Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 32, No. 168.
            Department of Digital Humanities, King's College London
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                       www.dhhumanist.org
                Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org




        Date: 2018-11-07 09:30:02+00:00
        From: Harold Short 
        Subject: Re: [Humanist] 32.161: is it necessary to catch the hares?

Dear Willard

Releasing hares is what Humanist is and has always been about!  
Of course the notice board function is an important one for our field, 
but its main purpose has always been pursuing the intellectual 
curiosity that is the beating heart of scholarship.

As Ken says, you may need a therapist, but this list is probably not 
the venue to discuss this - are you free for dinner next week?

Keep up the good work - long may it, and you, continue!

Best wishes
Harold


On 6 Nov 2018, at 11:26, Humanist > wrote:

                 Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 32, No. 161.
           Department of Digital Humanities, King's College London
                      www.dhhumanist.org
               Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org




       Date: 2018-11-06 11:01:03+00:00
       From: Willard McCarty >
       Subject: is it necessary to catch the hares?

In a mildly agreeable review of an essay of mine -- remarkable given
that the reviewer is well-known to be formidable -- this person
commented that "This article sets many hares running... without much
apparent interest in catching any of them." I had not thought of what I
was doing in quite those terms, but (to adopt the reviewer's) their
release was deliberate. The comment leads me to wonder if doing that is
a bad thing, whether others do it and if it is particularly
characteristic of authors who are wanting their readers to think about
something that is not often or not properly considered -- a kind of
implicit 'as-if'. The reviewer has made me realise that I do this
releasing of hares TO SEE IF OTHERS WILL RUN AFTER THEM and catch what I
cannot, because I don't know how, all the time.

Should I see a therapist or continue releasing hares?

Comments if not answers welcome.

Yours,
WM



--
Willard McCarty (www.mccarty.org.uk/), Professor emeritus, Department of
Digital Humanities, King's College London; Adjunct Professor, Western
Sydney University; Editor, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews
(www.tandfonline.com/loi/yisr20) and Humanist (www.dhhumanist.org)



Harold Short
Emeritus Professor Dept of Digital Humanities King's College London
Visiting Professorial Fellow Australian Catholic University











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