I hope you’ll preserve the blog when you’re finished with it. It’s been an inspiration – one of the few that I read regularly, both for diversion and to help spur those conceptual tangents that keep me interested in my own work. And there’s still heaps here that I haven’t read yet.

All the best!
Paul

When you come to SF I’ll buy you a victory drink or two.

I must admit, I got a little sentimental halfway through your article. I’ve been following Ballardian since the beginning, and can still remember the excitement of every new design tweak.

It felt both fantastic and dramatic when the website began to garner a reputation for itself, becoming referenced as an authoritative source of Ballard news. And I can remember something close to awe when Ballardian started interviewing some of the big names in Ballard appreciation, including the writer himself! It was amazing to see how such a humble and ambitious offshoot became such a comprehensive and encompassing force. It really is much like a magazine, and offers a *fantastic* resource to both the Ballard scholar and the enthusiastic newcomer.

So congratulations once again on your thesis, and thank you so much for these last few years. Whether or not you decide to maintain the website is of course your choice, but I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed.

Happy holidays,

Rhys Tranter

Yeah, put bits of the thesis up … I’d love to see them.

Simon, I think it will be a very good way to get feedback. In no way do I think it to be too self-indulgent. I think it would be a treasure.

Gary: I was considering putting parts of my thesis on the site, however I thought that might be too self-indulgent. On the other hand, it could be a good way to get feedback…

Have a good holiday break, all.

Cheers, Simon

Your synopsis is intriguing. Any chance of you making the entire thesis available here or elsewhere? I for one, would appreciate any opportunity to read it.

I’ll drink to that! And thanks for publishing it here!
Wow, a Doctorate in Ballardianism.. the mind reels.

This blog is so much more than a support group for unrequited fanboys. It reminds me, whenever I visit it, what an inexhaustible trove of insights JGB has given us, and how his work—both writings and interviews—can be used as a prism to refract the deeper meanings of the modern world. Academia, advertising, airports, Alain Robbe-Grillet, CCTV, celebrity culture, cult-doom peddling, death of affect, deep time, drained swimming pools, Dubai, dystopia, entropy, Ernst, flying, Freud, gated communities, geometry, Hawkwind, horror, hyperreality, and so much more: as your tag cloud suggests, everything becomes Ballardian, if we observe it from the angle between two walls.

Thanks for serving, all these months, as our acutely insightful yet never pedantic Charles Wilson Peale, drawing back the curtain and beckoning us toward the wonder closet of the Ballardian.

i also think it is good to have access to something like this site. especially when it is hard to find other places to discuss (or just quietly peek into discussions) these issues. for me it always have been hard … might be my surrounding or my age, i am not sure. but in general, i would hope to find these places in other parts of our world, rather than the www.
it seems like there are places, like in the university-sphere you worked on your thesis, perhaps. but you also said without this site as an interface to others thinking about these issues, your work would also have been hard/impossible.
in the place i study for example it is nearly impossible to find room/humanoids for such discussions, and as i wrote before, i think it is very necessary to have contact with people or a relevance in (so called) public places. in this point i rather mean the inherent issues than the focus on the lyrical work of JGB.
anyway, i was amused to read this post, because i was reading the posted text about the time-issues last night, when i was working on a text about a project i am currently working on. wich felt like just the thing you meant.

Even though a lot of the content on this website goes way over my head, it’s always been a fun and entertaining place to hang out. Plus it’s given me more than a few new perspectives on the work of Ballard.

“…for anyone contemplating a PhD, I would recommend keeping a blog or website for channelling research ideas of whatever description. Doing a PhD by research can be incredibly isolating and even soul destroying, but the online experience both opened my eyes and my world to a brighter future.”

That’s very wise advice. As JGB said, “The Internet still contains magic” – this site’s proof of that.

Your dedication to the work of J.G. Ballard, this site and all of your postings are an outstanding contribution for which I am extremely grateful. Keep up the good work but…take a break now and then.

Your brilliant efforts are honestly humbling Simon, and don’t you dare give up the great work here.

Can’t wait to read the whole thing…

Also, it probably goes without saying but I hope you keep this up. It’s such a cracking site.