trivia and fads (SILLY, META, CURIOUS)

John H. Stevens, Jr. (jhs14@CORNELL.EDU)
Sun, 18 Feb 1996 19:47:54 -0500

Y'know, in the past week I have come to appreciate the fact that my
Performa has a gig of memory, so that I have somewhere to store the
enormous volume of verbiage (the good stuff, anyway) that has come across
the list. The dance thread is outta my league (thus my occasional
suggestive remarks) but great reading. I can hear the gears turning out
there!!

So, by now you've all read Kelley's answer to my trivia question, the
European band Re-flex (no fair asking a DJ, altho that is fine
anthropological work!!). Of course, who remembers how far it got up the
Billboard charts?????:-)

Anyway, I'd be curious to hear from other folks about what their idea of an
academic fad is, in relation to Martin's comment that

>academics is driven, to a large extent, by fads.

What *is* a fad, in this context. Is there one prevalent one, or is there
just one that gets all the slings &arrows hucked at it? Do we in fact try
to reduce faddism to one particular sort of theoretical stance and perhaps
essentialize that stance?? I'd be interested in what the wide variety of
folks on this list think about all this.

COmments!!!



Best regards,


John H. Stevens, Jr.
Department of Anthropology
Cornell University

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