The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 17.0311  Tuesday, 11 April 2006

From: 		Hardy M. Cook <
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Date: 		Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Subject: 	Feedback on SHAKSPER

Dear SHAKSPEReans,

As I announced yesterday, I will be headed to Philadelphia tomorrow for 
this year's annual meeting of the Shakespeare Association of America. 
There, I will be participating in the seminar on "Shakespeare Forums" 
with my essay "SHAKSPER: An Academic Discussion List in the 'Secular' 
World of the Internet."

It has been two months now since the new SHAKSPER server went online and 
I announced that I felt compelled to become active as moderator and only 
to post messages that I believe are of interest to academics.  I made 
this decision in order to reassert SHAKSPER's role in and service to the 
world-wide Shakespearean academic community. 
<http://www.shaksper.net/archives/2006/0000.html>

I now ask for any feedback that members want to share with me privately 
on the operation, culture, and climate of the list since this change. 
Possible topics for comment might be 1. the current level of list 
traffic, 2. the level of discourse -- language -- (instances of ad 
hominem attacks and so on), 3. the level of discourse regarding the 
subject matter of recent discussions, 4. the variety among those who 
have been participating in recent discussion, or 5. the variety among 
recent topics of discussions.

In the concluding sentence to my SAA essay, I write, "I am not sure how 
successfully I will be at reasserting SHAKSPER discursive role in the 
scholarly community, but I can only hope to regain some of the 
excitement of earlier years when scholars around the world had an 
alternative venue to conferences and publications to talk and to explore 
ideas." Obviously, it is too early to assess this issue, but I would 
appreciate any observations that members would care to offer me.

Hardy

_______________________________________________________________
S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List
Hardy M. Cook, 
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The S H A K S P E R Webpage <http://www.shaksper.net>

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