Allegra has now been up and running for approximately three months – a period in which SO much has happened! We’ll do a proper summary of things past and present soon, but now want to focus on the following: SPEED.
Many of you may recall how we first launched Allegra with our bold ‘Academic Slow Food Manifesto’ in which we declared that “REAL research simply takes time to mature. It needs tender love and caring. A space to freely grow”; that “it needs to be digested slowly”.
But are we living up to our commitment?!
This thought was introduced to us by our contributor Shakira Bedoya Sanchez who said how the only problem she has with Allegra is that things move so fast. That new things appear in Allegra so rapidly that it feels difficult to stop to reflect on the previous ones. And of course, then there is also our Facebook page – or is it vice versa even? For we are becoming increasingly aware that many if not most of you who reach Allegra the Website do so via Facebook (and isn’t it interesting that we know this – more on the reasons soon too!)
It seems almost funny to think that when we first thought of Allegra (the Website), Facebook didn’t really feature in our plans. Now, by contrast, we are finding great satisfaction in surfing the social media, picking up both things happening in the ‘now’ in scholarship. We have also found a distinct flow of our own for the bizarre, unexpected and (hopefully) funny. Again, we’ll discuss our Facebook experience with more detail soon, and for now merely agree: it definitely adds a sense of speed to the Allegra experience.
Admittedly running Allegra also requires quite a bit of time. The best compliment we have gotten in this respect is when people ask us just how we find the time to do it all. At times we wonder too.
With all this brought together, it seems like the right time to let things cool down a bit – to CHILL, to give us all a chance to catch our breath, and relish the highlights of what has appeared so far. Thus this week will form Allegra’s first ‘Virtual Retreat of Slow Food for Thought’ (AVRoSLfT) (and yes, we have our reasons for creating these obscure acronyms, in case you are wondering). During this week we will feature things that have previously appeared in Allegra, in the spirit of giving them the slow digestion that they deserve and need.
We are setting things going by reminding everyone – us as well as you – of just what all we proclaimed when everything started. Thus please enjoy Academic Slow Food Manifesto – REDUX!
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ACADEMIC SLOW FOOD MANIFESTO
More more more!
This constant pressure to write more.
More of what?
Slogans, catch phrases?
Analysis for tid-bit quotations?
The same-old, same-old?
They want to stuff our brain
with indicators,
guidelines,
readily-chewed soundbites
impact and
expected outcomes.
That is not stuff of real academics!
That is the stuff of auditing
of successful annual reporting
Signs of yielding to extra-academic pressures.
We reclaim the space for the real pursuit
of unknown horizons
Of revery, philosophising
and mind-wondering
We want words, imagination, poetry!
Things impossible to report,
but only thus with real meaning.
But like slow food
REAL research simply takes time
to mature
It needs tender love and caring
A space to freely grow
Less but more
of something
immeasurable
and only thus of true importance.
