[Xmca-l] Re: Female Scholars in the Work of Vygotsky

[Glassman, Michael]

Hi David,

I know the age difference. I did not say they had a physical relationship. If it existed it was probably more like mother son as she played that role for a number of intellectuals around the theater at the time, but who knows. Would you have even blinked if it was Vygotsky who was fifty and Gurevich was in her early twenties. Still Gurevich was a well known figure. It would be like a family of a conservative French family finding out their son was visiting the salons of Alice B. Toklas and Gertrude Stein in Paris. They would have been scandalized.  I have no idea if this happened, but the Moscow Art Theatre and the people around it, as well as the symbolist movement, were at the cutting edge of a lot of things in Moscow at the time (of course I am not an expert in Russian history).

Let me ask you something David. You are twenty one years old living in one of the great cities of the world. You love the theater and you are a published  theater critic, you are at least on the margins of some of the great innovators in theater not just at the time but in history. Do you really want to go back. What would it take to get you back?

Let me ask you something else. You are scion of a family where two members have TB. You know it is contagious (I believe people knew that at the time). Would you have insisted your beloved son return to take care of them?

No, I think there is more to the story which we may never know.

I said all this is highly skeptical, but I think Lev Vygotsky was a highly complex individual.

By the way I prefaced this aspect of the Gurevich Vygotsky history as highly speculative and it was very small. You asked to know why I was looking into Gurevich and I told you. I did not ask you to comment on it.

And, I looked at many of the citations you mentioned. Maybe they are more. But none of them come close to matching his use of Gurevich or Krupskaya’s in Psychology of the Actor or Alteration of man. Take a look.  I am sure I am missing something though, which is why I asked in the first place.

Michael

From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> On Behalf Of David Kellogg
Sent: Thursday, August 13, 2020 7:49 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Female Scholars in the Work of Vygotsky

Well, she was thirty years older than he was, wasn't he? At the time he left Moscow for Gomel, Vygotsky would have been twenty-one and she would have been well into her fifties. So it seems to me more likely that with the Germans about to attack Gomel, and the younger son ill, the elder son was really wanted at home. Remember too that the Psychology of the Actor's Art was probably written nearly ten years after this....

I initially found the Zavershneva-van der Veer notebooks rather embarrassing because of speculations like this. But we know from the notebooks that Roza Smekhova was not his first love (see their notes on "The Trip to London"); that he tried to write a book "About the New Jewry" with another woman, presumably Jewish, called R. Yu: (p. 44). and that he appears to have had a passionate relationship with her. None of this should surprise us, since "A was a man, take him for all in all/We shall not look upon his like again."

Annalisa--the Spinoza connection is not explicit in Anthony's text. He invited me to freewheel on whatever it was I was smoking at the time, so I did. Here's what happened:

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1W9XAGZaBU&t=159s__;!!Mih3wA!Rx-cT1lx8kKYelR8mYtUQazs4KgAOlmas-L_z6v-MClsKFyihsK0AwVyFJeZY9153W-Ywg$ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1W9XAGZaBU&t=159s__;!!Mih3wA!SZ8iFJI9Hggu1-kXmR5SaSPIlLyPhVpRS-KoHtUXvJd_U54ZuNis4--gOeHuQwkMgwuuEQ$>

David Kellogg
Sangmyung University

New Article: Ruqaiya Hasan, in memoriam: A manual and a manifesto.
Outlines, Spring 2020
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://tidsskrift.dk/outlines/article/view/116238__;!!Mih3wA!Rx-cT1lx8kKYelR8mYtUQazs4KgAOlmas-L_z6v-MClsKFyihsK0AwVyFJeZY9357sQUOA$ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/tidsskrift.dk/outlines/article/view/116238__;!!Mih3wA!SZ8iFJI9Hggu1-kXmR5SaSPIlLyPhVpRS-KoHtUXvJd_U54ZuNis4--gOeHuQwnNmNEz7w$>
New Translation with Nikolai Veresov: L.S. Vygotsky's Pedological Works Volume One: Foundations of Pedology"
 https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!Rx-cT1lx8kKYelR8mYtUQazs4KgAOlmas-L_z6v-MClsKFyihsK0AwVyFJeZY93k3aC45A$ 
<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!SZ8iFJI9Hggu1-kXmR5SaSPIlLyPhVpRS-KoHtUXvJd_U54ZuNis4--gOeHuQwmuJr8sQA$>


On Thu, Aug 13, 2020 at 11:37 PM Glassman, Michael <glassman.13@osu.edu<mailto:glassman.13@osu.edu>> wrote:
Hi David,


I am trying to figure out Gurevich’s relationship with Vygotsky (if there was one).  I first start exploring Gurevich in terms of Stanislavski, but as I got deeper into it I realized Gurevich was a brilliant scholar on her own and a fascinating character in history.  The evidence for a relationship was circumstantial. They were both theater critics around the same time in Moscow. Gurevich probably arranged salons that Vygotsky attended. Gurevich has a Jewish father (although she was raised Roman Catholic) and has a distinct sense of otherness because of her Jewish background. Her family in general seemed very similar, although perhaps more sophisticated as they were in St. Petersburg. When Vygotsky left Moscow the first time he seemed to be a dyed in the wool symbolist (at least from I have read). Gurevich was the leader of the symbolist movement.

In psychology of the actor Vygotsky uses Gurevich to some extent to argue that Vaktanghov, who believe was one of Stanislavski’s first students at the second MAT Actor’s studio was not breaking away from Stanislavski with new ideas (I sometimes think that Vygotsky was speaking to his own students through this).

This is highly speculative. I have always been dubious that Vygotsky left Moscow the first time to take care of his sick mother and brother. He was living his fantasy and it seems too much like a 19th century melodrama. I wonder if his family called him back because he was associating with people like Gurevich who it seems was quite scandalous.

I think there are good reasons to think he took the concept perezhivanie from Gurevich. She had just written a short book on it and Diderot’s paradox in 1927.

Anyway, I am trying to collect any evidence I can find that Gurevich had some type of relationship with Vygotsky in any way I can.

All a work in progress.

Michael

From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>> On Behalf Of David Kellogg
Sent: Thursday, August 13, 2020 8:38 AM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>>
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Female Scholars in the Work of Vygotsky

Try Volume Five in English, Volume Four in Russian for Grunwald (it is misspelt in English), the short selections from Pedology of the Adolescent.

I think it would help me to help you if I knew what significance you are trying to attribute to this putative lack of citations. Since you have Volume Six, you know that Vygotsky cites Charlotte Buhler (p. 5), Lia Geshelina (11), Julia Kotelova (12), Rosa Levina (15), E.I. Pashkovskaya (12),  Natalya Menchinskaya (42), as well as N.G. Morozova (9), Liya Slavina (43) and Lydia Bozhovich (43). It would also help if I knew why you think that promoting the work of female colleagues doesn't count as promoting the work of female scholars. It seems to me that all of these colleagues and/or scholars are cited pretty much in the same way he cites Gurevich, that is, with a footnote, a reference to a study, a quotation, sometimes a whole paragraph or more, They are listed in the index and in the references, probably by the editors--Vygotsky was indiscriminately careless about citing chapter and verse, although not unusually so for his time and place. It is certainly interesting that there are more Soviet than non-Soviet female scholars, but there are also more German than non-German/non-Soviet female scholars, and more junior female researchers than non-female junior researchers, which is probably also true of our own time and place. So what exactly do you make of it?

Perhaps you can help me as well, Michael. For our thirteenth volume, I am interested in the reference to Ekaterina Olimnievna Shumova-Simanovskaya in Volume Six (English and Russian). She is cited as "others" by Vygotsky (94) and by name in W.B. Cannon's work on the James Lange theory but I can find no citation of her work in the work of her professor, I.P. Pavlov, which I guess is Vygotsky's source. Did Cannon know her personally?

We are proud to present the third volume of the Pedology of the Adolescent in Korean (see attached). For anyone in Seoul, we will have a promotional "Book Concert" for the whole eleven-volume series downtown next Saturday if there is no Covid spike in the interim. I'll be talking about Vygotsky and sex education (in Korean only).

David Kellogg
Sangmyung University

New Article: Ruqaiya Hasan, in memoriam: A manual and a manifesto.
Outlines, Spring 2020
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://tidsskrift.dk/outlines/article/view/116238__;!!Mih3wA!Rx-cT1lx8kKYelR8mYtUQazs4KgAOlmas-L_z6v-MClsKFyihsK0AwVyFJeZY9357sQUOA$ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/tidsskrift.dk/outlines/article/view/116238__;!!Mih3wA!WStFjpRU0awvUPzigfny8xubUiXJgfOxGrvNi9MjSq6H1WAUrPuXRH5pNBjvSj3fXw2zpw$>
New Translation with Nikolai Veresov: L.S. Vygotsky's Pedological Works Volume One: Foundations of Pedology"
 https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!Rx-cT1lx8kKYelR8mYtUQazs4KgAOlmas-L_z6v-MClsKFyihsK0AwVyFJeZY93k3aC45A$ 
<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!WStFjpRU0awvUPzigfny8xubUiXJgfOxGrvNi9MjSq6H1WAUrPuXRH5pNBjvSj2R3_S-Rg$>


On Thu, Aug 13, 2020 at 8:43 PM Glassman, Michael <glassman.13@osu.edu<mailto:glassman.13@osu.edu>> wrote:
Hello David,

Thank you for all your effort. It is much appreciated.

I think though maybe Slavina, Morozova, and Peshkovskaya are part of what Yasnitksy referred to as Vygotsky’s circle (student working with him). Did he actually formally cite their published work and use it to advance his argument or did he only mention them. Maybe, I can’t find it. I guess I should have been more explicit, this is what I meant by cite.  His did this for Gurevich in Psychology of the actor and Krupskaya in Social Alteration of Man.

The others, is it like Montersorri in Thinking and Speech (which I also see as an extended mention) or more direct. I looked on p. 95 for Grunwald but didn’t see it. Perhaps I am looking in the wrong volume.

Michael

From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>> On Behalf Of David Kellogg
Sent: Wednesday, August 12, 2020 5:08 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>>
Subject: [Xmca-l] Female Scholars in the Work of Vygotsky

Vygotsky was scruplulous about citing and promoting his own female colleagues, including Slavina, Morozova, Peshkovskaya.  There are many letters between Vygotsky and Morozova in particular which suggest that the latter suffered from imposter syndrome and that Vygotsky recognized this and successfully made her into a scholar of national stature.

Vygotsky widely cited foreign scholars like Charlotte Buhler, Clara Stern, Hildegard Hetzer, Beatrix Tudor-Hart, Maria Montessori, Helga Eng. All of these and more can be looked up in the index of the Collected Works.

In the work I am doing now, Vygotsky uses the work of almost unknown teachers: Sister Lucia Vecerka, Maria Ziller, Elizabeth Monchamp, Eugenie Moritz....

One of the Saussurean linguists he often refers to is Rosalie Shor.

These can be found in Pedology of the Adolescent.

David Kellogg
Sangmyung University

New Article: Ruqaiya Hasan, in memoriam: A manual and a manifesto.
Outlines, Spring 2020
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://tidsskrift.dk/outlines/article/view/116238__;!!Mih3wA!Rx-cT1lx8kKYelR8mYtUQazs4KgAOlmas-L_z6v-MClsKFyihsK0AwVyFJeZY9357sQUOA$ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/tidsskrift.dk/outlines/article/view/116238__;!!Mih3wA!ULHZwpD7IBfIJ45vPAPepqPYwgoxn79Bl9BW9DeUJVdAcFrhfwDHPdH81X6OsMXk6YCeSA$>
New Translation with Nikolai Veresov: L.S. Vygotsky's Pedological Works Volume One: Foundations of Pedology"
 https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!Rx-cT1lx8kKYelR8mYtUQazs4KgAOlmas-L_z6v-MClsKFyihsK0AwVyFJeZY93k3aC45A$ 
<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!ULHZwpD7IBfIJ45vPAPepqPYwgoxn79Bl9BW9DeUJVdAcFrhfwDHPdH81X6OsMWy9S0IbA$>
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