I'd like to say a few words about Peter's paper. I enjoyed it more than I have
ever enjoyed anything on the subject of how people read. You could have called
it, "The Physics of Meaning." His description of how meaning is produced
through the construction of a new text by a reader has the patient pace and
lucidity of a scientific explanation of how a rainbow is produced by the
refraction of light through a prism.
Two assumptions made me happy: One, that signs are most often verbal, but may
also be images, dance forms, music, etc. The other that "the richest meanings
come through transactions that are most generative in the production of potent
new texts."
After some years of teaching literature and drama I found myself more
interested in the mystery of the reader than the mystery of the text. Peter
captures the mystery of the readers as I know them. The readers I teach are a
collective subject -- union representatives, stewards, learning how to manage
the cycles of texts that are part of the work of representation. Peter's
description is plausible whether one is thinking of school kids reading Hamlet
or a shop steward studying his contract, preparing for a bargaining session
(the production of a new text). Plausibility is a good thing in a model.
Peter, would you want this called a model? Probably not, I'd guess.
Helena Worthen
Assistant Professor of Labor Education
Chicago Labor Education Program
Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations
815 West Van Buren Street Suite 214
Chicago, IL 60607
hworthen@uic.edu
hworthen@igc.org
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