The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 16.1914 Monday, 21 November 2005
[1] From: Hardy M. Cook <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Monday, November 21, 2005
Subj: Re: SHK 16.1906 Dead Horses and Closing Threads
[2] From: Bob Rosen <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Saturday, 19 Nov 2005 12:52:35 EST
Subj: Re: SHK 16.1906 Dead Horses and Closing Threads
[3] From: Stuart Manger <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Saturday, 19 Nov 2005 18:28:37 -0000
Subj: Re: SHK 16.1906 Dead Horses and Closing Threads
[4] From: Stephen Rose <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Saturday, 19 Nov 2005 10:43:16 -0800
Subj: Re: SHK 16.1906 Dead Horses and Closing Threads
[5] From: Marvin Bennet Krims <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Saturday, 19 Nov 2005 14:23:36 -0500
Subj: RE: SHK 16.1906 Dead Horses and Closing Threads
[6] From: John W. Kennedy <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Saturday, 19 Nov 2005 14:42:46 -0500
Subj: Re: SHK 16.1906 Dead Horses and Closing Threads
[7] From: Sarah Cohen <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Saturday, 19 Nov 2005 18:22:21 -0800
Subj: RE: SHK 16.1906 Dead Horses and Closing Threads
[8] From: David Evett <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Saturday, 19 Nov 2005 22:15:54 -0500
Subj: Re: SHK 16.1889 Dead Horses and Closing Threads
[9] From: David Bishop <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Sunday, 20 Nov 2005 01:33:33 -0500
Subj: Re: SHK 16.1906 Dead Horses and Closing Threads
[10] From: Phyllis Gorfain <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Sunday, 20 Nov 2005 23:30:12 -0500
Subj: Re: SHK 16.1906 Dead Horses and Closing Threads
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Hardy M. Cook <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Monday, November 21, 2005
Subject: 16.1906 Dead Horses and Closing Threads
Comment: Re: SHK 16.1906 Dead Horses and Closing Threads
Dear SHAKSPEReans,
A few years before the end of his career, a past rector of my church
announced that he wanted parishioners to comment on his sermons. I know
exactly what motivated him to make such a request. He had been hired,
before I arrived, for the quality of his sermons. He was very good, but
after years and years of delivering variations of the same theme he
began to question his effectiveness. Some were so dissatisfied that
anything that he did was wrong. Others were so satisfied that they did
not think anything was wrong. And others longed for the good old days
when the message was new and the excitement was palpable. As an activist
senior warden who came of age in the during the Civil-Rights Movement,
Anti-War Movement, and the Women's Movement of the late sixties and
early seventies, I had become close to this man and had a sense of what
he was going through, so I commented.
Now, SHAKSPER is approaching its seventeenth birthday, and both it and I
are showing signs of our age.
Like my former rector, I too appreciate feedback and welcome these
occasional meta-discussions about SHAKSPER's purpose. I also realize
that some members are pleased with the list just as it is, that others
are dissatisfied, and that some long for the early times. I am
considering all that is being said, and I am glad that members care
enough to express their views. Thanks.
[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Bob Rosen <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Saturday, 19 Nov 2005 12:52:35 EST
Subject: 16.1906 Dead Horses and Closing Threads
Comment: Re: SHK 16.1906 Dead Horses and Closing Threads
>I applaud Hardy's decision to close discussions on the listserv earlier.
>It's impossible to please everyone, but Holger Syme is certainly right
>that SHAKSPER has become less appealing to scholars, because so much
>commentary is ill-informed and repetitive. Maybe it's impossible for a
>single listserv to be useful to both a popular and academic audience,
>but as one who mostly lurks and quickly deletes, I would be grateful to
>have shallow and poorly informed commentary brought to a swifter end,
>especially if those involved show little or no inclination to read
>carefully considered views that have been published elsewhere than on
>the listserv. --John Cox
Us groundlings were also at the Globe.
Bob Rosen
[3]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Stuart Manger <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Saturday, 19 Nov 2005 18:28:37 -0000
Subject: 16.1906 Dead Horses and Closing Threads
Comment: Re: SHK 16.1906 Dead Horses and Closing Threads
A topic I would add to those already suggested for the blacklist is that
of undergraduates and high school students asking for experts virtually
to write their essays for them, and who clearly indicate / admit quite
cheerfully that they have read next to nothing, or who understand
nothing - particularly the question that they have been set apparently!
Such requests are framed of course usually rather more obscurely than a
bald demand, although we have had a number even of those in the last few
months. Now, I realise a problem here: it may be that out of the mouths
of babes etc come interesting conundra, and it seems to me to be Hardy's
job to edit so that the unfortunate is not vilified eternally, or,
worse, indulged by a sequence of posts that write the essay for the
student. On the other hand, wilful and invincible ignorance or bizarre
theorising is just as likely to produce apoplexy. I know of at least one
extremely eminent UK academic who has seriously debated continuance out
of frustration at the peripheral trivia that clutters postings, and he
is an acknowledged world expert in a particular field, and this list
would be very much the poorer for his departure. I am not arguing for
elitism, just knowledge of texts.
It is all very well to say press delete, but generally, one has to read
to assess, by which time the blood pressure level is already rising.
Yes, certain respondents achieve automatic nul points and deletion, but
there are many who compass-less gallop onto cliff tops without fully
realising what they are doing to their own cases, and the credibility of
the list in general.
Like Holger Syme, one of my major aversions is for those who write as if
the characters in plays were real, with back stories or forward stories.
That seems to suggest so fundamental a misunderstanding of how drama /
theatre is made as to render most of what they then go on to say as
worthless, for they are reducing Shakespeare to an interactive soap
opera. That has to be seriously worrying in a forum which was intended
to be an exchange of scholarly or near scholarly opinion, hasn't it?
[4]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Stephen Rose <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Saturday, 19 Nov 2005 10:43:16 -0800
Subject: 16.1906 Dead Horses and Closing Threads
Comment: Re: SHK 16.1906 Dead Horses and Closing Threads
I run a forum with nearly 10K active participants. It would be
impossible to do without our Terms of Use. All decisions must be
justified by explicit provisions in the TOU. That would be a proper way
to specify threads and posts that will either be edited, deleted, moved
or archived. Once a TOU exists that is the standard for all decisions
one needs only to refer list members to it or update it. I would suggest
creation of a TOU whose reading was mandatory on registration and for
existing members and a renaming of the Netiquette document or its
incorportation into the TOU. Best, S
[5]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Marvin Bennet Krims <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Saturday, 19 Nov 2005 14:23:36 -0500
Subject: 16.1906 Dead Horses and Closing Threads
Comment: RE: SHK 16.1906 Dead Horses and Closing Threads
I suppose the quick answer as to why people insist on beating dead
horses might be because we humans are predisposed to quarrel endlessly
over most anything especially over what concerns us most.
But also, the fact we get so involved in such arguementation speaks to
Shakespeare's capacity to evoke real people in real situations with a
stroke of the quill.
Marvin Krims
[6]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: John W. Kennedy <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Saturday, 19 Nov 2005 14:42:46 -0500
Subject: 16.1906 Dead Horses and Closing Threads
Comment: Re: SHK 16.1906 Dead Horses and Closing Threads
Larry Weiss <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
>Impermissible posts:
>
>The "authorship question"
This is already a long-established policy.
>Reviews of local, provincial and student performances, especially if
they have closed
Surely /all/ stage productions are "local", by definition.
[7]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Sarah Cohen <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Saturday, 19 Nov 2005 18:22:21 -0800
Subject: 16.1906 Dead Horses and Closing Threads
Comment: RE: SHK 16.1906 Dead Horses and Closing Threads
I am heartened that Mr. Syme would have the list be for "academic and
theatre people alike". I am dismayed, however, that he includes in his
list of objectionable threads those that "speak of literary characters
as though they were real people."
Actors do this all the time. If theatre people are to be included on the
list, please do not ban discussion of the inner lives and backstories of
characters. It is surely as useful to our own discipline as talk of
railed stages is to literary research.
I suggest, though, that actors (and other non-academic readers) meet the
scholars halfway, and, in any discussion about the lives of
Shakespeare's characters, offer textual support for their positions.
Thank you.
Sarah Cohen
[8]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: David Evett <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Saturday, 19 Nov 2005 22:15:54 -0500
Subject: 16.1889 Dead Horses and Closing Threads
Comment: Re: SHK 16.1889 Dead Horses and Closing Threads
Holger Schott's remarks deserve consideration by all the members of the
list: those of us who have allowed ourselves to be seduced by so
appealing a soapbox, and those of us who have allowed the soapbox
orators to preempt useful additions to the treasury of knowledge and
thought concerning our common subject.
David Evett
[9]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: David Bishop <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Sunday, 20 Nov 2005 01:33:33 -0500
Subject: 16.1906 Dead Horses and Closing Threads
Comment: Re: SHK 16.1906 Dead Horses and Closing Threads
I have a suggestion for tightening up this list a little: put a word
limit on posts. Hardy could set his filter to allow the first 250 (or
whatever) words and cut off the rest. People would soon learn, and the
discipline might be salutary. Of course the moderator would be free to
override the limit at his discretion.
Best wishes,
David Bishop
[10]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Phyllis Gorfain <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Sunday, 20 Nov 2005 23:30:12 -0500
Subject: 16.1906 Dead Horses and Closing Threads
Comment: Re: SHK 16.1906 Dead Horses and Closing Threads
I hope I am not beating a dead horse, but I want to add my support for
Hardy's decision to cut off some threads sooner than he would have
earlier. I trust Hardy's careful judgment (always considered) about
what threads need to be cut off as he has been, I think, eminently fair
about allowing discussion of most topics (with the exception of
authorship and, more recently, cryptology). Clearly Hardy has allowed
the listserv to grow and change, and he has welcomed students, actors,
directors, Shakespeare fans, and scholars, even though the listserv
began as an academic forum. If Hardy deems a thread or topic to have
run its course because he sees that a small number of people continue to
write in, or that the question has been answered sufficiently, or for
other reasons deems the thread not likely to generate useful discussion,
I believe we will all benefit from a more vital Shaksper that is lively,
significant, and helpful.
Phyllis Gorfain
Oberlin College
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