KC III comments

[Aaron Gerow]

On 2004.2.16, at 10:45 午後, Schermann Susanne wrote:

> This sounds like an insult to me. Do you really mean that
> many on KineJapan would not be able to understand the
> discussions at the conference? Or is my English so bad?

No, not at all. Sorry if it sounded like an insult. The fact is that 
KineJapan has many members from many different backgrounds, who use 
different vocabularies and concepts to understand Japanese film. 
Sometimes it's the difference between academic and non-academic 
discourses, and sometimes it's the difference between different 
academic or critical traditions. The meeting of these different modes 
can be great if those involved are conscious of the problems of 
communication, but I have seen many discussions on KineJapan over our 7 
or 8 years that seem to go awry because the writers are using different 
vocabularies or writing their posts without understanding that those 
with different conceptual frameworks will be reading them. My comment 
about KC III was thus less directed at "less intelligent" KineJapan 
members than was a reminder to all of us that when we speak, we must 
think carefully of our listeners, otherwise our comments will end up 
falling on deaf ears. This is a major issue involving what we think 
"Japanese film studies" should be, and I for one think a varied forum 
like KineJapan is a good antidote to trends towards scholarly 
seclusionism.


Aaron Gerow
Assistant Professor
Film Studies Program/East Asian Languages and Literatures
Yale University
53 Wall Street, Room 316
PO Box 208363
New Haven, CT 06520-8363
USA
Phone: 1-203-432-7082
Fax: 1-203-432-6764
e-mail: aaron.gerow at yale.edu