Re: [xmca] Reflexive, culturally mediated, sociality

[mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>]

Yes, well done. But not nearly the subtlety possible and experiencable in
the written words.
mike

On Thu, Nov 25, 2010 at 11:29 AM, Gordon Wells <gwells@ucsc.edu> wrote:

> PBS recently showed a dramatization of several of Gaskell's novels. They
> captured the period and way of live very well.
> http://www.shoppbs.org/product/index.jsp?productId=3048709
>
> Gordon Wells <gwells@ucsc.edu> http://people.ucsc.edu/~gwells/<http://people.ucsc.edu/%7Egwells/>
> Department of Education
> University of California, Santa Cruz.
>
>
>
>
>
> On Nov 25, 2010, at 8:32 AM, mike cole wrote:
>
> Some time back Larry and others were focused on primal sociality in highty
> coordinated
> interactions. Even longer ago, David Kel suggested that we read Elizabeth
> Gaskell. Wow,
> was he ever right! Amazing.
>
> I recently read a scene set about, say, 1840's rural England. Gaskell
> depicts poor folks maintaining
> a traditional, ostensibly prosperous, life world in the face of the coming
> pressures of industrialization. In this scene,
> a woman is having a party. As befits her situation, at the high point of
> the
> festivities she is
> seated comfortably in a special spot of honor and attention, but in small
> ways, the author
> has told us about all the hard work she has done to make this
> accomplishment
> "pass" as
> an expression of her genteel accomplishments in life. The author ends the
> description of this
> event by writing that the hostess "who now sat in state, pretending not to
> know what cakes were
> sent up, though she knew, and she knew that we knew, and we knew that she
> knew that we
> knew, she had been busy all morning making tea-bread and sponge-cake."
>
> There, I think we have a beautiful description of culturally mediated,
> reflexive, community and
> the degree of intertwining that deep reflexivity seems to promote. The
> Gaskell novels I have read
> all excel at providing an almost micro-ethnographic sense of the richness
> of
> feeling/experience
> within small, mostly face to face, English, communities.
> And consistent with the picture that Larry is seeking to fill out.
>
> mike
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