[Xmca-l] Re: Re-search Testimonio and Hermeneutics

[Larry Purss]

Annalisa,
Yes, similarly exploring works and meaning. Original meaning as expressed
in works, which need to be continually re-worked when encountered and
experienced

Considering *testimonio* being informed within third spaces, I purposely
started a new thread on hermeneutics to be careful to allow the other
thread to develop those specific understanding(s) of testimonio.  THIS
 meaning as being created within a specific cultural historical tradition.
Many references were offered linking that tradition to Vygotsky and
activity theory and the 5th dimension.  The specificity of that thread as
developing within particular situations of designed pedagogy as living in
third space. I wanted to honour and recognize the specificity of this
tradition as developing beyond my experiences, but as an example of living
in truth with self and community
However, I did *perceive* or *hear* an overlapping theme with this
other tradition of hermeneutics which I wanted to point out as possibly
sharing a mutual theme of *hearing the other into voice* as a particular
type of *witnessing*.
In other words, testimonio has the potential to transform and deepen the
theoretical approach of philosophical hermeneutic(s) that originally formed
and developed in a very different German context.
Therefore the value of  two alternative threads. I myself am trying to
situate cultural historical theory as both literature and science that
seems to be a unique way of linking these themes.

Larry


On Thu, Jan 1, 2015 at 7:26 PM, Annalisa Aguilar <annalisa@unm.edu> wrote:

> Hi Larry,
>
> I am skeptical about making a work into an object, because by making it an
> object I must decontextualize it. When I decontextualize it, it is no
> longer a work situated in an environment to be enjoyed in its cultural
> setting.
>
> The act of removal is an act of destroying original meaning. Sometimes
> this act of removal is inevitable, as when a work takes on new meanings,
> such as the Mona Lisa as a "work of art" in the Louvre, as opposed to being
> a portrait of a woman painted in the Renaissance by Leonardo for King
> Francois I of France (or however the story goes) and hung in a chateau,
> even though the Louvre was once a chateau, now it is a museum. So the work
> has a new meaning.
>
> Object for me signifies a loss of context and that is why it is now an
> object. So I possess a particular definition for "object."
>
> Still, I think we have more that we share in agreement on this than
> disagreement.
>
> Testimony is one means of knowledge and why we give it such stock in a
> courtroom. Of course it is up to be challenged by adversaries in that
> context, so I don't think challenging testimonio is what is being pursued
> here, but acceptance of it as a product of experience, or an undertaking of
> meaning-making.
>
> However, I cannot say that this is actually the case (regarding
> testimony), but just my own sense-making about it.
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Annalisa
>
>