 |
 |
James Cummings concludes from our methodology discussion so far that "the best contributions may be made when one strays away from the comfort and security of strong theoretical foundations" to follow up more general information on a gut feeling. I'm in sympathy with the straying-away part; it seems to me that Anne Lancashire and Sally-Beth Maclean have both argued, within the context of REED's work, for the importance of individual initiative by editors. But what they describe, and endorse, is a straying-away from a possibly too literal reading of editorial policy, not from what a theorist would recognize as a strong theoretical foundation. Our recent exchanges on the subject of methodology have taught me a lot about the practicalities of publication and of the need for pragmatism, but (except for Andrew Taylor's response) I haven't had much sense that we've been talking about theoretical foundations. A properly modern sense of our theoretical foundations would likely offer nothing resembling the "comfort and security" James Cummings invokes; probably the opposite. For the past two weeks I've been annoying everyone with my questions about whether our discipline has such a foundation, and if so what it is, but mostly I think the discussion has been about REED editorial policy. _______________________________________________________________________ William Ingram, English Dept, Univ of Michigan, Ann Arbor MI 48109-1045 e-mail: [log in to unmask] fax (departmental): 313 763 3128 -----------------------------------------------------------------------