Date: Sun, 9 Nov 1997 21:41:55 -0500 From: Gregory {Greg} Downing <downingg-AT-is2.nyu.edu> Subject: PLC: Narrow & Broad Lists (Was Re: Paul Smith as Undergrad. Victim At 08:52 PM 11/9/97 -0500, you (Pat Sloane) wrote: >I've learned much more on lists with a narrower range--T. S. Eliot, Virgil's >Aeneid, mysticism, art and psychology, medieval religion, etc. If your >interest is English studies, I'm surprised you find no interest in the many >author groups--Eliot, Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Ezra Pound, Spenser, etc etc >etc. > This is very wise advice, according to my experience as well if I may add mine to Pat's. On lists with really broad topics, so many different things are brought up by so many different people within a few hours or days, or even simultaneously, that it is hard to fix on one especially germane idea and deal with it in a focused, detailed, nuanced way. One instead tends to ponder all the different insights and problems involved in just a single thread, or even in a single posting -- and thus tends to end up saying nothing, especially when the volume is already heavy. Greg Downing/NYU, at greg.downing-AT-nyu.edu or downingg-AT-is2.nyu.edu --- from list phillitcrit-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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