It’s been years since I decided I wanted to set up a personal website. But things got in the way, among others the fact that I was never quite sure about what this website should look like or what purpose it should serve.
I was, as one is, sure about what it should not look like.
Browsing other personal websites, especially those of academics, was a big part of figuring it out. At one point, which was quite some time ago, I even created a sheet with hyperlinks with the websites of academics I knew, I interacted with, or just whose websites I liked (or did not like, while we are at it). I was, in fact, so fascinated by the things I saw that at one point I even contemplated the idea of writing a paper about it, together with a colleague. But worry not, that won’t happen. Probably. So, yes, if you are an academic and happen to have a website, chances are that I lurked on your page.
Other things that got in the way too. Among them were my occasional bouts of impostor syndrome, a perpetual identity crisis, and my husband’s insisting that if he was to help me make a website (and to be honest, there was no going around it), that website would have to look Very Professional and Very Modern. A spaceship among personal websites, so to speak. I tried to explain to him that the website had to be plain, lifeless, and above all look like I don’t care about such trivial things as personal websites. He is still puzzled and I gave up trying.
So, here we are, with a kind of a middle ground. Neither here nor there. Neither love it nor hate it. Compromise, it’s what that’s called, I am told. One of the pillars of modern marriage. And of personal websites.
What’s the purpose of this privately curated little corner of the internet? Well, we’re about to figure that one out.
Photo: B&W floor, Columbia University, New York, March 2023. © Jelena Brankovic