Your description of the Talmudic academies is the antithesis of the
framework for abductive multilogues that Eva proposes in her article.
Suspending judgment on what "establishing scholarship" within the
multilogical space of the mailing list might be, that is without reference
to the other academic activity systems in which it is embedded (or to which
it is chained as per Eva's description) i think you are pointing to the
reality of why some people don't participate. They perceive the mailing
list environment to be an archaic framework of the kind you describe. Given
its embeddedness, that perception has some merit.
I wonder if the people who sat closer to the front, in the Talmudic
academies, ever turned around to look at the people behind them, or if they
ever decided that a certain topic would be better served by arranging the
chairs in a circle?
Paul H. Dillon
-----Original Message-----
From: Ken Goodman <kgoodman who-is-at u.arizona.edu>
To: xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date: Monday, September 13, 1999 11:36 AM
Subject: Re: participation structures
>At some time in the past I remember commenting on the Talmudic academies
>in Jerusalem and Babylon is biblical times. Young scholars joined the
>group at the back and gradually worked their way forward as they
>established their scholarship and implicit right to comment. Perhaps by
>analogy that is what happens in the kind of virtual academy that the
>internet provides.
>
>Ken Goodman
>