Discard Studies going dark, being reborn in mid-2018

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Dear Discard Studies Readers,

I have been posting on this blog every week for the past seven years. It has been a pleasure. I began as a PhD student under Robin Nagle, who founded this blog in 2010, and am now in my third year as an assistant professor. The blog began with a model for weekly postings that detailed critical insights and questioned the commonly held premises of waste and wasting that the blog became known for– posts like “Against Awareness” and “Municipal vs. Industrial waste“– but this rate and quality is no longer possible. It’s simply too much (volunteer!) labour. To keep up the pace, I began been soliciting more and more guest posts and reblogging stories. I am grateful to guest authors for their work and insights over the past two years in particular. But editing labour has also reached a breaking point.

So some changes are going to happen to ensure that Discard Studies can continue to be a hub for the waste research community, and to question the premises, assumptions, and popular mythologies of waste from a research perspective, with all the care, nuance, and expertise such an endeavour deserves.

We’re going to go dark for a few months starting today. We will be back in mid-2018, with a new format and team member:

  • Article Alerts will continue to be published once a month, so the community can see what is happening in our field;
  • Rather than posting calls for papers, conferences, and positions as they come in, these will be bundled into Announcement Alerts and published once a month;
  • One, and maybe two, blog posts with new content from a critical discard studies perspective will be published every month. This means that there will be three to four posts a month, rather than six to eight;
  • Alex Zahara, a PhD student at Memorial University of Newfoundland, will join me as Assistant Editor. Zahara is already responsible for some of our most popular posts, including “Refusal as Research Method in Discard Studies.” 

We look forward to seeing you again in 2018!

Best regards,
Dr. Max Liboiron
Managing Editor and Contributing Author, Discard Studies

6 thoughts on “Discard Studies going dark, being reborn in mid-2018”

  1. Dear Max,

    As a faithful reader for the last five years, I’d like to thank you very much for the work you’ve done so far. We’re really lucky to have peopke like you, and Robin before you, and Alex in the future, who are willing to shoulder and drive such a fantastic blog.

    All the best,
    Yvan

    • Dear Yvan,

      Thank you for your comment! It’s been a pleasure to serve this community. I look forward to serving for many more years after our break!

      Very best regards,
      Max

  2. Thanks Max for producing such a rich and generative blog for so long. Your work has been absolutely central to building a global discard studies intellectual community, it simply wouldn’t have happened without you. That is a significant achievement and testament to your collegiality and scholarship.

    yours in immense appreciation
    Gay Hawkins

    • Wow! Thank you for your generous words, Gay! And thank you also for the work you do in the field. Your work shaped the contours of the field long before this blog existed!

  3. Please come back soon., as a student in the 11th grade., I found your articles on NYC Sanitation very interesting. I have a research paper on waste and health in NYC. It really makes me want to work in some kind of field where I will make a difference to better our world. I know i am only 17 but everyone started somewhere. THANK YOU for your time and dedication.
    Sincerely, Vinny Fernandez

    • Dear Vinny,
      Thank you for your note. We’re very happy you’ve found the blog useful. Thank you for being a reader! WE hope we hear more from you in the coming years.
      Sincerely,
      Max Liboiron

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