Bill,
Thanks for your reply as I began to worry that you were only referring to
taking up documents such as the one we are reading rather than dealing with
the broader question of how the historical dimension as a whole is to be
taken. I will also be brief.
As I see it there are two issues:
1. In what sense can history be understood as a text? This implies a
certain theoretical perspective that I feel might be antithetical to the
theoretical presuppositions of activity theory.
2. In this sense the older discussions surrounding Althusser (structural
history) seem to be relevant.
Paul H. Dillon
----- Original Message -----
From: Bill Barowy <wbarowy@lesley.edu>
To: <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, November 08, 2000 5:42 PM
Subject: Re: slow/fast/open/closed
> Paul asks:
> >What is history from the perspective of activity theory?
> >
>
> Which is a great question. Understanding how texts from prior activity
are taken up into existing activity sounds very interesting. This sounds
like it is in L*'s field of expertise and I would be highly interested in
such a conversation. What I was thinking of historical texts was similar
to, I think, how historians work with primary and secondary sources. For
the moment, I'm interested in how to better orient present studies to that
of V-L-L and am willing to attempt this without having achieved competence
in analyzing historical texts.
>
> Apologies for the short response(s) -- spread as thin as a superfluid,
just a couple atomic layers thick right now.
>
>
> bb
>
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