Welcome aboard the good ship Ethnia
Hello everyone! I am setting up a new platform for sharing things, having tried and abandoned a few others. Let me just offer a few words about who I am and what to expect.
Me, I’m Eric. Professionally I am a professor at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES) at University College London. If you want to find out a little bit about my work the university has web page. I’ll have information up here about the research I am engaged in, publications, and that sort of thing. My field is political and cultural sociology, and my passion is Southeast Europe. If you want information and explanations about what is happening in that part of the world, this is the place for it.
I have done this before, but it is a long time since I posted anything new over at the East Ethnia blog at WordPress. I kind of got the feeling that that sort of blogging had fallen out of use. I’ve also done a bit of video blogging (is that what it is called?) at my YouTube channel. That started as a pandemic activity, when we were all stuck at home and I had to record lectures for the students. I decided that I would also record (more or less) weekly commentaries on things happening in the Balkans for the students, so they maintain some kind of connection. It looks like here I can do both text and video, so why not give it a go.
What you will find here
I will be trying to keep a consistent but not excessive flow of information here. Expect a medium-length text or a video, maybe sometimes both, about once a week. Sometimes I may do more, sometimes I will miss a week, be patient with me, I’m just a person.
A word about subscriptions: if you subscribe you will get whatever this platform sends you, probably a notification when there is some new material here. The subscription is free and will always be free. This is in line with the principle that scholarship is legitimate if it is independent. I am here to share things with whatever public chooses to come, and neither spend nor make any money doing it.
And a word about moderation: I guess that this space will have the capacity for comments and other sorts of reactions. As a general principle I am inclined to be very tolerant of disagreement (I am also tolerant of agreement), but I do know from experience how toxic a place the internet can be. So the line does get drawn at trolling, spamming, abusive behaviour, and the like. Also I don’t like nationalists or racists, they can just fuck off. So while everyone is welcome, people who foul up the atmosphere will get blocked. They will not be warned beforehand. Apologies to those folks in advance.
An image and “subscribe” button
They are telling me that the post should have a picture in it. And presumably the image should have something to do with the theme. So for “Balkans,” I don’t know, here are some peppers. Yes, it is stereotypical, but it could have been an Ottoman bridge, you know.
And they also tell me I should have a “subscribe” button. Here it is. Don’t worry, I will never charge anyone for anything here, unless I start making something to sell. But there is a different website for that, isn’t there?