July 17, 2008

Inquiring Minds Want to Know...

...why the recent flurry of Google searches for "humanism in Charles Dickens" from locations in India? Yes, I admit I peer at my 'Visitor Information' intermittently, mostly as a reality check (it keeps me humble!), but also because it's interesting to see what posts or topics bring people by. Some time ago, for example, I noticed that a number of people searching for Margaret Oliphant ended up here, probably, I speculated, because there just aren't that many other internet sources on her. Being flagged by Footnoted or by better-known bloggers has also brought over readers. But for this trend, I have no explanatory hypothesis. Still, since it took a long time to write up my posts on that topic, I'm happy to think somebody somewhere might be finding them interesting or useful--provided, of course, that they are also giving appropriate credit in their citations.

3 comments:

lucy tartan said...

A wild guess - it might have something to do with the national exams held in India to determine who can apply for lecturing positions. I think these are held at mid year.

lucy tartan said...

Given the last few lines of your post I think I should tell you I quoted (and cited of course!) from your post 'Becoming George' in an essay I recently wrote about melodrama in Jane Austen popular biography. It's in the current issue of the Australian journal Meanjin.

Rohan Maitzen said...

Aha: exams. That sounds plausible. Thanks for letting me know that you have had occasion to refer to one of my posts, too. If anyone gets any ideas about making a GE movie, I would love to be a consultant!