The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 19.0269 Thursday, 8 May 2008
From: Joseph Egert <
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Date: Wednesday, 7 May 2008 13:31:54 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: 19.0250 Roundtable Digest: Shakespeare's Intentions
Comment: Re: SHK 19.0250 Roundtable Digest: Shakespeare's Intentions
John Drakakis entreats:
>may I make one request: the previous "Roundtable"
>strands have petered off into obscurity simply because
>particular contributors used the opportunity to parade
>thoughtless prejudice. Perhaps on this occasion, we
>might pause to think about how we might take the
>debate forward without getting bogged down in
>entrenched positions."
Can Drs. Drakakis, Egan, et al, define for us the play editor's task or
mission?
Thoughtfully yours,
Joe Egert
[Editor's Note: This question seems to me to belong more properly in the
"Meta-Comment on Intentions Roundtable" that I began on Friday, May 02,
2008 <http://www.shaksper.net/archives/2008/0253.html>, than to the
Roundtable discussion itself. So I have added the question into that thread.
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 19.0251 Friday, 2 May 2008
From: Hardy M. Cook <
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Date: Friday, May 02, 2008
Subject: Meta-Comment on Intentions Roundtable
John Drakakis concludes his thoughtful contribution to the SHAKSPER
Roundtable: Shakespeare's Intentions with the following paragraph:
I have taxed patient readers with too long an introduction, but may I
make one request: the previous "Roundtable" strands have petered off
into obscurity simply because particular contributors used the
opportunity to parade thoughtless prejudice. Perhaps on this occasion,
we might pause to think about how we might take the debate forward
without getting bogged down in entrenched positions. We have enough
material within the Shakespeare oeuvre to provide us with a variety of
examples that we can profitably discuss, and that may, I think, lead us
to conclusions that we might not have expected when we started to think
about this topic.
As SHAKSPER's editor/moderator, I am moved to comment here. I developed
the concept of the Roundtable format as a means of re-capturing some of
the excitement of SHAKSPER's early days. At that time, virtually all of
the members of SHAKSPER were academics for the simple reasons that in
the early 1990s, for the most part, the majority of those who had access
to the Internet were members of the military or members of the academy
-- AOL, HOTMAIL, GMAIL, EARTHLINK, and such did not exist. During these
early years, members of SHAKSPER were pioneers, adventurous spirits from
the academy, who were creating an electronic alternative to Shakespeare
Association of America seminars and departmental lounges, a place where
the likeminded discussed their scholarship and ideas, shaping in the
process the very medium used for that discourse. The Internet brought
together academics from around the world: a Shakespearean in Malta no
longer felt isolated from her colleagues in Europe or in the United
States; scholars from small colleges in rural Kansas could exchange
ideas with their colleagues from major research universities on the
coasts or across "the pond"; graduate students and tenure-track
assistant professors could hone their academic eye-teeth debating with
eminent scholars; while those eminent scholars could test their latest
theoretical creations, getting reactions from a broad spectrum of
potential buyers of their next scholarly tome. Now, that I have waxed
nostalgic, let me return to the matter at hand.
I share John Drakakis's hope that in Roundtable 2 we will have
profitable discussions of the topic rather than our being diverted into
endless repetitions of the same-old, same-old culture wars
confrontations that have characterized some of our efforts in the past
to examine subjects of a theoretical nature.
Hardy M. Cook
Editor-Moderator of SHAKSPER
Professor of English]
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Hardy M. Cook,
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