Do you have any thoughts / advice on navigating academic twitter?
Some. I guess it depends what parts of academic twitter you’re talking about and whether you’re just starting to get involved or you’re already there and are feeling overwhelmed. Prepare for a long post...
First and foremost, I think it’s very important to consider what you want out of academic twitter. Do you want to know when CFPs (calls for papers) are announced? When books are being published? What individual scholars are talking about? Do you want to make yourself visible to other academics? Or do you just want to learn more about history/literature/etc.? If you go in with the intention of just wanting to know “what’s happening,” you’ll be overwhelmed because SO MUCH happens ALL THE TIME. Start with specific goals and don’t worry about being present for every major conversation at every moment. As you get more knowledgeable about your field, who is in it, and what topics you enjoy seeing tweets about, you’ll branch out on your own.
I started by following major professional organizations, journals, publishers, and conference profiles in my field (like ICMS, METS, EETS, ISSEME, JEGP, SOELLC, Medieval Academy, etc.). Not only do these types of twitter profiles let you know what’s going on in your field re: scholarship and upcoming publications/events, but you can see who else follows them. If you’re not sure what the major organizations/publishers/conferences are in your field, you can ask your adviser or, if you’re a medievalist, drop me a note!
If you’re not interested in these aspects of academic twitter and just want to learn about history or lit, you can try following individual scholars who are doing work on the topic you’re interested in. Search Google Scholar, for example, to see who is publishing on the Black Death or Beowulf or Malory. But be aware: scholars don’t just talk about their work. They’re people, so you may get a mixed bag - people tweeting about their work or just pictures of their pets. You can also follow more specific professional organizations/publishers/conferences (for example, Arthuriana if you’re interested in King Arthur, or New Chaucer Society, if you’re a Canterbury Tales fan), which will probably limit their tweets to things specifically related to the topic you’re interested in.
If you’ve had the opportunity to do some in-person professional networking, such as going to conferences, you can also follow people you’ve met IRL and see who they follow. I started by following my adviser and a few people who presented papers I really liked at ICMS. Sometimes a conference presenter might have their twitter handle on a handout, slideshow, etc. so that’s an easy way to find out who to follow, but it’s also pretty easy to look academics up by name. Most scholars don’t use an alias on their social media platforms because public engagement is becoming more of a thing in academia, so, if you have a book or article you really enjoyed, see if the author has a twitter and pay attention to what they’re talking about and who they’re retweeting. I’ve found a lot of interesting scholars to follow just by seeing who my adviser retweets, but that could get tricky if you have a negative relationship with your adviser. If that’s the case, try to find the twitter profile of a scholar whose work you like and see who they’re engaging with regularly.
I think it’s very important to follow scholars of color in your field. When looking up people whose work you admire, go out of your way to find things by scholars of color and follow them. Because the academy privileges white scholars, you may have to do some digging to find some names, but they exist, so don’t give up and don’t settle for the most famous/loudest white voices.
It’s also great to follow graduate students. You can find them either by seeing who individual scholars are following or, if you’re able to go to a conference, do some networking and ask if they have a twitter handle. Most of the grad students I follow I happened on by chance, usually because a scholar I know follows them or I saw them present at a conference and liked their work.
I’ve focused so far on how to find people to follow, but let me switch gears...
If you want to know what major conversations are happening in your field, my best advice is to follow a lot of scholars and see what kinds of topics are circulated among them. There’s no one place to go for, say, the conversations about the term Angl*-S*x*n in medieval studies - I know what is being said because I follow a zillion people who do early medieval English studies and see what ideas or individual tweets get circulated, not because they’re all summed up in one place.
That being said, you also don’t have to follow EVERY scholar or organization in order to get the most out of academic twitter. Twitter conversations fly by at a million miles an hour. It’s impossible to keep up with EVERY conversation that is happening in your field even without social media, so do your best to let go of any anxiety you may have about being in-the-know about EVERYTHING that’s happening (I know it’s easier said than done). Instead, try to see academic twitter as a very big conference: you can’t go to every panel, so focus on the ones that are most relevant to your interests or feature speakers you want to see. You’ll learn more by seeing what they do and who they follow, who they retweet, etc. Most of the people I follow are those who I saw get retweeted a lot by people whose work I liked, not people who I think are big names. And even though I’m a medievalist, I don’t follow a lot of Middle English or Old Norse specialists - I’m mostly interested in Old English, so my feed is filled with people who do work in that field. Limiting my scope ensures that I see what is most relevant to my field of interest. Even the big conversations, like racism in medieval studies, can be followed when limiting your scope.
On the flip side, if you’re looking for very specific conversations (like, you want to find people who are talking about X aspect of your favorite historical figure’s life), you might not find that. Scholars are people and their work is always changing. People engage in multiple conversations at once, post about their pets, do social justice/activism work, etc. Academic twitter isn’t really a fan club for specific things so much as it is a huge conference after-party: people sometimes talk about their work and have scholarly conversations, but it’s mostly casual and frequently interjected with jokes about Latin or how Sleipnir would wear pants.
And just in case you need this affirmation: you can always unfollow scholars that make you uncomfortable for any reason. You’re not obligated to follow scholars who are “big names” in order to get the most out of academic twitter - some of the biggest names in medieval studies are showing themselves to be racist assholes at the moment, and a lot of great work is being done by lesser known scholars. You won’t be “missing out” if you don’t follow big names - part of what makes academic twitter successful for people is not following who they think they ought to follow, but following those who model what they want academia to be. For me, that means I follow scholars who I find to be thoughtful, generous, anti-racist, pro-grad student, and who are supportive of junior colleagues. Sometimes, you won’t know until you’ve followed someone for a while, and that’s ok.
I don’t know if that helps or answers your question. If you’re wondering about something more specific, like how to engage with scholars or participate in academic twitter conversations, drop me a note!
