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I too applaud the call for a panel discussion at Kalamazoo 97 on the relation of theory to record-reading. Though I sympathize with Clifford Davidson's impatience with the "half-digested stuff" he has come across, I would suggest that in these cases it really is the messengers who must be (not killed, of course, but) held accountable, driven as they may be by tenure and promotion deadlines, and who-knows-what-all, rather than the message itself. I USED to be one of those who resisted theory--or thought I did--because (a) I couldn't understand the jargon and resented being made to feel stupid at my age and stage of career, (b) honestly thought that literary texts had a life of their own (see fear-of-theory at (a) above), but at the same time, I had a nagging sense that something was missing from my own researches besides yet another set of records. I was only able to articulate that sense as a question: So What? I passed that question along to my students, and still do--and I get to recall, at those times, what a real paradigm-shift looks like when seen directly on students' faces. The anthropologists have a term for what I used to do: butterfly collecting--the compiling of data without a context in which to read that data or decipher--not its utility, exactly, for someone could argue that data are inherently useful and need no excuse--but the answer to the So What that is sufficiently compelling to keep my readers interested in increasing numbers. ENter Theory, Provider of Contexts, Ground Against WHich to Proceed. Then, of course, there's theory and there's theory. But that's another conversation--perhaps even the conversation that might take place at Kalamazoo in 97. Might I recommend as a starting point for such a discussion a collection of essays edited by Kathleen Ashley, *Victor TUrner and the Construction of Cultural Criticism: Between Literature and Anthropology* (Indiana UP, 1990). Ashley's other work is well known to most REED-L-ers, so her collection might appear to be in the spirit of *amicus curiae.* Alternatively, have a look at some of TUrner's work itself. Obviously, for my money, anthropological theory provides the most profitable access in terms of literary and other documentary study. Not only does it move us along on the So What question, but it attempts to do so in terms of largely probable contexts for the production of texts. ENough for now--ideally this conversation will continue. Cheers, Naomi Liebler