This whole controversy

[C. Fields]

I apologize.  I thought I was deleting this.  I did not mean to send it.

ef


On Mon, 21 Jun 1999, C. Fields wrote:

> Thank you for taking the "you're an idiot" element out of this debate.  I
> was beginning to think that I was listening in on a playground push-fight
> instead of a scholarly debate--half telling teacher because "he hurt my
> feelings" and the other half saying "yeah, well your feet stink too!"  Are
> we grown-ups or kids.  Aren't grown-ups supposed to be able respond to
> flippant criticism with something a bit more witty that "you're not
> supposed to say things like that" and "that was mean you meaney!"  Are
> scholarly egos to be so fragile that they can't take criticism
> (deserved or undeserved) with a LEETLE bit of a sense of humor.
>
>
>
> On Tue, 15 Jun 1999, UDUT, KENNETH wrote:
>
> >      It would seem that American scholarship treats each case as
> >      individual, self-referencial, and as a closed system.
> >
> >      But there are other forms of scholarship which see works as more
> >      global, 'other'-referencial, and as an open system.
> >
> >
> >      One seems to imply the question, "How does this writing compare,
> >      firstly - to itself and secondly - to other texts of the same
> >      nature?"
> >
> >      The other seems to imply the question, "How does this text affect
> >      what I know about the world?  What does this text bring in from the
> >      outside world?  How do these things that are brought in from the
> >      outside world relate to what I know of the world?", etc.
> >
> >      One viewpoint is more individualistic, and the other is more
> >      holistic.
> >
> >      Of course, the first system says to the second, "Why must you drag
> >      all of this and that into this text?".  The second system asks to
> >      the first, "Can't you see how these things are related?"
> >
> >
> >      But I could be wrong :)  I'm no scholar :)
> >
> >
> >      -Kenneth
> >      kenneth.udut at spcorp.com
> >
>