tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7748990.post6140400793930852311..comments2023-04-13T03:00:12.033-06:00Comments on rita's g-string: some comments of mine on RuttAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00419321135768223295noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7748990.post-59967853230828538802011-03-20T13:41:56.174-06:002011-03-20T13:41:56.174-06:00that's fine. that does not make it less than a...that's fine. that does not make it less than adequate scholarship. Rutt may have intended well, and he certainly got some people more interested. he also gave misinformation in what he left out or represented in ways that he liked. <br /><br />i do not believe that rutt went into the writing of the book with no preconceived ideas. unfortunately in order to do good research, one must be willing to admit that they are wrong. that their hypothesis may have been in error, etc. rutt appears to me to have gone into this book with what he wanted to be true, and then he simply wrote off any scholarship that predated him and disagreed as "wrong" with very little explanation.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00419321135768223295noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7748990.post-20584501635976483192011-03-19T12:02:45.276-06:002011-03-19T12:02:45.276-06:00You wrote:
sure, it's intended to appeal to a ...You wrote:<br /><i>sure, it's intended to appeal to a wide audience. are you seriously suggesting that including a full bibliography and footnotes would have changed that? </i><br /><br />I am saying that giving all sources for all statements would likely have meant the book would not have found a publisher. <br /><br />Publishers of popular books <b>very strongly</b> resist including footnotes, endnotes or long bibliographies. They feel that these turn readers off because they are "long" and "dull." And they add pages to the book that (the publishers believe) don't produce an obvious return in greater sales. They put a great deal of pressure on authors to *not* have detailed footnotes or bibliographies. Even academic writers working with academic presses sometimes have to fight to get their notes included.Chris Laninghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07574568785133002628noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7748990.post-80523345824339826512011-03-04T15:15:02.676-07:002011-03-04T15:15:02.676-07:00i do say lazy academic. what else would you call i...i do say lazy academic. what else would you call it when i don't know all the sources of his research? who does that?<br /><br />he does cite sources occassionally. i would hardly call it often however. <br /><br />sure, it's intended to appeal to a wide audience. are you seriously suggesting that including a full bibliography and footnotes would have changed that? <br /><br />do i find Rutt useful? sure thing. do i find him to be less than an adequate researcher? absolutely.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00419321135768223295noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7748990.post-37609567597009823502011-03-04T10:40:40.243-07:002011-03-04T10:40:40.243-07:00You say you aren't out to slam Rutt, but when ...You say you aren't out to slam Rutt, but when you say things like "lazy academic," "failure to seek out.." "self-importance," and "doesn't even bother", that does not sound to me like you are commenting neutrally.<br /><br />I think you are also noticing all the places where Rutt does not cite his sources, but ignoring all the places where he does -- and there are many of them.<br /><br />I will also point out that you don't *know* what other sources he consulted other than the ones in the bibliography. For instance, he has clearly consulted some of the primary literature (academic papers, not books) and some sources in languages other than English (German and French, at least). You say you are assuming he read "a bunch of books, primarily written in English" and I think there is evidence otherwise.<br /><br />Also, in the cases where I actually know more than what he puts in the book, he is generally right about what he's saying. This inclines me to trust him more when I don't actually know more than what's in the book.<br /><br />For instance, he has more reasons than vague resemblance or the absence of other examples for saying that the Sion/Chur purses may have all come from one source: they are all made in the exact same type of silk thread, the colors of the silks all match (i.e. all the purples are the same color, as far as we can tell with the fading that's happened), there is good evidence they were all worked using the same tools (specifically a knitting frame rather than needles), and together with some embroidered purses they form a clear group using a specific type of decorative motifs, all from the same general geographic area. Some of this information is in Schmedding (his German source, and the ONLY other published description of these purses) even though he does not say it all in this book. Art historians attribute paintings to specific painters on exactly this sort of evidence. Of course such a conclusion is an educated guess, and of course he's generalizing on very little evidence, but so do we all, and he says so. <br /><br />This is intended to be a book for a popular audience, and it has been and continues to be popular, as witnessed by the steadily rising prices for it on eBay and the popular pressure put on Interweave that convinced them to reprint it in 2003, despite the publisher previously saying she would never reprint. So I don't think you are correct that a popular audience wouldn't read it. I therefore disagree with your conclusion that those who would read it would expect it to be an authoritative reference. I think its use as one has surpised him considerably, and I don't think he envisioned when he published it that it would become a reference book, so he didn't write it as one -- and I think that's quite sufficient as an explanation of why he did not footnote or explain every conclusion. <br /><br />As I think I've said, I think you're right in saying that people misuse this book and take it as a reference in ways the book itself doesn't support. I think you're equally right in saying that those who need a reference wish that Rutt had written a different kind of book. But he didn't, and we use what we have.Chris Laninghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07574568785133002628noreply@blogger.com