4.0069 Humanist Structure (210)
Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Thu, 17 May 90 18:06:22 EDT
Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 4, No. 0069. Thursday, 17 May 1990.
(1) Date: Wed, 16 May 90 19:50 EDT (21 lines)
From: JackFruchtman_8302850 <E7U4FRU@TOWSONVX.BITNET>
Subject: Re: 4.0063 Humanist Structure
(2) Date: 16 May 90 19:42:00 EST (9 lines)
From: "HALPORN,JAMES,CLAS" <halpornj@ucs.indiana.edu>
Subject: Structure of Humanist
(3) Date: Wed, 16 May 90 18:57:56 -0700 (37 lines)
From: edwards@cogsci.berkeley.edu (Jane Edwards)
Subject: Humanist Structure - the vote is in
(4) Date: Thu, 17 May 90 01:10:24 -0400 (8 lines)
From: Robert Hollander <bobh@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Subject: Re: 4.0063 Humanist Structure
(5) Date: Thu, 17 May 90 06:50:47 EDT (44 lines)
From: Ken Steele <KSTEELE@vm.epas.utoronto.ca>
Subject: Re: 4.0063 Humanist Structure
(6) Date: Thu, 17 May 90 07:08:57 EDT (9 lines)
From: judith brugger <J2MX@CORNELLC>
Subject: Re: 4.0063 Humanist Structure
(7) Date: Thu, 17 May 90 08:27 EST (11 lines)
From: N_EITELJORG@cc.brynmawr.edu
Subject: Re: 4.0049 Humanist Structure
(8) Date: Thu, 17 May 90 08:05:52 EDT (67 lines)
From: Douglas Greenberg <SDGLS@CUNYVM>
Subject: Re: 4.0049 Humanist Structure
(9) Date: 17 May 90 09:06 EST (13 lines)
From: Jim Cahalan <JMCAHAL@IUPCP6.BITNET>
Subject: stay moderated!
(10) Date: Thu, 17 May 90 11:39:43 EST (5 lines)
From: "GILES R. HOYT" <IPIF100@INDYCMS>
Subject: Structure
(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 16 May 90 19:50 EDT
From: JackFruchtman_8302850 <E7U4FRU@TOWSONVX.BITNET>
Subject: Re: 4.0063 Humanist Structure (189)
I can't tell at this point whether anyone is keeping a tally of whether
HUMANIST ought or ought not be split into tiers.
If there is such a poll, I want to add my name to those who wish the list
to stay as is. I'm computer literate, which means I can do the basics,
but it also means I wish to learn more about the technical ends of the
business. Meantime, my interests are far-flung from most of you who
seem to have joined this list -- which makes your chatter and banter all
the more interesting to me.
Don't split anything! You'll lose what Willard was able to bring to great
heights and the new editors are continuing on into the future. And you'll
lose me, too.
Jack Fruchtman, Jr.
Towson State University
e7u4fru@towsonvm
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------18----
Date: 16 May 90 19:42:00 EST
From: "HALPORN,JAMES,CLAS" <halpornj@ucs.indiana.edu>
Subject: Structure of Humanist
Is it worth mentioning that the line:
"homo sum: humani nil a me alienum puto" from Terence's Self Tormentor
(77) is spoken by Chremes, the nosy busybody of the play?
Jim Halporn
(3) --------------------------------------------------------------46----
Date: Wed, 16 May 90 18:57:56 -0700
From: edwards@cogsci.berkeley.edu (Jane Edwards)
Subject: Humanist Structure - the vote is in
This topic has caused a great deal more fervor than I had expected, and
for that I am sorry. Part of the fervor is the result of people
misinterpreting my intent. I, TOO, WOULD OPPOSE A TECHIE VS. NON-TECHIE
DIVISION of the group. I find fascinating the various scholarly
discussions concerning topics outside of my own discipline which I would
otherwise never have the opportunity to encounter. And to be privy to
discussions on those topics by people who care about them and have
specialists' knowledge about them is an extremely exciting and enriching
experience. The diversity of topics and disciplines represented here is
really spectacular and is one of the reasons why reading Humanist is
such a fun and interesting thing to do.
What I was objecting to is what looked like an ever increasing trend
toward unsubstantiated opinion or pure chat since the Earth Day exchange.
It is not really possible as some have suggested to screen articles for
this on the basis of Subject line. They must be read for this, and here
is where the commitments in time (in reading) and space (in disk space
necessary for incoming mail) come in.
I was never suggesting censorship, i.e., preventing anything from being
circulated or archived. The Subject lines would have circulated to
everyone, and everything would still have been archived, it's just that
articles which the poster's marked as "social" or "political" would have
been distributed _in full_ only to the sublist; all others would have
been circulated in full to everyone.
In this note, I hope I may have helped to re-balance the scales I
unintentionally upset by my previous postings on this topic. The
majority view is that the list stay unified, so I withdraw my proposal
for any change. Sorry if my comments were the source of unneeded
friction here. As I stated above, this was not my intention.
-Jane Edwards
(4) --------------------------------------------------------------20----
Date: Thu, 17 May 90 01:10:24 -0400
From: Robert Hollander <bobh@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Subject: Re: 4.0063 Humanist Structure (189)
O my sister, o my brother
Can't we put up with one another?
If we cannot, let it be:
Only tickle control-C.
(5) --------------------------------------------------------------52----
Date: Thu, 17 May 90 06:50:47 EDT
From: Ken Steele <KSTEELE@vm.epas.utoronto.ca>
Subject: Re: 4.0063 Humanist Structure (189)
I was reluctant to enter the fray (yet again) over whether Humanist is
a discussion group for humanities COMPUTING or computing HUMANISTS, and
I rightly braced myself for the onslaught of replies (upholding my
opinion six months ago, as now) objecting to the idea of suppression or
division. If we are conducting a poll, by all means count me among those
who wish to see no such dissection.
I find it rather intriguing that techies and non-techies alike feel as
though THEY will be relegated to the isolation of a sub-list -- I
assumed it was the Humanities which would be so discarded, but others
object to the compartmentalization of the Computing! This alone should
be sufficient to demonstrate the perceived injustice of segregation.
I admit, technical discussions occasionally attract my attention -- like
the issue of modems, with which I have recently dealt, or airport
security -- but generally my interest lies in the humanities. As a
group we cannot predict what technical or non-technical subjects will
interest us -- so let's not try.
As I said, I was reluctant to join the fray, knowing that my opinion
would appear in sufficient numbers to defend itself, but I am writing
because I cannot allow Natalie Maynor's rather remarkable (and
unsupportable) assertion to stand unchallenged, that an UNmoderated list
would be easier on its members! Those now whining because they receive
ten or eleven messages a day, neatly organized by topic and condensed
together, would be astounded at the confusion which would result in
unmoderation -- I would estimate 50-80 messages a day, randomly
scattered over the techie and non-techie spectrum, often without subject
lines and probably a good deal longer than those to which we have grown
accustomed.
HUMANIST is successful because it fuses the humanities and computing,
and the massive effort which goes into moderation is what makes it both
feasible and interesting to most of us. I trust that cooler judgements
will prevail, and that HUMANIST will not consider either of these two
most unfortunate suggestions for change.
Ken Steele
University of Toronto
(6) --------------------------------------------------------------16----
Date: Thu, 17 May 90 07:08:57 EDT
From: judith brugger <J2MX@CORNELLC>
Subject: Re: 4.0063 Humanist Structure (189)
I agree with Natalie Maynor. Let's get rid of the clumping. I want to
be able to see a header in my mail file that relates to one incoming
file. If I want to delete that file unread, good for me. If I want to
see it, ditto. I hate reading 10 headers in a clump and then ten semi-
connected messages.
(7) --------------------------------------------------------------16----
Date: Thu, 17 May 90 08:27 EST
From: N_EITELJORG@cc.brynmawr.edu
Subject: Re: 4.0049 Humanist Structure (179)
I agree with those who prefer to keep HUMANIST as it is. The variety of
topics, the interdependence of those topics, and the divergences of views
all provide just what the name *HUMANIST* imples. If we segregate one
group of interests from another we are succumbing to the kind of
departmentalization we should be fighting.
Nick Eiteljorg (n_eiteljorg@brynmawr.bitnet)
(8) --------------------------------------------------------------68----
Date: Thu, 17 May 90 08:05:52 EDT
From: Douglas Greenberg <SDGLS@CUNYVM>
Subject: Re: 4.0049 Humanist Structure (179)
I have been reading the various messages, notes, and other material on
HUMANIST silently since subscribing several weeks ago. Like anyone who
is a newcomer at a social gathering, I have been trying to get a sense
of the conventions of the group and its styles of communicating. I
confess to thinking that much of what I have been reading was of little
interest to me (or at least too little to justify my spending so much
time on it). More than that, although I am a a humanist with some
knowledge of computing and an interest in the recent developments in th
field, I remain disappointed with the intellectual quality of what I
read on HUMANIST. It isn't that the sometimes boring debates over
technical questions are trivial or of no interest that disturbs me.
After all, that is true of some proportion of what we all do in our
"normal" scholarly work too. It is, infact, one of the main signs of
professionalism. Rather, it is the concentration on these quaetions to
the exclusion of real interchange about scholarly issues (as opposed to
trivia contests about etymologies and so on). I assume (perhaps
wrongly) that almost everyone on HUMANIST has a life that is not, as it
were, computer driven, a life that focusses on teaching and writing in
those disciplines that we call the humanities. It was exchange on those
sorts of questions that I had hoped to take part in when I subscribed to
HUMANIST. I see now that I either misunderstood the purpose of HUMANIST
or that I don't understand the social/cultural milieu that animates it.
I will probably drop HUMANIST because I haven't got the time even to
delete all the messages I get every day, but before I go, let me at
least try to raise the sort of question that I expected to find at the
center of your concerns.
Much discussion in the humanities thes past few years has centered on
texts and their nature. In at least three disciplines (literature,
philosophy, and history), a huge theoretical discours on these questions
as emerged. The lit. crits. have led the charge but the philosophers
and the historians haven't been far behind (and the art historians are
starting to get into the act too!). The sorts of questions raised n
this discourse are complex of course, but they center around one big
issue: What is a text and how should we define the limits of its
contents? This may be an infelcitous way to phrase it, but the other
issues of the discussion (representation, catachresis, intertextual- ity
and so on) can usually be subsumed under this one large question. At the
same time, humanities computing has been producing "electronic" texts,
and not a little energy has been devoted (although not on HUMANIST so
far as I can tell)to trying to define an electronic text and its
contents. I haven't seen much evidence, however, that these two ongoing
scholarly questions have been brought together in any way at all, either
on HUMANIST or in the scholarly journals, in spite of the fact that they
rasie precisely the same issues for two different groups of scholars .
Moreover, these two groups are likely to get closer to one another and
to overlap more than they do now.
This is only one of the kinds of questions that serious scholars in the
humanities might discuss on HUMANIST. I could easily come up with
others, but from what I have observed( and I confess to limited
exposure) it doesn't seem to me that most of the people who subscribe to
HUMANIST would be any more interested in these questions than I am in
most of what is now absorbing most of the discussion. I would be very
pleased to discover that I am wrong.
By the way, I find it offensive to see people threaten to leave the room
if they don't get their way or because they don't want to discuss a
question in which others are interested. No one is that important. Not
even Sperberg- McQueen and Burnard!
Douglas Greenberg(SDGLS@CUNYVM.BITNET
American Council of Learned Societies
Sorry for all the typos in this message!
(9) --------------------------------------------------------------22----
Date: 17 May 90 09:06 EST
From: Jim Cahalan <JMCAHAL@IUPCP6.BITNET>
Subject: stay moderated!
Please do NOT go to an unmoderated format! I finally withdrew from the
unmoderated MEGABYTE U list because I felt overwhelmed by the constant
deluge of unmoderated junk mail--every time I logged on I had to spend
undue time deleting their constant stream of most irrelevant postings
before I could get to my "real" mail. Stay moderated! Thanks,
Jim Cahalan, Graduate Literature <JMCAHAL@IUP.BITNET>
English Dept., 111 Leonard, Indiana University of Pennsylvania
Indiana, PA 15705-1094 Phone: (412) 357-2264
(10) --------------------------------------------------------------13---
Date: Thu, 17 May 90 11:39:43 EST
From: "GILES R. HOYT" <IPIF100@INDYCMS>
Subject: Structure
There is no reason to change what appears to be working fine.