Renaissance man, polymath, autodidact, dilettante.
My good friends call me a Renaissance Man. My worst enemies call me a dilettante.
However, I publish in peer-reviewed academic journals, and I seriously doubt if dilettantes are capable of such a thing.
We are becoming increasingly specialized and as a consequence, the very notion of a Renaissance Man is dying out along with the Renaissance Men themselves. Everyone has to burrow into some micro-specialty which they spend their whole scholarly career in. You end up with some incredibly knowledgeable folks in that particular small branch of science, but I feel it is limiting.
Supposedly Renaissance Men are not able to publish in peer reviewed academic journals and books, but if I can do it, other people can probably do it too. Don’t let the nasty preoccupation with hyper-specialization get you down. Let them call you names all they want. Don’t worry about getting called dilettante. Let them call you that until they are blue in the face! Get out there and publish your stuff! Just do it, and tell your enemies to go to Hell where they belong.
