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Thinking Together: An E-Mail Exchange and All That Jazz

This unusual book is the product of a chain of e-mail correspondence between Howard Becker and Robert Faulkner, documenting their collaboration on Did You Know? The Jazz Repertoire in Action. Sharing three years of electronic dialogue, the book provides a rare glimpse into the gestation of a research project. The authors, by allowing readers to peep into their personal correspondence, show how they kicked around fledgling ideas to see which ones would fly and which ones flail; how they thought through choices about methodologies, frameworks, and concepts; and how they came to structure the book’s arguments in the way that they did. Readers also get to see—virtually in real time or, rather, in real virtual time—the nonlinear processes by which two experienced sociologists puzzle through what canons and repertoires are, how they change, their moral and political components, and the role that other actors (e.g., listeners, audiences, club owners) play in their creation. Needless to say, it takes a certain amount of chutzpah to package one’s e-mail correspondence as a book of general sociological interest. And intermixed with insights into the development of ideas and the synergistic potential of collaborative work is a steady diet of personal anecdotes and stories, jazz trivia, and critical appraisals of current approaches to cultural sociology (and, yes, names are named). The personal aspects of their personal communication make up a good portion of the text and, while they often enliven the book, they may not be for everyone. This is not to take away from the real value of this book: it is a rare window through which we can witness agile sociological minds thinking out loud, playing with ideas, and prodding each other to see their subject in new ways. The book provides glimpses into the fleeting moments of excitement, enthusiasm, and passion that make scholarship, and especially shared scholarship, so rewarding. The book is only available electronically.