April 2011: zunguzungu

It has become something of a reflexive belief that online we only value the abbreviated and the terse. Zunguzungu, this month's Blog of the Month demonstrates that digital technology might offer us an immediacy the like of which we have never seen before, but it doesn't quite remove our desire to engage at length with a critical imagination.

Zunguzungu is the work of Aaron Brady, who lives in California. Brady writes posts on three main themes: education, film and literature. His writing is engaged and intelligent. It is also magnificently subjective. Brady is opposed to the idea of crystalline objectivity, as practised by professional scholars and media commentators who believe not only in enclosed areas of knowledge called ‘fields,' but also that reference to Enlightenment values trumps any form of dissent. Brady is also honest about his ignorance. A lovely, refreshing thing to hear in a world of well-paid experts, who emerge overnight, as if by intellectual magic, and appear to know everything about anything you ask them, particularly if there is compensation involved.

Brady's blog displays passion and a love of engagement with an idea for its own sake. He reveals that there is a place for serious reflection on the internet.

1 April 2011