Reconsidering

Over on the WPA listserve there's been a conversation about the genre of "reconsidering". You know author A is asked to re-write, re-view an article written years before; rather than asking author B to critique a work. It's an interesting way for people/student's to see how the field and one scholar change over time. I haven't been interested enough to pay close attention. I may just be repeating someone else's sentiments without knowing it.

As a discipline I think we do too much reconsidering. Because we can agree that revision is valuable, and maybe that is the only thing we can all agree on, our discipline tends to be in a constant state of upheaval. While some may find that productive, it does not allow for us to clearly define the perameters of the field (they are always in flux.) Instead constantly "reconsidering"old work, we should let the old work lie...flaws and all. Give someone else a chance to come along and point out those errors.

I didn't pay attention to where the conversation was going on the WPA (I think they are busy compliling a bibliography), but it could be an interesting avenue of work for someone.