sean desilets, valuable as always, suggests an interesting analogy betwen the difficult discourse of contemporary physics and the [perhaps] equally discourse [or discourses] of contemporary literary study . . . what is so suggestive about this analogy is that: in the discourse of physics (however much a cultural construct it is and however much the field itself expresses a will to power, purity, hegemony or anything else) there remains--by the standards of the discourse community, a standard of falsifiability - - that is to say, some ideas turn out to be "wrong" and to that extent esttablish reciprocally a notion of [or horizon for] the "correct" my own question [or quest] deals with the possible location for such a notion or horizon in literary study . . . it certainly cannot be competely within the discipline itself, or by defintion the discipline would not ever be able to do anything wrong . . . . . . or is my desire for this horizon just another fascist serach for purity? mike frank ---- To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]