more re cognition and emotion

From: Mike Cole (mcole@weber.ucsd.edu)
Date: Mon Nov 11 2002 - 09:27:04 PST


Also to pick up on your comment, Jay:
>So you might say that what I am after is not just another academic
>discourse that neuters feeling, but a different kind of practice
>that does not need to, that does not sacrifice the uses of
>theoretical and semiotic analysis (or perhaps in this case, of
>synthesis, of production), but finds ways to make meanings about
>feeling that also evoke our feelings (delightful and apprehensive)
>about meanings.

As I noted, the activities we call the 5th Dimension seems to provide
an existence proof of such practices. The fact that the social relations
between undergraduates and children is constituitive of the activity is
one important reason why. The use of narrative field notes as data is
another. The constant intertwining of theory and practice is another.

It is notable that in those parts of my own writing that are "second hand"
and about the work of others, whether theory or evidence, I find great
difficulty in fusing cognition and emotion, privileging the former. But
when my writing shifts to descriptions of the practice, I, like the
undergrads, start fusing cognition and emotion again.

Having long recognized this tendency is one source of my fondness for the
idea that we murder to dissect. indeed.
mike



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