Binghamton Research Magazine - Spring/Summer 2012 - (Page 47)

“I HOPE IN SOME WAY THAT MY
my blog, today in one day more people read what I have written. That’s not to say that what I write today is more substantive, but having that kind of audience — and it didn’t fall in my lap, it was built over time — it’s not nothing.” Sharp still teaches Medieval, Renaissance and Arthurian literature, and he does see ways in which the blogs inform that work. “I hope in some way that my approach to teaching is what I do in my own writing,” he says. “You need to be serious about your writing and dot your I’s and cross your T’s. On the other hand, you need to not be bound by conventions and what’s safe, what’s established. There are a lot of reasons, not least of which is that you will be bored. And if you are bored, your readers are going to be bored. You need to take some risks. I try to encourage people to be both serious about their work and daring in terms of how they express it.” Sharp’s pop-culture expertise has begun to find an academic forum. He gave a keynote address titled “Lurid Liberation: Sex and Social Change in American Paperback Cover Art, 1940-1970” as part of a conference for the 75th anniversary of Hofstra University’s library. The hour-long talk was, he says, designed to be both entertaining and instructive. “It was utterly unexpected because I’ve never done anything academic

APPROACH TO TEACHING IS WHAT I DO IN MY OWN WRITING. I TRY TO ENCOURAGE PEOPLE TO BE BOTH SERIOUS ABOUT THEIR WORK AND DARING IN TERMS OF HOW THEY EXPRESS IT.”
— Michael Sharp

related to it except for my paperback blog,” Sharp says. “On the one hand, that’s not an academic endeavor; on the other hand, it’s completely an academic endeavor. It’s all about collecting and sorting and learning about the history of the art. I talk about it in irreverent ways, but I’m also lovingly amassing this collection of an important time in American commercial art that’s not well documented anywhere else. So in some ways my interests and my whole approach are academic. I’m showcasing something that would be invisible otherwise, and that’s really what a lot of scholars do. That loving attention to detail and that respect for books as artifacts, all that’s going into my Pop Sensation blog.” For now, Sharp says he enjoys keeping up with the blogs and teaching literature. The blogs have allowed him to make new contacts, find a voice that’s different from his scholarly writing and experiment with developing an audience. Eventually, though, he expects to take a step back from the blogs to give himself a chance to consider what else he might like to write. He has some ideas for a book, but isn’t drawn to

writing about the history of puzzles or anything so obvious. Sharp says he believes the blog has given him the freedom to do something more creative. “You never could have convinced anyone that there was going to be an audience for a daily blog about The New York Times Crossword,” he says. “It would not have seemed like a good idea. It grew because I kept at it and I care about it.” Sharp says he would like to see greater acceptance of new media and popular forms of writing in the academy. The idea of the monograph as the gold standard for tenure feels dated, he says, and the humanities would benefit if more scholars interacted with the public. “There’s something to be said for a professor reaching an audience that isn’t scholarly,” he says. “That’s a valuable role for the university. I couldn’t write what I write if I didn’t have the education I have, even though I’m not writing scholarly analysis of Medieval poetry anymore. Everything that went into doing that informs what I do now.” — Rachel Coker
Binghamton University • BINGHAMTON RESEARCH • Spring/Summer 2012

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Michael Sharp reaches 20,000 readers daily with his insights about the nation’s most popular crossword puzzle.

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Binghamton Research Magazine - Spring/Summer 2012

Binghamton Research Magazine - Spring/Summer 2012
Contents
About Binghamton Research
Welcome
Briefs
Digital defenders
Jockeying for genetic advantage
The unfiltered truth
Spring awakening
Wall Street watchdog
Principles of the universe demand principled engineers
Engineering and Science Building
Graduate research
Undergraduate research
A piece of the puzzle
Crossword puzzle

Binghamton Research Magazine - Spring/Summer 2012