I am inclined to agree with Eva, particularly since I
appreciate her xmca messaging - humorous, sometimes cryptic,
poetic, playful. But I appreciate Naoki's point, that
inexplicit, "slanted" e-mail can be confusing, frustrating,
and typically invites misunderstanding. For myself, I aspire to
to an ethic for accommodating different styles of e-mail messaging:
- withhold interpretation of the writer's intent,
attend first to one's own readings of what's between-the-lines,
& if still confused & interested, ask for clarification.
An ethic of reading to complement an ethic of writing. But I
suppose that our different politeness systems/ social
histories dispose us to one or the other sort of ethic.
Thanks for the Baym reference.
Judith
>
>On the other hand, I don't have the sense we're the kind of academics that
>never smile -- there's far too much consciousness here of how essential a
>certain playfulness is to creativity. And I think we're pretty good at
>looking upon the tensions and discrepancies in our own experiences of
>academia with some humour: if you don't want to cry you just have to
>laugh,eh?
> As we are truly computer mediated there are certainly some risks
>involved -- we don't always share *styles* of humour. Irony is one of the
>risky styles, certainly. However, I think that using irony may be less
>risky in Academia than in many other communities (or maybe I think so just
>because I have worked with British colleagues recently...) Whatever it is:
>remember that Humour Is a Joint Production.
>
>Eva
>
>
>
>
Judith Diamondstone (908) 932-7496 Ext. 352
MAILING ADDRESS:
Graduate School of Education
Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
10 Seminary Place
New Brunswick, NJ 08903