Take the Old Grey Mare Out and Shoot It

Tropics of Meta has decided to move to a shiny new site.

It has been a great two and a half years since we first hatched the idea of a semi-scholarly site that could serve as an outlet for our extracurricular writings, photography, and other projects.  Most of our contributors were in various stages of grad school or had recently departed from an MA or PhD program, and we all felt a need for a space to discuss and share our ideas that we otherwise lacked in the often isolating world of academia.  We also loved to write and felt like the dry, laborious style of most academic writing in journals and monographs was too limited; there had to be another voice or register in which we could talk about our research.  (A more extended discussion of the relationship between blogging, writing, and scholarship can be found here.)

Over time we have accumulated a pretty substantial body of work centering on urban history, technology, pop culture, diplomatic history and more.  These areas of concentration reflect the interests of our editors and writers, and the new site features sections devoted specifically to topics such as Cities and Media.  We hope that you will check out the new and improved Tropics and continue reading our work.