I was shocked and saddened to learn of the death of Mark Fisher. Mark was one of the pioneers of theory blogging and para-academic independent publishing. I learned a great deal from his blogging at K-punk, where he wrote incisive political commentary and undertook bold philosophical speculation, and he blazed a trail when he published Capitalist Realism, which brought the Zero Books series (now succeeded by Repeater Books) to international prominence. He supported a lot of us in this corner of the blogosphere, and I personally owe him a debt of gratitude as his recommendation helped make the publication of Awkwardness and its sequels possible.

Mark was truly a model of how to pursue a life of public intellectual engagement for a generation of young thinkers.

I was very saddened to learn of the death of Scott Erik Kaufman. It is shocking to lose such a giant among bloggers at such a young age. Everyone who participated in the often tumultuous debates in the early days of academic blogging will remember him as a tireless and generous interlocutor, the kind of person who will stridently disagree with you throughout a 30-comment exchange and then try to recruit you as a co-blogger. More broadly, he blazed a trail from academia to online writing that others have followed, though not with the same energy and flair.

My personal favorite post of his is DISADVENTURE!, a parody of a text-based adventure game where the player must write a dissertation — and characteristically, I now see that there are actually seven further installments. I invite others to share their favorite posts and memories.