Re: different flavors of chat

From: Diane Hodges (dhodges@ceo.cudenver.edu)
Date: Thu Mar 29 2001 - 15:58:15 PST


well let's see if i can submit something constructive. (?!!)
i think it would be most unusual and so valuable to pursue an alternative
exploration of 'historical' - cultural-historical perspectives can be
critical-historical in terms of culture being a site of position; i mean,
we are all in particular relations towards and within culture(s),
and at the same time positioned within particular relations with history,
as individuals,
and as cultural persons - so we are all particular cultural-historical
intellectuals.

and, sure, this observation can be

received as a mundane and too-obvious perspective,
but also indicates a site of critical analysis. whatever might be
taken-for-granted about CHAT is perhaps the site of inquiry. for myself,
cultural-historical has always implied a critical-historical, because
historical perspectives are subsumed within culture,
but culture needs its own resources for reckoning with history - so each
particular cultural position is biased with its cultural tools,
thus positioned to reckon a particular relation to history, one that
affirms the cultural tool
in such a way that even a critical perspective can substantiate the
cultural values embedded in the work of critical analysis.

i.e., particular cultures such as Palestinian, Serbian, or White South
Afrikaans, or Black Zimbabwe,
or Hungarian, or Ethiopian, etc., all depend on particular literate
approach to their histories in order to understand their cultural
positions, relations, responses, and so on.

the western ideal of culture being located in a (white middle class)
schoolroom is
handy, perhaps, for particular kinds of analyses,

but to reach, or ask different questions about culture and history,
and to seek out different perspectives about non-dominant assumptions
about history as an activity, or culture as an activity, or history as an
identity,
or culture as an identity,

it seems to me there might be something gained from veering into some kind
of elsewhere,
where activity can be less complicated, say, as text - where text is the
activity of interest (writing-reading-composition-meanings and beliefs
abounding)

and culture and history are subjected to the activities of the text - a
kind of presto-reverso,
what text produces which cultural history,
or how can we discuss a text in ways that might enable an immersed
culture/history,
that is, not identifying a culture, or an historical event,

but reckoning the location of a particular text as a response within
particular culture and historical positions -

this is much along the lines of what Frederic Jameson indicates in 'The
Political Unconscious; Narrative as a socially symbolic act' (1981) and oh
YA i know i always mention this book,
but as a beginning, that is, as a way to ask questions about
historical-cultural in the contexts of an 'other' reading, (not Jameson's,
but an other text)

i am suggesting that the text be considered as the site of its own
activity, not as a resource for discussion, but as an activity itself, and
one that we might read for
responses to that text's cultural, historical position,

and (...wot, more??) in ways that can admit to our own particular selves
as individuals responding from particular perspectives of culture and
history,

...

anyone know what i'm hinting at here? it's an approach to a reading, not a
recommendation of a reading, but a way to approach a reading that might
illuminate some of the
more interesting and unasked questions about
the CH of CHAT.
diane

   **********************************************************************
                                        :point where everything listens.
and i slow down, learning how to
enter - implicate and unspoken (still) heart-of-the-world.

(Daphne Marlatt, "Coming to you")
***********************************************************************

diane celia hodges

 university of british columbia, centre for the study of curriculum and
instruction
==================== ==================== =======================
 university of colorado, denver, school of education

Diane_Hodges@ceo.cudenver.edu



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