Frank Kogan

But those tend to form around or possibly form a particular way of thinking about their territories, a particular set of paradigms and modes. I'm all for these special-perspective groupings, but they tend to have no more range of ways of thinking than your average cultural studies department, I think - just a somewhat shifted range.

I thought of the Kuhn thread as soon as I started reading this post. I was enjoying that and taking part (possibly not to any useful purpose to anyone but me), but it did shift into academic reference and context after a bit. It's hard to avoid that, I guess - someone like Alex is obviously far better equipped than me in every way to discuss such issues, but also he inevitably assumes a certain level of background knowledge (as we all do in our own specialities), and I get left behind. (This might happen to him when I talk about comic books, say, if he doesn't know the significance of references to Kirby/Herriman/Tezuka or whoever.)

I don't know how you are going to make money from any of this. I would buy a magazine built on lines such as yours, and enthusiastically, but it would be a hard job to turn it into a commercial proposition. I'd participate in online discussions, if I could, but that doesn't make you a living. I very much think universities should resource more general thinking and research, but it isn't going to happen, I think.