Judy,
I second this. There seems to be some confusion surrounding the issues of
authoritative interpretation and what I perceive to be the role of moderator
for these readings. I view these processes as virtual seminars. Most of us
have been or currently are graduate students and as such probably have been
responsible to read and summarize what we've read for everyone else in the
seminar. That's more or less how I view the role of taking responsibility
for one section of the reading. It's just a way to get the ball rolling.
Perhaps there is an additional effort involved in summing up what people
have posted; making sense out of the process at that level. Perhaps there
is another additional effort that would be to respond to people, to elicit,
prompt, and incite(?) further discussion, . or to read secondary material
to supplement the basic reading.
In my opinion whatever else a 'moderator' decides to do is an extra.
Whether one wants to polemicize or praise. It may be useful if someone is
deeply familiar with the authors or work that is being discussed, especially
in LBE where many authors are discussed, many inteerpretations of their work
put forward. But this too would probably tend to introduce a perception of
an "authoritative voice" that might stifle fuller participation (an ongoing
concern here). There are many interesting problems,. many directions to
pursue in the text but . . . isn't the bottom line just to provide a space
in which to explore it together with others who are interested in it? Isn't
the point basically to have a discussion of a joint reading. People will be
able to decide for themselves which contributions help them make better
sense out of what they're reading and the experience of reading Leont'ev
showed me that the best contributions don't necessarily come from the
"moderator" but I was still thankful that the moderator was there to ensure
that someone would keep the discussion going.
And isn't it true that many use this space as a sounding board for their own
interpretations/understandings? Hopefully more xmca'ers who intend to do
the reading will adopt this perspective, take the extra time it takes to
read the sections carefully enough to outline the basic ideas as best they
understand them and be a moderator put it . AFter all, there is a
difference between working with this kind of material and working with
subjects that have absolute pre-requisites; say the way differential
equations require an full understanding of derivatives and anti-derivatives
in the calculus, or biochemistry requires an understanding of basic
quantitative and qualitative chemistry.
On the other hand, I think there is a difference between trying to
understand what the author is saying and explicating why we understand what
the author is saying in the way we do. Having an initial "author-itative"
understanding should be the first step before presenting our agreement,
disagreement, expansions or modifications. And of course there can be
differences of opinion about what the author is saying although, unlike the
case with Leont'ev or Ilyenkov, that'll be up to the author who apparently
does read what gets posted here. But even when the author doesn't
participate to clarify his or her intent, that seems to me to be the first
step. Outline the argument in broad or fine stroke--I think we've probably
all done this.
Paul H. Dillon
----- Original Message -----
From: Judith Diamondstone <diamonju@rci.rutgers.edu>
To: <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Sent: Saturday, March 31, 2001 7:10 AM
Subject: Re: lack of volunteers noted
> Let me make clear that I too am a neophyte, and if what is wanted is
> authoritative interpretations, I too decline.
>
> Judy
>
>
> At 09:30 PM 3/30/01 -0800, you wrote:
> >As a neophyte in activity theory, my background is insufficient to
> >coordinate a chapter, but I'm very interested in reading and gaining
> >a better understanding of this book. So, I hope people will
> >volunteer for the other chapters.
> >
> >Charles Nelson
> >
> >
> >>Thanks again to Nate for his heroic work in getting our common texts
before
> >>us. And thanks to Don Cunningham for being "lead coordinator." The lack
of
> >>volunteers for further coordinating stints is a little puzzling. If
there
> >>is insufficient interest in the activity .... of reading and
interpreting
> >>in this case.... in a collective manner, we can skip the process, Nate
can
> >>stop busting his butt to make the text available, we focus on the
non-text
> >>real world-bettering work we are otherwise occupied with. Right?
> >>mike
> >
> >
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Apr 01 2001 - 01:01:28 PST