On Tuesday, December 4, 2001, Rebecca MacLaughlin (Mac), UWP, wrote:

Anyway...lol Did you see what Jeanne submitted? lol Its only saving grace was "the queen jumping off the board". Who would have guessed that Jeanne would hone in on something said about a queen??? LOL!!! ....the red queen herself.

"in our country," said Alice, still panting a little, "you'd generally get to somewhere else- if you ran very fast ..."

But does Jeanne know that the queen I refered to was her??????? I don't think she does!

In the classic children's story "Alice through the Looking Glass" by Lewis Carroll, the plot describes the end game strategy of a game of chess. Alice is depicted as a white pawn. Alice finds herself running as fast as she can beside the more powerful Red Queen. When she sits down exhausted she finds she has hardly moved at all. Upon complaining to her opponent about her lack of progress she is informed by the Red Queen that she will have to run at least twice as fast to make any relative impression on her surroundings. With that the Red Queen suddenly moves off at tremendous speed and disappears from view.

On Wednesday, December 5, 2001, Susan answered Mac:

jeanne makes reference to herself as the "red queen" from alice in wonderland. in fact, i think i gave her a "red queen" from the disney made movie.

susan

On Wednesday, December 5, 2001, jeanne responded:

Yes, you did, Susan. The Disney "red queen" is sitting right her at the corner of my computer. She was the inspiration for the "queen in green."

And, as senior editor of Dear Habermas, I would like to point out that she is a "signifier" that offers evidence of the virtual community we have created across thousands of miles and across campuses.

"But does Jeanne know that the queen I refered to was her??????? I don't think she does!" No, Mac, I didn't know that you had the "red queen" in mind. But, yes, I did have Susan's "red queen" right here at my side. And, goodness' knows, I run fast enough to keep the site up that the metaphor fits. All three of us thought of the red queen, independently, across a country. That's shared metaphors and a shared culture.

Oh, yes, the "queen is in green." When Arnold and I were in Brussels, we went to a concert. The lady behind us bent over and informed us, that seated directly across the auditorium from us was the Queen. "The Queen," she said, "is in green."

And now for the connection to alterity. It was Mac who a year or so ago, having read material on alterity, suddenly "got it." "Oh, I see. We want ultimately to get rid of alterity!" Now that threw me a little. No, not quite. As Edward Said points out, we need alterity, the understanding of the "other." "But," responded Mac, "as long as we have "alterity" we'll have an "Other." And isn't the objective to get rid of the concept of exclusion, or the "other?"

Good point, Mac. " . . . .and the Queen jumps off the board!"

---

---