In a message dated 3/7/01 1:25:08 PM Eastern Standard Time, wilsonfisk2@yahoo.com writes:

<< Fan discussions, as discusiions of artifacts are closer to Lit. Crit than any other form of expression, hence the falling back on the rules/ideology of criticism as providing a framework.

...

I've been in fandom over 20 years and I've rarely met a fan who wants to discuss their favorite show in the style of literary criticism. Not that there's anything wrong with doing so. It just isn't generally something regarded as "fun" by fans, in my experience.

For the record, I have two university degrees. One in English (yes, I know how to do literary criticism... fancy that). The other in Anthropology. I have a minor in Russian. I used to be able to do Russian technical and medical translations quite well. My current hobby is reading Egyptian hieroglyphs (because I am a frustrated archeologist... my university offered a degree only in anthropology and I settled for that as the closest to my interests). I have worked for the last 20 years as an Engineer. 15 of those years for AT&T and the last 5 years for IBM. I have done quite well in my field. My father was the chairman of the Engineering department at Texas A&M for most of my life. He had a PhD, of course, and he wrote a number of textbooks on Statistics that, the last time I checked, were still being used in university courses. I understand the words that Neil likes to use to try to intellectually belittle other members of the list. I just choose to have conversations in normal, spoken English. I am well acquainted with academia, with how to debate, and with how to write an essay.

I do not indulge in fandom to do so, however, and the great majority of fans I have known over the years don't, either. Your mileage, of course, may vary.

Annie