Dear Abigail, Thank you for your note about the REED list. I understand your
disappointment, but I do think that it's misplaced. I wholly agree with what
Kevin says: and I would add that I have continued to check my e-mail for
REED-L messages precisely because my reader won't be full of junk! I know
that we haven't discussed much (apart from the flurry of activity last year
over The Rose Theatre), but I think that what _has_ been discussed has been
useful.
I also think that your pump-priming has been useful. We have found out
who we all are, and some helpful exchanges have taken place; we know that the
system is there for our use when we want it; and it is in fact a very direct
line of communication between us. Some results of your pump-priming, I think,
drew direct replies that may not have come to your notice.
There are problems, of course. Most of us do our research in isolation,
as is usual in the arts, and it's not easy to break the habit of keeping our
cards close to the chest until we have results (which are then communicated
through other media). Besides, some of us are amateurs in some areas of our
interest, though perhaps professionals in others. I'm an amateur historian,
and also an amateur in dealing with drama: and perhaps one hesitates to
ask advice of/show ones ignorance to a mixed bunch of people one has never met!
We shall get used to the idea that information can be exchanged, I'm sure,
but it will take time.
Like Kevin, I don't think that this is a reason for shutting down the
list. We have been lucky, on the contrary, in not having the list taken over
by weirdos with axes to grind. But the alternative of automating it does
seem sensible: clearly the effort involved in running a very quiet group is
hardly worth it to you personally, and that is surely something that the
computer will be happy to do for itself. So let it be automated, and I hope
that you will be a frequent (well, regular!) cobntributor in your private
capacity.
But this does raise the question of what the list is for and what it can
do. I'm disappointed, I confess, that the list isn't full of REED editors
.
keeping us up to date with what they're doing. Most of us seem to be on the
periphery, somehow -- in itself no bad thing, but we need to be on the
periphery _of_ something! Somehow the list doesn't contain enough people
who could be regarded as the core of research in the area. This may be
asking too much, but I hope not. Would REED editors care to join us?
Going on from there (and I've gone on nearly long enough, and am about
to stop!) it does seem to me that the dissemination of information is a
legitimate and useful task for the list. Does everybody reading this know
what's happening at |kalamazoo next year in the drama/minstrelsy/etc area?
|Perhaps someone from the Medieval |Institue there would let us know. I'm
giving a paper on minstrelsy at the royal Scottish court, 1470-1504, which
is precisely what you have all been longing to hear: but there will be other
papers too! And would it be helpful to know that there is _not_ anything in
this line at the Music Rsearch Students' Conference in Oxford, 16-19 Dec.,
although there will be people there working in late medieval polyphony?
So -- courage, Abigail! Please don't shut us down (even if you might be
tempted to shut me up), but let us know what you see as the possible uses of
the list, what is the current membership like, and whether a wider membership
and a slightly different approach to the problems of communicating our thoughts
mightn't be a very good reason for keeping the (automated, by all means) list
open..
Richard
