Nate -- You're right. "Collective subject" could have been a typo. But I meant
to underscore that when someone is acting as a representative of others in this
context, he or she is really a different entity than when he or she is acting
as an individual.
This distinction comes out of the National Labor Relations Act which creates a
category of legally protected activity when one is carrying out "concerted
activity... for mutual aid or protection." There's a whole stream of legal
rights and responsibilities that flows with this. It's a lovely concept.
Helena
Nate wrote:
> Helena,
>
> In reading your last message and labor paper I have found your reference to
> collective subject interesting.
>
> The reason its standing out and I would welcome an elaboration is I have
> understood collective subject as referring to more than one person. A unit
> of analysis of a group of people (e.g union members)rather than a single
> individual (union member).
>
> What has caught my attention with your use of the word is a collective
> subject can refer to one individual. Would this be accurate, or am I reading
> too much into it?
>
> Nate
>
> Nate Schmolze
> http://www.geocities.com/nate_schmolze/
> schmolze@students.wisc.edu
>
> ****************************************************************************
> ****************
> "Overcoming the naturalistic concept of mental development calls for a
> radically new approach
> to the interrelation between child and society. We have been led to this
> conclusion by a
> special investigation of the historical emergence of role-playing. In
> contrast to the view
> that role playing is an eternal extra-historical phenomenon, we hypothesized
> that role playing emerged at a specific stage of social development, as the
> child's position in society changed
> in the course of history. role-playing is an activity that is social in
> origin and,
> consequently, social in content."
>
> D. B. El'konin
> ****************************************************************************
> ****************
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Helena Worthen [mailto:hworthen@igc.org]
> Sent: Wednesday, April 05, 2000 11:18 PM
> To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> Subject: Re: April Discussion Paper
>
> I'd like to say a few words about Peter's paper. I enjoyed it more than I
> have
> ever enjoyed anything on the subject of how people read. You could have
> called
> it, "The Physics of Meaning." His description of how meaning is produced
> through the construction of a new text by a reader has the patient pace and
> lucidity of a scientific explanation of how a rainbow is produced by the
> refraction of light through a prism.
>
> Two assumptions made me happy: One, that signs are most often verbal, but
> may
> also be images, dance forms, music, etc. The other that "the richest
> meanings
> come through transactions that are most generative in the production of
> potent
> new texts."
>
> After some years of teaching literature and drama I found myself more
> interested in the mystery of the reader than the mystery of the text. Peter
> captures the mystery of the readers as I know them. The readers I teach are
> a
> collective subject -- union representatives, stewards, learning how to
> manage
> the cycles of texts that are part of the work of representation. Peter's
> description is plausible whether one is thinking of school kids reading
> Hamlet
> or a shop steward studying his contract, preparing for a bargaining session
> (the production of a new text). Plausibility is a good thing in a model.
>
> Peter, would you want this called a model? Probably not, I'd guess.
>
> Helena Worthen
> Assistant Professor of Labor Education
> Chicago Labor Education Program
> Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations
> 815 West Van Buren Street Suite 214
> Chicago, IL 60607
>
> hworthen@uic.edu
> hworthen@igc.org
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue May 23 2000 - 09:21:14 PDT