Crooked Timber Explained

Crooked Timber is a blog with a left-of-center political slant, primarily administered by academics from countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Republic of Ireland. The blog's name is inspired by a quotation from philosopher Immanuel Kant, "Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made," from his 1784 essay "Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose". The liberal philosopher Isaiah Berlin alluded to the quotation in The Crooked Timber of Humanity: Chapters in the History of Ideas. Crooked Timber frequently hosts online book events and includes contributions from a variety of experts in fields such as philosophy, political science, and sociology.

History

Crooked Timber was founded in July 2003 as a merger of several individual blogs, including Junius and Gallowglass, along with some new contributors. Additional members were added over subsequent months until the group reached an agreed optimum of 15 members.[1]

Crooked Timber ranked in Technorati's Top 100 blogs between 2003 and 2005 and is still widely linked to in the academic blogosphere. On March 9, 2008, it was listed as number 33 in The Guardian's list of the world's 50 most important blogs.[2] On April 15, 2011, an article on academic blogs in The New York Times listed Crooked Timber as one of seven influential examples of the type, describing it as having "built a reputation as an intellectual global powerhouse".[3]

Crooked Timber has held several online book events, during which a subset of members (and often also invited guestbloggers) read a book and each write a blog post about it, either a review or a post inspired by the book.

Current contributors

NameOccupation
Chris BertramPolitical philosopher at the University of Bristol, UK
Harry BrighousePolitical philosopher at the University of Wisconsin, Madison
Henry FarrellPolitical scientist at George Washington University
Maria FarrellDirector of Information Coordination, ICANN
Eszter HargittaiSociologist at Northwestern University
John HolboPhilosopher at the National University of Singapore
Serene KhaderPhilosopher and feminist theorist at Brooklyn College
John QuigginEconomist at the University of Queensland, Australia
Ingrid RobeynsPolitical Philosopher at the Erasmus University Rotterdam
Miriam RonzoniPolitical philosopher at the University of Manchester
Gina SchoutenPhilosopher at the Harvard University
Belle WaringTrained as a Classicist at Berkeley; living in Singapore

Former contributors

NameOccupation
Tedra OsellFreelance editor, California
Jon MandlePolitical philosopher at SUNY Albany
Niamh HardimanSenior Lecturer at University College Dublin
Michael BérubéProfessor of American literature and cultural studies at Pennsylvania State University
Ted BarlowEconomic consultant in Houston, TX
Tom RunnaclesSoftware developer in the city of London, previously studied philosophy at Oxford University
Micah SchwartzmanProfessor at the University of Virginia School of Law
Daniel DaviesFinancial industry analyst; former stockbroker and economist
Kieran HealySociologist at Duke University
Scott McLemeeWriter, Inside Higher Education
Eric RauchwayProfessor of History at UC Davis
Corey RobinPolitical Theorist at Brooklyn College
Astra TaylorDocumentary film maker and fellow of the Shuttleworth Foundation
Brian WeathersonA philosopher at The University of Michigan
Richard YeselsonContributing editor at Dissent (American magazine)

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Kieran Healy . The Full Lineout — Crooked Timber . Crookedtimber.org . 30 March 2004. 2009-09-30.
  2. News: The world's 50 most powerful blogs | UK news | The Observer . Guardian . 2008-03-09. 2009-09-30 . London . Jessica . Aldred.
  3. News: Big Blog on Campus . New York Times . 2011-04-15. 2011-04-17 . New York . Pamela . Paul.