Hello All!
 
While I am a Ph.D. Candidate and have not experienced this with my
scholarly writing directed toward film, I have experienced this elsewhere
in a professional review.  There was an article, written by Carole Blair in
the Quarterly Journal of Speech addressing this issue.  Moreover, one of my
committee members recently experience precisely the type of review that
both Murray Pomerance and Harvey Roy Greenberg experienced.  I would like
to think that the review process should be a positive and productive one,
but have heard so many horror stories.  As a new scholar, preparing to
enter the world of publishing or perishing, I must admit that I am
unsettled about this, especially given a recent response I received on
another list to which I subscribe.  A CFP was sent out for a journal issue
that will be devoted to film analyses, and another list member replied with
a comment to the effect that "this must surely be a parody, right?  This is
a joke, right?"  I responded with a discussion of the legitimacy of film
studies, and suggested that the other member's response might be somewhat
elitist.  Immediately, several other "speech" scholars denigrated film
studies as somehow less scholarly than the study of traditional public
address.  Fortunately, I received several private replies encouraging me to
continue with my studies, and there were even a few public responses
supporting my position.  Of course the original "attackers" and their
supporters chimed in en masse.
 
The point of all this is that many believe that what we do is somehow less
valuable than other academic endeavors.  This is something with which I
will struggle throughout my career, as I am devoted to the study and
analysis of film.  The good news is, there are presses that will publish
film studies, and my professor finally received a wonderfully supportive
review from one of them.  I'm willing to fight the good fight.  I hope
others of you are similarly willing.
 
Lisa :-)
 
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"Fantasy has indeed no other sign, no other way to imagine that the speaker
is capable of reaching the Mother, and thus, of unsettling its own limits.
And, as long as there is language-symbolism- paternity, there will never be
any other way to represent, to objectify, and to explain this unsettling of
the symbolic stratum, this nature/culture threshold, this instilling of the
subjectless biological program into the very body of a symbolizing subject,
this event called motherhood."
                                        --Julia Kristeva
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Lisa R. Barry
Ph.D. Candidate
The Pennsylvania State University
234 Sparks Building
University Park, PA  16802
[log in to unmask]
http://www.personal.psu.edu/lrb7
 
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Online resources for film/TV studies may be found at ScreenSite
http://www.tcf.ua.edu/screensite