Academic discourse is the conversation that not only tolerates, but encourages, dreaming . . . Academic discourse is the conversation we listen to in good faith, as others tell us of their dreams and of what has inspired them. It is the sharing of good ideas, sources, a willingness to explore and consider possibilities.
Academic discourse is the dinner table at which scholars sit and share.
And to which young scholars need to come often enough to become comfortable with the sharing, so they will not be left out when new worlds are imagined and born. Because academic discourse is about dreaming and creating and imagining, it is also personal, and political. Not everyone gets to play. In traditional academic training doctoral students were invited. As budgets shrank and workloads grew, the dinner table was cast aside, and even doctoral students found themselves hard at work at practical tasks, no time for dreaming.