINGUISHED. Wohhoo! Congratulations.

Posted by: Emily Jenkins | October 11, 2005 at 07:43 AM

Congratualations!

Posted by: matt | October 11, 2005 at 11:01 AM

Welcome to academia! You make your grandmother proud!

Posted by: Laura Z | October 11, 2005 at 12:41 PM

Fabulous, Steven! I look forward to your seminar on Lost.

Posted by: Alex Ross | October 12, 2005 at 05:35 AM

Congratulations, Steven. I'm sure you'll be great. Every student that has the pleasure of taking a class with you should count themselves lucky.

Posted by: Justin Cone | October 12, 2005 at 10:35 AM

That's great! It sounds like it will tons of fun. Not to mention the honor, which you totally deserve.