[Xmca-l] Re: Unreading Althusser

[HENRY SHONERD]

Hi Michael,
Thank you very much! I would be interested.  
Henry

> On Feb 8, 2015, at 10:21 AM, Glassman, Michael <glassman.13@osu.edu> wrote:
> 
> The student couldn't do videos even though that was her original intent because of IRB problems (it is based on a PAR study using videos in a small Canadian town).  So she just developed a performance troupe.  I don't feel comfortable putting up her work without her permission but if anybody is interested I can give you some information off-line.
> 
> Michael
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-l-bounces+mglassman=ehe.ohio-state.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces+mglassman=ehe.ohio-state.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole
> Sent: Sunday, February 08, 2015 12:10 PM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unreading Althusser
> 
> ​Hi Michael ---  Glad my earlier query concerning "video gallery"
> facilities finally made sense.
> Would it be possible to see your student's video? Is it on Youtube?
> mike​
> 
> On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 7:11 AM, Glassman, Michael <glassman.13@osu.edu>
> wrote:
> 
>> Hi Annalise,
>> 
>> I am not sure I understand your correlation between the video programs 
>> and kitsch.  It seems to me Morten Nissen is critiquing the 
>> establishment view of the videos on a number of levels, while still 
>> trying to suggest that they are a better method than the more 
>> individualistic, traditional therapies of motivational interviewing 
>> and cognitive behavioral therapy.  I can really sympathize, having 
>> spent a number of years on a research project comparing motivational 
>> interviewing, CBT and treatment as usual (spoiler alert, neither of 
>> the interventions have any real impact).  And yet that is all we do.
>> 
>> U-turn suggests a new method, except at least it seems to me Nissen 
>> fears it falling into similar traps.  One of the traps is treating the 
>> video as an object that forces reconsideration of the user's - in this 
>> case Birren - life structure leading to drug addiction - at least I 
>> think that is what Nissen is saying.  That the video becomes something 
>> controlled by the therapy community rather than integrated into the 
>> larger life scheme of the user.  But I see this as a really complex 
>> argument.  Yes, the way that Nissen describes this - as an advanced 
>> form of video story telling with trained videographers it does easily 
>> become an object rather than part of the processes of life.  Whose 
>> video is it, the user's, the videographer's, the therapist's, the 
>> social work community establishment.  But I think much of this has to 
>> do with understanding the role of this type of video storytelling, 
>> which is more about the community, what Nissen I think refers to as 
>> the collective than the individual (I think this point is kind of made at the end of the article).
>> 
>> But what if it could be a different type of video, made from start to 
>> finish by Birren and other users.  Mike's earlier request for programs 
>> where individuals can easily make videos makes much more sense.  A 
>> student working on our research project did her dissertation within a 
>> participatory action research format in which she organized the 
>> homeless youth/users (the study was about addiction among homeless youth) into a performance truth.
>> She also was looking to create the performance as an object that would 
>> lead to reflection on the structure of their lives, but I think in a 
>> much more grass roots, genuine way.
>> 
>> 
>> Michael
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:
>> xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Annalisa Aguilar
>> Sent: Sunday, February 08, 2015 2:42 AM
>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unreading Althusser
>> 
>> Hello esteemed xmcars,
>> 
>> I have done a quick reading of Morten Nissen's chapter and I would 
>> like to proffer that what he describes with the video production as a 
>> form of therapy for the drug addict (as sponsored by state programs), 
>> does resemble to me the very kind of interactions that happened to 
>> create the Kitsch in Art and how it came to be that Kitsch is the 
>> favorite art of dictators (see my previous post in this thread, in 
>> particularly I suggest in this context the essay by Greenberg as well as the WSJ article).
>> 
>> It is as if what is considered hopeful (helpful), what is considered 
>> therapeutic(empowering), which is done to transcend the past and the 
>> future by being in the present, all that is erased by collapsing what 
>> is meaningful into a formula of the unique or of sentiment (in this 
>> case, hope), a kind of Möbius strip of experience as possibility, 
>> which ends up becoming meaningless. Is the glass half full or half empty?
>> 
>> I'm being a more than a little intuitive here, knowing that I may not 
>> be walking on terra firma, which may not be very smart as I risk the 
>> concrete blocks of "dogma" crashing around my head: It is easy to 
>> label the original as dogma if one has adopted the stance of kitsch, I am realizing.
>> 
>> Despite that risk, I sense similar patterns to Nissen's paper and 
>> notions of kitsch (and how kitsch is created), and while I'm unsure at 
>> this point of time if this observation has merit, I offer it for 
>> discussion with the best of intentions.
>> 
>> Kind regards,
>> 
>> Annalisa
>> 
>> 
> 
> 
> --
> It is the dilemma of psychology to deal as a natural science with an object that creates history. Ernst Boesch.
>