Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 16:27:15 -0500 (EST)
From: Robert F Carley <carley+-AT-pitt.edu>
Subject: Re: Moving On (2)



there is a disparaging proliferation of intellectual elitism circulating
on this list regarding the treatment of particular members of the list.

Ideally, this list represents a public forum which has, imposed upon it,
particular configurations and valuations which, in many cases, reflect
institutional mechanisms that are common to universities. That is to say,
"many of the participants in this discussion" come from colleges and
universities: disciplines which are imbibed in administrative and
bureaucratic structures and specific (valorized) intellecutal cultures.
And, "some of us" do not. "Some of us," as
particular disciplines stress, organize our readings under the weight of
social relations through the pleateaus of various "historical" moments,
eg. through the elaboration of particular geneaologies, in complement with 
a kind of theoretical hegemony, allegiance, what have you and "some of us"
are not going to approach the text in that way.  If connections are made
through a particular cathected practice indicative of a Barthsian
"jouissance" rather than vis-a-vis some other practice perhaps folks on
the list should discuss problems with methodology instead of poking fun
or, worse, attempting to humiliate a participant off of the list...

I really think that these "tactics" are deplorable and I would be
miserable in a class discussion that took this tenor.

Robert Carley