For a group of academics, producing a spontaneous, largely unplanned document is a lot like jumping into the middle of the ocean without a life preserver. It provokes a great deal of anxiety and doesn’t seem at all like what one is supposed to do. In many ways the mark of our profession is the careful, painstaking attention to detail, accuracy and citation. And yet, we decided to produce this podcast for our first collective project as the Brooklyn Institute. This was a decision we made quite consciously as part of our stated mission to move scholarly discourse beyond the literal and figurative walls of the academy. The podcast and the blog post are both highly popular and accessible media that give us new opportunities for communication and conversation, among ourselves and with anyone out there listening. There are definitely advantages and disadvantages to both. Podcasting lets us engage in a long form, largely unrestrained exchange of ideas that is mostly free flowing but simultaneously documented for further reflection, dissemination and analysis. It also leaves us occasionally quite unable to recall an exact quotation, statistic or reference. This is scary stuff. I personally completely misidentified a street corner in the Bronx. I consider this a cardinal sin for a New Yorker. These are the pitfalls and stumbling blocks along the way to creating something that – we hope – can be an interesting, enjoyable and encouraging document, a truly interdisciplinary group work.

We talked after we finished recording about how to supplement the podcast with something else, not quite a “bibliography,” nor exactly a “for further reading,” and certainly not an exhaustive, encyclopedic set of citations. We are calling this section, simply, “Notations.” The structure of the Notations section is part by design and part through necessity. One of the advantages of blogging and the free WordPress theme we use is that it makes most of what we write on the site look – at least in our opinions – passably aesthetically pleasing. One of the disadvantages is that it is very limiting in terms of how many characters we can fit on a line and how much we can control spacing, making a standard MLA or Chicago style bibliography more or less impossible. There goes that life preserver again.  One of the advantages is that we can take advantage of all the vast content on the Internet through hyperlinks that are easily and quickly accessible. These Notations are intended not only as a supplement but also, hopefully, as an invitation. They are arranged in chronological order according to their appearance in the podcast, such that if your curiosity is piqued, your sentiment outraged or your reason offended, you may consult the works in question. Some are a click away, and can lead to another whole universe of hyperlinked texts. Others may require older technologies such as libraries and/or bookstores. Please do not hesitate to contact us via email or Twitter with questions, comments, or suggestions for future podcasts. We are certainly not permanently wedded to the current structure of either the podcast itself or the Notations. Both will almost certainly adapt and evolve. I know I reference a few books constantly; do they really need to be referenced each show in a supplemental section? Probably not. What to do instead? Open question. Our faculty and audience are invited to use the comment section to add their own reflections on both the form of the podcast, the Notations, and, of course, the actual content. Ask questions, if you like. Fill in gaps, if you want. Pose challenges, if the spirit moves you. But mostly, we hope you enjoy the podcast and that we manage to provoke a thought or two.

– Ajay Singh Chaudhary, Director

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