AO: Jazz is used as a metaphor to describe the relationship between the two co-authors. (“we have a beautiful thing between us”) (549). “The magic of jazz, the harmonious interplay described in McDonald’s novel arises from the total attentiveness and receptivity of each player to the other.” (550).
AO: Note that a good collaboration is inherently informed by sexuality since hours of working together are concentrated, physically, emotionally, mentally intimate, intense, fierce, focused, creative, exhausting.
AO: “lesbian” as a trope for feminist (creative) collaboration (partly in response to the rampant homophobia in academia) and because of their own experience with a sexual/emotional continuum (551). “Though we are not “lovers” in a limited, genital sense, ours is a lesbian collaboration.”
AO: Strange bedfellows - tiger and alligator, improbably tangled (554)
AO: Shared commitments, intellectual, ideological and political convictions and assumptions (in this case, commitment to lucid writing; significance between popular and “high” culture, respect for the cultural world outside the academy) (548)
AO: Meeting at least once in person.
AO: They note that these things made them “collaborate” better: sitting together in front of computer and writing; stimulate each other with ideas and hints in letters; diary letter writing every other week; read the same books at the same time and exchange different but complementary responses; delaying time together until “ready to explode or implode with new words, new ideas.”
AO: Lack of time and conflicting institutional schedules and duties makes it challenging to collaborate.
AO: They describe how they work together: “Ellen sits at the computer and Carey on the window seat nearby; one starts a sentence and the other finishes it. At the end of several hours we are scrolling through something neither of us would or could have written alone and honestly cannot say which word “came from” Carey, which idea “came from” Ellen.”
AO: The analysts mention that they usually work physically separated from each other and use mail or modem to exchange and edit drafts. They note that once in the course of any project they meet in person to brainstorm or wrestle over the definition and development of basic concepts and to write together.
AO: According to these analysts, the ideal collaboration requires being part of the same shared epistemic culture.
AO: They believe research collaboration is important as it can deliver intellectual and emotional synergy. They note that their authorial voice cannot be distinguished between the two of them as individuals (by Carey or by Ellen) which they see as a positive so it appears that they are interested in how collaboration stabilizes. They note: “we are both feminists and the same kind of feminists” (548).
AO: They describe valuing each other’s diverse perspective but note that they always come to some sort of agreement: “each clings to her individual vision, pigheadedly, in a dialectic struggle that always results in a synthesis on which “we” can agree.” (553).
AO: “Our minds meet in the air between us and we achieve, at our best, an unfettered, creative, generous reciprocity” (556).
AO: The analysts see the other examples of collaboration (esp. heterosexual collaboration) as antithetical to their idea of collaboration. For example, they cannot understand the notion of “clearing the air with a shouting match” (559).
AO: The analysts describe their own collaboration largely focused around co-authorship (of collective volume, book, grant proposal). They describe collaboration as in solidarity with each other and allied (in intellectual and political interests, cultural identification, and emotional responses).
AO: The analysts seem to largely see themselves as equal and non-heirarchical. They describe themselves (middle aged, academic feminists with diverse sexual orientations over time). They do not note their ethnicities (assumed whiteness?).
AO: The authors note their “coming of age” as feminist academics in the 1970s when they were dealing with institutions that had only recently begun admitting women students and promoting women faculty (554).
AO: One of the author notes that she believes her institution doesn’t value her collaborative work and doesn’t give her time to work on her own research. They also mention that despite rhetoric that honors collaboration, cooperation and shared authority, most colleges and universities neglect or underutilize group rewards for group performances. (558) They cite Chait (1988) who discovered in researching his article that "some universities assign numerical values to the scholarly publications of promotion and tenure candidates and then divide the 'points' by the number of co-authors". Shockingly, I believe the same practice STILL holds true in some of the departments in the social sciences for example at UCI.