The Power of Blogging: Rethinking Scholarship and Reshaping Boundaries at Sport in American History

In June 2015, the American Historical Association (AHA) published its guidelines for evaluating digital scholarship, capping off a year-and-a-half of research into the emerging field of digital history. Blogging sat at the center of the AHA’s discussions, as scholars considered its relationship to digital history and its potential as an emerging form of scholarship in the digital era. This paper summarizes those debates and outlines the development of group blogs within academic history. Reflecting on my own work as the founder of the Sport in American History group blog, I show how it, like other blogs, is a form of new scholarship that helps rethink traditional methods of publication and scholarly communication. This new form of scholarship is less formal and more democratic, as well as geared for public consumption. I further suggest that, within sport history, Sport in American History has fostered a more cohesive and collaborative community, bringing together an often-splintered subfield.