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.