Replies: 3 comments

The whiskey was...Macallan.
John, you're right. In this case, the name is overshadowing what really wasn't "in-tune" scholarship (if there is such a saying). Anyway, I know a lot of people got something out of the talk in question, but I felt the talk represented how quickly the field had moved beyond the once important idea folks.

Posted by jeff @ 10/10/2004 09:09 PM EST

What kind of whiskey was it?

And for the big names being passed by, that happens in all fields, not just composition. In composition, we've seen it with movements trashing earlier movements (the Elbow-Berlin debate is an example of this). As composition continues to professionalize, as the tradition and the body of scholarship grows, the ability for any one person or movement to become a shining star lessons. Becoming a big star will get harder and harder. It's much easier to become a big name when you're a pioneer in a field, and it's much harder to get noticed when you're a 3rd or 4th generation scholar in a field and all those previous generations are still plugging along for better or worst.

Academia is all about the battle between the Young Turks and the Old Guard, as one of my dissertation committee members likes to describe it. And, actually, from my perspective, composition is much better off in this regard than many other fields, and computers and writing more so. At least in computers and writing the Old Guard is looking at video games, even if its colored through their pre-video game, Vietnam-era anti-war lenses. In many other fields housed in English departments, the Old Guard would not only not be looking at something like video games, but they would hold such interest against any Young Turk who did.

This is the trade off that comes with the field's professionalization. And it's really just our own variation on the whole 'kill the father'/anxiety of influence thing.

Probably not much consolation, but as someone with feet in both a long established field and in a fairly new field, it's how I see it.