[Xmca-l] Re: New Year's Perezhivanie

[lpscholar2@gmail.com]

Alfredo,
In my limited knowledge of the Judaic tradition the hard work of ‘redemption’ is the human path  occurring on the shared ground of humanity. This in contrast to the notion of a realm beyond this earth. THEN as scholars of Jewish ancestry who move back into memory and return to the present the theme often become secular. However, I notice a particular style that remains (though hidden) that can be understood as a TRANS formation within  a continuing moral/ethical relation to the Judaic  past. Beth’s article expresses this movement as Vygotsky transversing this  trans formation to secular  themes but as also carrying forward the human path  read as now occurring within  this particular cultural historical & existential moment.
A con-jecture offered as an image that is  moving beyond stage 0. Not sure if I am reading my own prejudices into Beth’s article? Time will tell. :-  )



Sent from my Windows 10 phone

From: HENRY SHONERD
Sent: January 5, 2017 10:06 AM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Cc: mike cole
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: New Year's Perezhivanie

Larry,
A footnote perhaps to the discussion, but one that lights up my own engagement in the discussion is tied to “redemption" (at the end of your post) and how that is different from recanting. In a book by Geraldine Brooks (Year of Wonders) set during a few years during a plague-plagued 17th century England, we are explicitly told that recanting does not necessarily result in redemption. Recanting is the entering into, redemption the hard work that follows, if it follows at all. 
Henry

> On Jan 5, 2017, at 10:31 AM, <lpscholar2@gmail.com> <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Beth, Alfredo, and Marc and others who have responded or are reading these threads.
> 
> Beth mentioned it is hard to contain the many strands in XMCA discussions, but never more so than when we discuss this topic [perezhivanie]. I agree, which to me indicates it has a vitality. I woke up today and while half asleep had various responses playing through my memory. So how do we together engage with this topic?  I want to mention some things I did with my hands and feet last night.
> There are two parallel links to our topic so I printed out these two email links and stapled them together. This act was my way to slow down the proliferation of links and to try to stay on [or enter into] this months topic as generated by Marc’s article.
> 
> I then reflected on the actual term [perezhivanie] and noticed how it is TRANSlated into English as [experience]. David K pointing out [gesturing] to the fact that the prefix [perez] means [trans] suggested I could create a hybrid term [trans/hivanie] to allow me to hold onto the phenomena the word perezhivanie “means” for myself. We are exploring “trans” phenomena when we explore perezhivanie.
> 
> Now why does this topic generate such proliferation of [paths] that open up and invite [entering into].  What came to mind was Pegg’s earlier reference to her “work” as something to be “picked up” at a future time and re=engaged as memory work through her archive.
> 
> These were various thoughts occurring while half asleep as I “struggled” to find my way “through” the proliferation and suggest ways to slow down the process. [a major theme of last months postings].  I considered opening another thread to bring to the fore Beth’s provoking comments, while keeping the conversation between Marc and Alfredo contained in the other strand where the focus is on Marc’s KEYSTONE notion of what is central to trans/hivanie. However, I decided as an ‘alternative’ otherwise and decided to stay with this thread and bring forward Beth’s contribution to this topic. So here goes. 
> 
> Beth, takes the image Mike sent of 2016 being hammered into ‘bits’ or demolished as an act of ‘deconstruction’  and juxtaposes it with two more images from Maurice Sendak as illustrations of trans/hivanie. [where capturing/representing/living takes place]. She [reads into] these two images a trans/hivanie that shares in common the meaning that Mike’s image [captured/represented].  
> 
> Beth ADDS that these three images can be [thought] as stage 0 “fixed boundaries”.  What Beth thinks by this move is that [in order to] START the process of trans/hivanie [the moving ‘forward’] THAT IS LIFE we must enter into an ‘alternative’ moment which is caprtured by the term [pause] by which she explores [despair]. I would add that a pause is a “gap” or an “interval” Now what is central to my understanding of this moment this interval or pause [which the Japanese call “ma”] is that it must IN ADDITION be RECOGNIZED. The centrality of “mitsein” or “being with” the person “in” trans/hivanie. THIS is the moral/ethical realm that can be referred to as a “style” of being and may relate to Judaic ways of moving along the [human path]? The ADDITION to my ears must be highlighted and returns us to Zukerman’s notion of the “intermental” in last month’s article. Now I sugg of the rainbowest that in TRANSferring  trans/hivanie to North America with its hyper individualism this ADDITION gets WITHDRAWN and must be retrieved or carried back in this movement of memory and the forward thrust of being alive [after the pause of the zero stage] This also requires ‘mourning” as part of the crisis.
> Beth sensitively said “I don’t want to bypass the other strands” and this is my way of honouring both Beth’s strand with its mention of the pause of STAGE 0 [the struggle of meaningfulness-meaninglessness that is navigated ideally through the care and concern WITH others AS Beth’s ADDITION]. 
> 
> Beth concludes her turn in the commentary with an example she believes will be particularly useful as we continue to explore this multifaceted topic of trans/hivanie. A child’s “entering into” the “reality” of the book’s [live fire] and living through the trans/hivanie of the apartment fire leading to wanting to cut up or demolish the fixed materialal(ity) of the book. Stage 0 or the “interval” or “ma” BEFORE moving forward into living vitality. 
> 
> This topic is like a prism, taking the materiality of colour and TRANS forming the monism of colour into multifaceted flowing PATTERNS through the mediation of the prism.  It to me has the same feel as when we explore “what is thinking” as a trans/hivanie phenomena.
> 
> Putting Beth’s contribution into what may become one strand before returning to Alfredo and Marc’s exploration of the KEYSTONE idea of mediation in relation to meaning. Beth’s stage 0 moment that requires [necessarily] the pause [entering or falling into the mood of despair] . ALSO highlighting Beth’s ADDITION that within stage 0 the other person continues to be recognized through the mourning. This moment that calls us ethically to enter into through mitsein or intermental reality the other’s despair and struggle and crisis. I would add that trans/hivanie also in addition requires “institutional” support but I have said enough. 
> Thanks Beth for writing the article that Peter sent which I see as a part of this strand, but today is in the background. The element of [redemption] that I note in your article on the strands that were central to Vygotsky’s moral/ethical development. That may require another strand.
> 
> Sent from Mail for Windows 10
> 
> From: Beth Ferholt
> Sent: January 4, 2017 10:19 AM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Cc: mike cole
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: New Year's Perezhivanie
> 
> You see in the picture on the wall in the first Sendak illustration that
> the wild thing that the child (Max) will become, in order to complete his
> stages of perezhivanie, is first a mediating meaning ... made by a real
> wild thing ...
> 
> On Wed, Jan 4, 2017 at 1:13 PM, Beth Ferholt <bferholt@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> It is often hard to contain the many strands in an XMCA discussion, but
>> never more so than when we discuss this topic.
>> 
>> In Reggio Emilia's early childhood pedagogy it could be called a spaghetti
>> mess.
>> 
>> I am thinking about three strands of pasta, now:
>> 
>> From Marc -- My current research concern is trying to find
>> *ways to study* and understand how this mediation occurs and how these
>> semiotic mediators are transformed and distributed.
>> 
>> From Chris -- Part of this might also be a question of
>> what it means to describe and represent one's own perezhivanie
>> figuratively/narratively (whether to others, or to oneself), as opposed to
>> living that perezhivanie. *Especially if the attempt to capture/represent*
>> *one's own perezhivanie is, perhaps, also central to the living of it?*
>> 
>> And our US Narnia playworld study, where this
>> capturing/representing(/living) took place with Maurice Sendak's
>> illustrations of perezhivanie.
>> 
>> Two of the stages ("making mischief of one kind ... and another" and
>> "saying I'LL EAT YOU UP!) of perezhivanie look a lot like the image Mike
>> sent ... we have called them stage 0, Fixed Boundaries, which means that in
>> order to start the process of perezhivanie the moving forward that is life
>> has to pause (despair) and also be recognized (with almost joyful anger and
>> abandon before declaring oneself) (I have to check but I am pretty sure
>> this was originally from Crime and Punishment via Vasilyuk).
>> 
>> The difference between experiencing as struggle and the meaning that
>> mediates experiencing as struggle is certainly a key questions.  But how to
>> access/study this question is still a problem.  Again I turn to children --
>> and although the following example is still very emotionally powerful for
>> me, I think it is particularly useful here -- for others as well as myself.
>> 
>> Last night my family and I had to run out of our apartment because there
>> was a large fire in the building next door that the firepeople could not
>> contain for an hour or so.  My five year old had trouble going to sleep, as
>> we all did, after the blaze was extinguished and we were allowed to go
>> home.  He said he had read a book about volcanos at school and lava was
>> live fire, and the book and the real fire had scared him, so the book had
>> come true, so he wanted to cut up the book.
>> 
>> I don't mean to bypass the other strands but this is what came to mind.
>> Beth
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Wed, Jan 4, 2017 at 8:41 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil <a.j.gil@iped.uio.no>
>> wrote:
>> 
>>> That surely has a touch of catharsis to it, Beth, thanks for sharing!
>>> Alfredo
>>> ________________________________________
>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>
>>> on behalf of Beth Ferholt <bferholt@gmail.com>
>>> Sent: 03 January 2017 16:50
>>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>>> Cc: mike cole
>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: New Year's Perezhivanie
>>> 
>>> Several people did tell me, independently, that the great end of the John
>>> Oliver segment on 2016, where different NYers curse 2016 on the street,
>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQ6WPo-oW5Q, helped them to overcome
>>> feelings of despair at the end of last year.  So maybe it is related to
>>> perezhivanie.  But maybe just to one part of the process. Beth
>>> 
>>> On Mon, Jan 2, 2017 at 6:45 PM, <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Mike,
>>>> When you use the phrase (by this poltical hammering) then i would
>>> suggest
>>>> this political  activity is not capturing the full  meaning of
>>> perezhivanie.
>>>> My reason for saying this must first refer to page 5 of the article
>>> where
>>>> perezhivanie’s meaning is approached through the
>>>> meaningfulness-meaninglessness opposition and the back and forth within
>>>> this struggle.
>>>> The image of the hammer as presented has its source in the
>>> meaning-forming
>>>> motive proceeding in a direction towards realization of her
>>> meaning-forming
>>>> political motives. Only within this aspect of the opposition will the
>>>> situation in the image HAVE meaning and BE meaningful.
>>>> Vasilyuk however  adds the other aspect : If things are proceeding
>>>> OTHERWISE the situation becomes meaningless (LP – and then we enter the
>>>> crisis of meaninglessness – the otherwise - where words no longer
>>> mediate
>>>> the situation).
>>>> 
>>>> This nature of perezhivanie Vasilyuk metaphorically describes as
>>> learning
>>>> ( as ENTERING INTO) this type of meaning that is NOT formal, scientific
>>>> conceptual knowledge. It is a place of moods and shifting experiences.
>>>> 
>>>> So in my reading of perezhivanie there is this tension between (entering
>>>> into) volitional acts and the alternative aspect of perizihavanie as
>>>> overwhelming crisis of  (meaninglessness) which must be mediated and the
>>>> mediators transformed.
>>>> 
>>>> Turning back to page 2  and the situation where Macduff must feel his
>>>> situation as a man when his entire family are killed. No practical
>>> activity
>>>> can bring his family back. Another type of work is needed (and
>>> necessary)
>>>> which Macduff calls (feeling the situation as a man). THIS WORK Vasilyuk
>>>> calls perezhivanie.
>>>> 
>>>> So, my way of reading the image of the hammer smashing 2016 highlights
>>> the
>>>> aspect of (entering into) a meaningful motive as (political activity)
>>> that
>>>> is represented but what is not is the alternative,  represented in the
>>>> crisis of meaninglessness that is the other aspect of perezhivanie.
>>>> Marc Clara speaks of the mediator that transforms this crisis of
>>>> experiencing, but i am not sure the  the image of the girl and hammer
>>>> portrays the aspect of perezhivanie as involving a transformative
>>> mediator
>>>> existing between meaningfulness and meaninglessness?
>>>> That time when words and practical activity fail and the person is
>>> facing
>>>> existential dread when (feeling as a man) that all hope has left the
>>> world.
>>>> That moment is the moment in which Clara opened and (entered into) her
>>>> article exploring the two notions of perizhivanie using the same word.
>>>> At the heart of this matter is the existential dread of  meaninglessness
>>>> unique for each person and our ways of answering as alternative waysthat
>>>> give a deep sense of meaningfulness.
>>>> It is here that there is overlap with last month’s article where
>>> Zukerman
>>>> addressed the unique existential aspect entering into cultural
>>> historical
>>>> (human paths)
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Sent from my Windows 10 phone
>>>> 
>>>> From: mike cole
>>>> Sent: January 2, 2017 12:06 PM
>>>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: New Year's Perezhivanie
>>>> 
>>>> The pieces of brick thrown up by this political hammering have not yet
>>>> fallen and made the devastation personally experienced by the
>>> nation/world.
>>>> 
>>>> Still, genuinely, we can wish all of us 7.3 billion well in the new
>>> year.
>>>> 
>>>> So what do you think chuck, is this a good representation of
>>> perezhivanie?
>>>> :-)
>>>> Mike
>>>> 
>>>> On Mon, Jan 2, 2017 at 11:24 AM Charles Bazerman <
>>>> bazerman@education.ucsb.edu> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> So you think 2017 has any hope of being any better?
>>>>> 
>>>>> Chuck
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>>>> 
>>>>> From: mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu>
>>>>> 
>>>>> Date: Monday, January 2, 2017 11:01 am
>>>>> 
>>>>> Subject: [Xmca-l]  New Year's Perezhivanie
>>>>> 
>>>>> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>>> With the New Year, as our Russian colleagues put it!
>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>>> This image forwarded from a friend more or less sums up my
>>> experience
>>>>> 
>>>>>> of
>>>>> 
>>>>>> the past year. Thought you might find it interesting too.
>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>>> Vis a vis the discussion of perezhivanie: Does this image provide us
>>>> with
>>>>> 
>>>>>> used (re-presented) behavioral evidence of a person undergoing
>>>>> perezhivanie?
>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>>> Looking forward to the discussion.
>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>>> Feliz año nuevo!
>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>>> Mike
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> --
>>> Beth Ferholt
>>> Assistant Professor
>>> Department of Early Childhood and Art Education
>>> Brooklyn College, City University of New York
>>> 2900 Bedford Avenue
>>> Brooklyn, NY 11210-2889
>>> 
>>> Email: bferholt@brooklyn.cuny.edu
>>> Phone: (718) 951-5205
>>> Fax: (718) 951-4816
>>> 
>>> 
>> 
>> 
>> --
>> Beth Ferholt
>> Assistant Professor
>> Department of Early Childhood and Art Education
>> Brooklyn College, City University of New York
>> 2900 Bedford Avenue
>> Brooklyn, NY 11210-2889
>> 
>> Email: bferholt@brooklyn.cuny.edu
>> Phone: (718) 951-5205
>> Fax: (718) 951-4816
>> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Beth Ferholt
> Assistant Professor
> Department of Early Childhood and Art Education
> Brooklyn College, City University of New York
> 2900 Bedford Avenue
> Brooklyn, NY 11210-2889
> 
> Email: bferholt@brooklyn.cuny.edu
> Phone: (718) 951-5205
> Fax: (718) 951-4816
>