On Thu, 1 Mar 2001, Una McCormack wrote:
I would be *gutted* to think that people on this list have felt like lab rats. Everyone who took part in the Q study took part, I *truly* hope, because they wanted to, and knew that they were free to pull their responses if they didn't want them analyzed. I hope I behaved professionally throughout, and if anyone who took part feels as if I misrepresented or mistook them; *please*, let me know (off list).
You behaved impeccably, Una.
I hope to god that people know that I have the utmost respect
for their opinions and thoughts,
Even mine?
and that when I work not just as an academic
but as a *human being* (and these are the *same thing* to me) on any subject, *all* I am doing is trying to *understand*.
Academics are a part of that subset of humanity which is interested, above all, in understanding the world about them. One does this by observation, experiment, framing broad theories and testing them, putting forward conjectures and seeing if they hold up. That's the only way that works: anything else is either masturbation or mathematics.
Whether Jenkins, Bacon-Smith or McCormack get it right or wrong isn't the main issue. What matters is that they've made an intellectually honest effort to understand a part of the world, and they present their conclusions to the entire community to be criticised, refuted, attacked, defended, supported or revised. Doing so, they provide a great service to everyone else who is interested in understanding the world: we can read their work, accept or reject their conclusions, and use their methods and arguments as building blocks with which to construct our own models of the world. This is a valuable contribution, regardless of how right or wrong a particular conclusion might turn out to be.
I analyze B7 fandom because I'm part of that community; I love it and the show. I also love my academic work and it's part of my nature to use it to understand my own everyday life. I work under an admittedly vague and possibly deluded assumption that both fans and colleagues might be interested in hearing how I think, academically, about fandom - or, fannishly, about academia.
Your own Q-study was fun to participate in, and fascinating to read about. It's a genuinely original and valuable piece of research, and this entire mailing list should be proud to have helped give birth to it.
Iain