Helena,
In reading your last message and labor paper I have found your reference to
collective subject interesting.
The reason its standing out and I would welcome an elaboration is I have
understood collective subject as referring to more than one person. A unit
of analysis of a group of people (e.g union members)rather than a single
individual (union member).
What has caught my attention with your use of the word is a collective
subject can refer to one individual. Would this be accurate, or am I reading
too much into it?
Nate
Nate Schmolze
http://www.geocities.com/nate_schmolze/
schmolze@students.wisc.edu
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"Overcoming the naturalistic concept of mental development calls for a
radically new approach
to the interrelation between child and society. We have been led to this
conclusion by a
special investigation of the historical emergence of role-playing. In
contrast to the view
that role playing is an eternal extra-historical phenomenon, we hypothesized
that role playing emerged at a specific stage of social development, as the
child's position in society changed
in the course of history. role-playing is an activity that is social in
origin and,
consequently, social in content."
D. B. El'konin
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-----Original Message-----
From: Helena Worthen [mailto:hworthen@igc.org]
Sent: Wednesday, April 05, 2000 11:18 PM
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: Re: April Discussion Paper
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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