Re: 1987

From: Vera John-Steiner (vygotsky@unm.edu)
Date: Mon Jun 04 2001 - 13:04:14 PDT


Mike,
1987 was a very difficult year for me because it started, with my husband,
Stan Steiner dying, unexpectedly from a heart attack. I was grateful to many
people who arranged trips for me after
his death. The most important of those was my travel to Brazil where Elvira
Lima and her young collegues were eager to hear about Vygotskian theory I
also spoke in Isreal--my only trip there--at one of Feuerstein's worshops.
It was his work with autistic children that I was most impressed by.
(Just one additional comment on a more recent event, congratulations to your
daughter and her family on their new jobs.)
Vera
-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Cole <mcole@weber.ucsd.edu>
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date: Sunday, June 03, 2001 10:55 PM
Subject: 1987

>
>I am curious about people's association with the year, 1987. What were
>various of xmca's members doing in 1987? What theories were they using
>to guide research? What research were they doing?
>
>Brief summaries would be really helpful to discusion of a book written, I
>presume, between 1985-1987.
>
>for myself, I can contribute the following.
>
>In 1986-1987 I was on sabbatical leave at the Chid Dev unit of the Britisyh
>Research Council in England. Cultural psychology, or sociocultural
psychology,
>or Vygotsky, or anything connected with such ideas was incomprehensible
>to almost all the people I talked to.
>
>I was dividing my time between trying to write a book that, 9 years later,
>was published as *Cultural psychology........*, not a title of my choosing,
>but the best that could be arranged on the spot, with 60 seconds to make up
>my mind about how to change the title I had selected.
>
>And, 18 hour a day efforts to establish "normal" working relationships with
>colleagues in the Soviet Academy of sciences using the, then, exotic
medium,
>of email.
>
>I also spent a couple of months working on my book./lectures in copenhagen
>which a few faithful friends heard through from beginning to end.
>
>It would take me 10 years to finish the book which became *Cultural
Psychology....
>......." in 1996.
>
>
>In the spring of 1987 Yrjo completed his doctoral thesis which is the ms
>we have been reading, LBE.
>
>Those of us left alive at now 14 years older. We interpret the text written
>then through our respective personalities and experience.
>
>What are they? Having some idea whould help me understand the discusion.
>mike
>



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Jul 01 2001 - 01:01:10 PDT