There is certainly "academic level" knowledge exhibited almost daily on this forum. Since a PhD degree is an research based degree, many forum comments exhibit the results of considerable breath and focus of knowledge that any PhD would envy.
In terms of academic fields, when we focus on specific types of weapons as cultural features of contemporary societies, we are in Cultural Anthropology. When its how living peoples make or use them, its Social Anthropology like in my Kassala Sword paper. If the peoples are dead, its History or is no one still use the weapons, its Art History because most ethnographic weapons are an expression of ethnic art.
Regardless of how academics may organize their work or delineate their turf, we forumites / formestas have a passion for our subject. I would like to see the members produce more articles on a subjects they know well. Maybe they could be peer reviewed and subject to an editorial board for a little polish before being posted on our site. I know I usually need a "cold eye" review of most of what I write and personally lack e-document publishing skills.
Viable subjects might include Makers Marks, Shields, African Knights (there was a great collection of period photographs recently posted), Takhuba, Kaskara, Kris, Weapons of the Sudan, Arabia, India, Phillipines, or a focused region or particular people or time. None would need to claim comprehensiveness, but could be either broad or narrow focus and could even be a an essay or organized forum comments on a particular subject or research and discussion on an individual weapon. The material could be based on museum collections, personal collections, field work or literature review. Most academic papers are not ground breaking or be-alls and end-alls. They are mostly the collection of information by the researcher who wants to share it with his/her peers.
Regards to writers who brave and overcome the Blank Page.
Ed
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