SHAKSPER 2008: Your Assistance in Seeking New or Lapsed Members

From: Hardy M. Cook (editor@SHAKSPER.NET)
Date: 05/15/08 

The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 19.0296  Thursday, 15 May 2008

From: 		Hardy M. Cook <editor@shaksper.net>
Date: 		Thursday, May 15, 2008
Subject: 	Your Assistance in Seeking New or Lapsed Members

Dear SHAKSPEReans,

I am thrilled by the discussions and activities that have been taking 
place on SHAKSPER of late. I would like to ask your assistance in 
helping me to find former members of SHAKSPER who have let their 
memberships lapse or potential new members who have not as yet joined 
the list.

So, if you know of anyone who might be interested in joining or in 
rejoining us, please cut out the invitation letter below and paste it 
into an e-mail message, and send it to prospective members.

Thanks for your assistance in helping me to find new and renewing 
members for our conference.

Best wishes,
Hardy

PS: If my procedures are just too much for you, please send me the names 
AND e-mail addresses of those persons you think might be interested in 
joining or rejoining SHAKSPER.

INVITATION TO JOIN SHAKSPER
Please cut below and paste in a e-mail message.
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Thursday, May 15, 2008

To Anyone with a Serious Interest in Shakespeare:

Now, in its nineteenth year, SHAKSPER: The Global Electronic Shakespeare 
Conference is one of the oldest and most highly respected academic 
listservs in the world. As the owner, moderator, and editor of SHAKSPER, 
I have during the past few years been working to recapture some of the 
excitement of the early days of the list by returning SHAKSPER to its 
academic roots and by adding some new features. I invite you to read on 
to learn about some of the exciting activities.

One of those new activities is the second SHAKSPER Roundtable. This 
forum is on "Shakespeare's Intentions" and is moderated by Cary DiPietro 
with focused essays by him, 
<http://www.shaksper.net/archives/2008/0243.html> John Drakakis, and 
<http://www.shaksper.net/archives/2008/0252.html> Alan Dessen 
<http://www.shaksper.net/archives/2008/0284.html> and with at least four 
more of these solicited essays forthcoming, next week featuring a 
contribution from Terence Hawkes.

By way of background clarification, I recently published an essay, 
"SHAKSPER: An Academic Discussion List," in <I>Borrowers and Lenders: 
The Journal of Shakespeare and Appropriation</I>: 
http://lachesis.english.uga.edu/cocoon/borrowers/request?id=590387, in 
which I explore some of the issues that have arisen with respects to 
SHAKSPER over the past few years and that led, in part, to my 
establishing the SHAKSPER Roundtable:

ABSTRACT: This essay discusses the moderator's experience of moderating 
and maintaining the SHAKSPER listserv since 1992. Since that time, the 
list's popularity has grown, and its membership has changed from a 
preponderance of academics to an equal mix of scholars and 
non-academics. As its membership became more diverse, SHAKSPER's topics 
and participation also changed. The remainder of the essay discusses the 
challenges of moderating this listserv in terms of its intellectual and 
social dynamics.

In 1992, when I became the sole owner, editor, and moderator of 
SHAKSPER, the 293 members were virtually all from academia. By the 
mid-1990s and through to the present, SHAKSPER's members have been 
almost evenly divided between academics and non-academics. I welcomed 
the diversity in the membership, but I became concerned that SHAKSPER 
was losing its academic focus. When SHAKSPER came back online in 
February 2006 after a long hiatus, I announced that the only way that I 
could see that I could regain the academic focus of the list was for me 
to become more active as moderator and for me only to post messages that 
I believe would be of interest to the academic community of Shakespeare 
and Early Modern scholars. I further elucidated my intentions by 
explaining that in posting messages only of interest to the academic 
community, I was not proposing to restrict the membership of SHAKSPER or 
to eliminate significant questions and comments from actors, directors, 
or any other member of the list. The source of the post would not the 
issue; the issue would be the post's relevance to the broad scope of 
academic interests in Shakespeare studies.

In June of 2006, believing that these changes were beginning to have 
their desired effect, I proposed adding a new feature. In the early days 
of the list, Shakespeareans who taught in smaller, relatively isolated 
institutions around the world would often seek me out at conferences to 
thank me for providing them a kind of virtual faculty lounge and with it 
a sense of belonging to a community of scholars with whom they could 
share their thoughts and explore their ideas despite the comparative 
dearth of actual colleagues where they lived and worked. These 
reflections on SHAKSPER's history led me to consider that we might 
become more intentional about this particular aspect of our community, 
so I proceeded to institute a forum for the periodic discussion of 
topics of interest to academics -- the SHAKSPER Roundtable. After the 
New Year, Hugh Grady, Professor of English at Arcadia University in 
Pennsylvania, volunteered to be Guest Moderator for a the first of these 
forums on "Presentism." If you are interested, you may find the 
exchanges that occurred in this roundtable by following the link on the 
SHAKSPER homepage or by clicking here: 
<http://www.shaksper.net/roundtable/index.html >.

Another change, the fruits of which will be appearing shortly, is the 
SHAKSPER Book Review feature. I have selected six scholars -- Mark Aune, 
Jeremy Fiebig, Arthur Lindley, Martin Mueller, Peter Paolucci, and 
Murray Schwartz -- who are currently discussing among themselves 
policies and procedures for the SHAKSPER Book Review Panel and who will 
soon be issuing calls for volunteers and invitations to members to 
review books of interest in Shakespeare and Early Modern studies that 
they have chosen to be reviewed. At all phases of the process, the panel 
members will be vetting for academic content and merit.

I hope that this message has interested you in SHAKSPER. If you are a 
lapsed member or someone new with an interest in the scholarly 
exploration of Shakespeare, please consider subscribing.

SHAKSPER offers the opportunity for the formal exchange of ideas through 
queries and responses regarding literary, critical, textual, 
theoretical, and performative topics and issues.  Announcements of 
conferences, of calls for papers, of seminars, of lectures, of symposia, 
of job openings, of the publication of books, of the availability of 
online and print articles, of Internet databases and resources, of 
journal contents, of festivals, and of academic programs of study are a 
regular features as are reviews of scholarly books, of past and present 
theatrical productions, and of Shakespeare and Shakespeare-inspired 
films -- in addition to "popular" culture references to Shakespeare or 
his works -- but SHAKSPER also provides occasions for spontaneous 
informal discussion, eavesdropping, peer review, and a sense of 
belonging to a worldwide, scholarly community.

Relevant formal messages and announcements are distributed 
electronically to all members of SHAKSPER. Members are encouraged to 
submit short reviews of scholarly books, news about film and Internet 
resources, theatre reports, and even draft articles for comment from 
other members.

Lengthier electronic texts such as scholarly papers submitted in the 
past by SHAKSPER members are available for on-line retrieval on an 
individual basis from the fileserver or from the SHAKSPER website 
<http://www.shaksper.net/>. Other forms of electronic information 
available on the fileserver and web site include an archive of all past 
discussion of the list, A Selected Guide to Shakespeare on the Internet, 
an international directory of Shakespearean institutions, organizations, 
libraries, and journals; a bibliography of poems, novels, plays, and 
films inspired by Shakespeare and his works, and much more.

SHAKSPER is an edited and moderated e-mail discussion list; the Editor 
only posts contributions that he believes are of interest to the 
academic Shakespearean community. For readers' convenience, these 
messages are lightly edited and grouped in separate digests according to 
topic. Contributions that are clearly irresponsible, offensive, or apart 
from SHAKSPER's purpose, including those concerning the so-called 
"Authorship Question," will be ignored.

If you wish to join, please send a brief autobiography (under 500 words) 
to the editor <SHAKSPER@shaksper.net>. SHAKSPER is NOT open to automatic 
subscription, but the editor has been informed of your inquiry and is 
awaiting your biography file. Please be sure to include your full name, 
a biographical sketch, and an outline of your current interests and 
research topics. The biographical note is NOT part of an adjudication 
process; instead, it is an expression of your interest and will become a 
part of a database to which only the editor has access.

Thank you for your interest in SHAKSPER, and I hope you will soon choose 
to join this exciting international community!


Yours,
Hardy M. Cook <editor@shaksper.net>
Editor of SHAKSPER: The Global Electronic Shakespeare Conference
www.shaksper.net

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Please cut above.

_______________________________________________________________
S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List
Hardy M. Cook, editor@shaksper.net
The S H A K S P E R Web Site <http://www.shaksper.net>

DISCLAIMER: Although SHAKSPER is a moderated discussion list, the 
opinions expressed on it are the sole property of the poster, and the 
editor assumes no responsibility for them.


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