Date: Wed, 7 Dec 1994 13:25:25 EST
From: Larry Horn LHORN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALEVM.CIS.YALE.EDU
Subject: Re: The ADS crystal ball
In response to Tim Frazer's wondering about whether the LSA might be lobbied
to go back to coordinating its meetings with the MLA (whether as a favor to
ADS or for other reasons): I don't see any chance of that. As a member of
the LSA executive committee for three years, I had the strong impression that
the vast majority of the officers and membership of the LSA is very much in
favor of the move away from both the MLA and the Christmas/New Year's week (we
now always meet on the first or second weekend in January depending on what
the week the 1st falls on). The same sort of arguments against
meeting with the MLA that posters here have brought up were brought up at the
LSA--not wanting to be overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of the MLA and playing
second or third fiddle on hotel choices, not seeing any particular reason to
coordinate our meetings with the MLA rather than other sister or cousin
associations (the philosophers, the anthropologists, the psychologists...).
So I don't think there much point in hoping for (or fearing) outside assistance
in working through the quandary of when (and whether) to hold winter ADS
meetings.
Larry
P.S. One earlier motivation for holding LSA meetings separately from the MLA
was that being linked with them meant that we could never again meet in nice
mid-size cities like San Antonio (LSA annual meeting 1980), but now that
we've grown to needing 7 meeting rooms for simultaneous sessions, we're kind
of sized out of those cities anyway; Cincinnati had to be nixed for that
reason. That's a plus for a smaller group like ADS and a possible reason to
(continue to) go solo.