woops - this was intended for the discussion on the list
-----Original Message-----
From: Judith Vera Diamondstone
To: 'Eugene Matusov '
Sent: 8/12/2003 9:27 PM
Subject: RE: improv
Dear Eugene for the devil, I think you make an eloquent defense! the
difficulty of using Bakhtin is the fullness & multiplicity
(teemingness?) of his argument (not to mention the mutability of his
language) -- there's always an answering word...
>>>>Eugene (Devil Advocate on Devil Advocate :-))
It's devils all the way down!
Judy
-----Original Message-----
From: Eugene Matusov
To: 'Judith Vera Diamondstone'; anamshane@speakeasy.net
Cc: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Sent: 8/12/2003 11:50 AM
Subject: RE: improv
Dear Devil Advocate (Judy :-)) and everybody-
Judy, I think you are raising very good issues about me objectivizing my
students. I think you are right - I'm both objectivizing and finalizing
my students. However, I do not think it is bad to objectivize and
finalize unless it is all what I do. Early Bakhtin was talking about
objectivizing and finalizing others as a gift that we give others using
our surplus of vision and transgradience. Of course, the gift can easily
become a poison if it is not compensated by another gift of
subjectivizing and problematizing...
Here is my "defense":
1) I'm working with the students' statements and thus accessing
their subjectivity (although not in a dialogic way);
2) I plan to share my findings with my future students for sure
and maybe even with past students (although it is difficult to track
them);
3) I want to disrupt whatever findings will be in my future
teaching... Like Vygotsky, I believe that I do not fully understand a
phenomenon until I can disrupt and change it.
4) I want to use my findings for creating better dialogic
possibilities with my students.
What do you think?
Eugene (Devil Advocate on Devil Advocate :-))
-----Original Message-----
From: Judith Vera Diamondstone [mailto:JDiamondstone@Clarku.edu]
Sent: Monday, August 11, 2003 9:03 AM
To: ematusov@UDel.Edu; anamshane@speakeasy.net
Cc: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: RE: improv
Hi Eugene and Ana. Thank you, Ana, for playing devil's advocate in such
a useful way. And thanks, Eugene, for your helpful elaboration of a
dialogical/monological matrix.
I was going to play devil's advocate, too, but I'm glad to have waited.
Now I can just raise the point (mucky up the previous points), in my own
unfinalized way, which is in reference to eugene's last statement on his
previous email (certainly not his last!):
PS My preliminary research of my students' postings about LACC kids
show that they almost exclusively objectivized and finalized LACC
children in their discourse on the class web while the instructor was
trying to subjectivized and problematized. However, the students
subjectivize and problematize themselves and some other third-person
narratives.
I think you are objectivizing here, but because you say your research is
preliminary, you haven't finalized your claim. Also, you are
objectivizing your students' postings but not necessarily your students
.
Still I wonder if it is possible to objectivize someone's words without
objectivizing the speakers. Let's say you recognize that the saying is
done by someone whose point of view on the world you are not
representing[. Then it would be more in the spirit of subjectivizing
your students to contextualize their postings, dialogi[zing them by
situating them in a perspective on the world which is, presumably,
unfolding; unfinalized..[Then you would have to interview your students
about whether the perceived themselves to be objectivizing and why they
were then... etc.
what do you think?
judy
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