activism and academia

Two excellent (and lengthy) posts on related aspects of a topic that's obviously of great interest to me: the intersection between an academic vocation and an activist worldview. Timothy Burke writes about the lack of "an affirmative or clearly enunciated theory of advocacy and politics in relation to pedagogy," and Bitch PhD (one of the first blogs I ever started reading, and still one of the best) on putting feminism into practice in the academy, via the use of tools like blogging and personal stories to break down some problematic structures of "professional academia" as it relates to people's lives. Both issues are absolutely key to my current state of questioning why/how/when I want to return to the academy, and both posts have prompted a lot of thoughts, the kind that make me wish my geek posse were more accessible for an into-the-wee-hours discussion of these matters. Next month in Oxford? I'll have more to say about the Burke post, though, especially as I plan the syllabus for an IR course I will be teaching to a pack of bright overprivileged American teenagers this summer.