fyi
X-Authentication-Warning: lists.village.Virginia.EDU: majoradm set sender to owner-postcolonial@localhost using -f X-Sender: satya@pop.cyberdiva.org X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.2.1 Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 09:07:48 -0500 To: postcolonial@lists.village.Virginia.EDU From: Radhika Gajjala <radhika@cyberdiva.org> Subject: closing shop here Sender: owner-postcolonial@lists.village.Virginia.EDU Reply-To: postcolonial@lists.village.Virginia.EDU X-UVA-Virus-Scanned: by amavisd-new at fork9.mail.virginia.edu
Dear all,
It has been a pleasure to learn about listing and moderating and to engage in discussion here on the postcolonial list these past 9 years since I took up the task of facilitating the list. I am now leaving Spoon and will also no longer be moderating the postcolonial list. I have various interfaces already in existence that are mutations and per - mutations of my interests in postcolonial theory and the internet etc and those exist outside spoon and will continue in various form(at)s - so I am not altogether disappearing from cyberspace.
My work with the spoon collective has allowed to me to continue investigations regarding the email list interface, management, moderation and communication. I have encountered all sorts of people and machines. I started the third-world-women list, women-writing-culture list and the sa-cyborgs list because of spoon (some histories of these spaces are available in my book cyberselves) - all these are now silent and closed down by default sorta. I may consider re-starting an offshoot of sa-cyborgs via yahoo or something sometime next year - or not. Meanwhile those interested are welcome to participate in my blogspaces, my theoryhead formations and so on (see links in sig file).
Below is a message from Malgosia Arkansas of Spoon explaining our collective decision to shut down:
This decision is part of a wider set of decisions having to do with the present circumstances of the Spoon Collective. The Collective, of which I am the sole surviving founder, has been operating continually for over 10 years. Of the 8 people who currently constitute it, 3 have been in it basically from the very beginning, and almost all the others for almost as long.
When the Spoon Collective was originally created, a crucial aspect of its life was our own passionate involvement in the lists we created or took over. As vehicles for bringing into mutual contact and confrontation thinking people from all over the computerized world - people from astoundingly different walks of life and with astoundingly different ways of thinking, but with a shared passion for more accurate perception and deeper understanding - these lists seemed to us to present a stupendous potential for evolving new modes of thought and new modes of life. And it is essential to note that when we were motivated by a thirst for new modes of thought and life, it was for _ourselves_ that we wanted them. Our project was not about providing a public or academic or political service, discharging a societal duty, or providing platforms for this or that political organization or orientation - rather, it was about changing life - the life we think and live - right at the present moment.
Over the years, however, our relationship with our lists gradually changed, and we now find our collective endeavor basically reduced to an indifferent performance of a not-excessively-bothersome piece of labor. The reasons for this are undoubtedly complex - the first and simplest one, perhaps, being that the same group of people has been doing the same thing for 10 years. If our goal had been less the stability of existing lists and more the preservation of our own passion, we probably could have done better. In any case, we find ourselves a bunch of burnt out and apathetic bureaucrats.
I personally find thie prolongation of this situation no longer tolerable or sensical. As a result, I have (1) announced that I am quitting the Spoon Collective; (2) decided to close down a number of lists that I have been responsible for; and (3) declared the end of the Spoon Collective as a certain historic formation, and stipulated that the name no longer be used for whatever the present members may undertake in the future.
A number of the other members of Spoon have expressed an interest in either continuing their present lists or initiating other collective projects at Virginia. We very much hope that no matter what develops, the Spoon archives, which, in large part, constitute an eminently useful and fascinating resource, can continue to be housed in their present location. In addition, a copy of the archives is being installed at the domain driftline.org, where they will soon be accessible over the Web.
Yours, Malgosa Askanas
Radhika Gajjala http://www.cyberdiva.org blogs: http://www.cyberdiva.org/cyberdiv/october research and teaching: http://personal.bgsu.edu/~radhik Collaborations on Theory heads, MOOing and tinymushing - http://lingua.utdallas.edu:7000/4425 "Object Stares Back" at http://cyberdiva.mudmagic.com/ http://www.pmcmoo.org:7788/16287
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