IMHO, the list dynamic here is just different, maybe because it has
"theory " in the title. I'm on a few other lists where people have
similarly disparate interests, yet there's little reticence about
speaking/writing? one's mind.
For example, if I were to ask, "what do list members consider the
definitive work on contact study and why," there would probably be a
resounding silence, to be read as:
what a stupid question
I'm too busy
I don't want to embarrass myself by suggesting the wrong work
let someone else do it
if I suggest something, there would, god forbid, be a discussion about it
no-one does contact studies any more
not theoretical enough
irrelevant
....
I'm guilty of some of these myself, yet on other lists I haven't
hesitated to stick my oar in and participate if I felt I had
something to say. Is it the whole concept of theory that strikes us
dumb? In that case, are we a community of mutes, afraid of our
declared commonality?
cheers
Constanze
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Constanze Witt, PhD
UT Austin Classics Dept.
WAG 17 C3400
Austin, TX 78712
512 471 8684
fax 512 471 4111
http://www.utexas.edu/depts/classics/
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