pragmatics

diane celia hodges (dchodges who-is-at interchg.ubc.ca)
Fri, 2 Jan 1998 12:01:55 -0800

At 9:38 PM 1/1/98, Judy Diamondstone wrote:
>diane wrote:
>>like with James' thunder, the body is always the "silence-just-gone;"
>>the body has been so removed from academic practice, the flesh and sting of
>>time, certainly, imprints on flesh; sounds & scents & touch trigger sudden
>>shifts, significantly so...
>>
>>it is perhaps out of these kinds of analyses that a language of the
>>body-in-the-social and the social-in-the-body might emerge , for clearly
>>
>>social theory without the "flesh and sting" of time is like identity theory
>>without the sociocultural situatedness of context -
>>diane
>

>it's a lot of risk and a lot of work.
>But you may be right.... If done well. -- Pat Williams is my star.
>It can also be suffocatingly self indulgent -- the social
>assimilated to the subject (I can think of at least one
>exemplar in performance theory....)
>
>Judith

Well of course this is precisely the problem I face now, that it IS
self-indulgent, suffocatingly-so, as you say:

lately I am thinking I need to take more seriously the pragmatists such as
James, Dewey, Mead, Pierce, *because* they are pragmatic; that
identity-theory has seduced me too far from the material realities -

and find intersections which are traversable rather than concocting bodyful
meanings, that is, perhaps it is worthwhile to explore semantic bridges as
conceptual tools;

for example, where William James emphasized "realities" as a compromise
between "objective reality and personal desire", for instance, there is a
space to consider the role of desire (identity theories) and motivation
(scoiocultural theories) in the context of

understanding the grid of "competing realities";

In fact, it is from sociocultural theory, I think, that I have come to
recognize the intricacies of relations and participation, and the
importance of "belonging."

A mammoth concern for me is an ethical quandary about "data"; the laudable
practice of privileging the concerns of others above my own
(with regards, e.g., to "belonging" and community) and yet the irreducible
incomprehensibility of data, the profoundly complex issue of representation,

and my discomfort, I admit, in using the experiences and stories of others
to fulfill my own theoretical interests.

But yes, the "body" projects strike me as too limited, too much in the
tradition of "armchair" philosophers and not enough in the tradition of
queer/feminsit activism.

I'd still privilege the body as a knowledge-system, I think, given the
fantastic efforts of the sciences in containing and controlling the body;
that is, I am compelled to perceive the body as posessing a tremendous
social power if only because of the sweeping efforts to politically and
socially and historically control/deny the body;

that flesh is so scarey (!) is irresistible to me. :-)

diane

"Every tool is a weapon if you hold it right."
Ani Difranco
*********************************
diane celia hodges
faculty of education
university of british columbia
vancouver, bc canada
tel: (604)-253-4807
email: dchodges who-is-at interchange.ubc.ca