well okay, here's a bit of a ramble.
...well... a lot of a ramble. a thinking aloud. meandering thinking
towards something ... thanks in advance to those who read all the way
through!!
i've been reading, as i often do, a few texts in a form of atonal chorus,
perhaps, and trying to think more about meanings and interpretation;
- Pierce - because i understand pragmatism as a distinctly American
preference as opposed to the intellectual traditions in European theory,
it is important to me to situate the affections that Americans here show
for Russian theory;
the readings here - ch1 and introduction - to better understand what
readers are wanting from this text of choice;
Jameson (The Political Unconscious) - to think critically about how my own
readings are moving, and how the selected readings here are being moved in
terms of individual interests, and in terms of larger cultural dominance
(American)
an edited text of political essays (Benhabib) - trying to locate the ideas
of liberalism, democracies, and Western ideals of politics,
communicative-deliberative-narratives;
i can't imagine who might be interested in the specific details of these
texts,
and i'd reckon many aren't familiar with the readings i'm concerned with,
so i leave it to the membership to ask specific questions about meanings
and relevance, because what has been occurring to me isn't related
directly to quoted passages in the above texts, although - if desired by
any - i can certainly provide specific relations, with passages or
bibliography, or whatever -
what has occurred to me is a relation between pragmatism, the confusion of
interpreting text in the contexts of what the text does - as a
performance, action, a performative action - in the midst of liberal
narratives and democratic assumptions, as a wider cultural frame of
reference for the dominant participants here -
in a sense, it is a way of locating the cultural-historical contexts of
the readings, by listening to the participants responses as particular
texts that locate particular interests, motives, - each reader takes
something different from selected text, as we move through chapters in a
loose ensemble;
each reader here pursues their line of thought in relations with their
particular needs,
and responses to each other reflect more of a need for affirmations,
perhaps, part of the liberal influence, i suspect, as an overarching
ideology about community interactions;
assumptions, perhaps, about neutral uses of theoretical language as ways
to mobilize pragmatic intentions:
and of course, pragmatism and democracy have a tight historical
connection, as well as a cultural history;
lacking - mostly - a language for critically assessing the ways these
relations are undulating in the readers' responses.
the reading itself - intro, and ch1 - provides an interesting ground for
thinking about the "meaning" of expansion, in terms of how it is
described, (though not defined) -
and here what ch1 achieves, in terms of an activity, is just that: a
language-ground from which to build further, a speech farm, (ha ha) from
which meanings are being cultivated, grown, fertilized,
and finally harvested by the readers - the reading puts forth a language
that is being explored here through readerly investments.
what is missing, perhaps? is the cultural-historical consciousness, ? that
the activity is taking place in the responding - the relation
(object-relation_ here is between the reader responses and the reading.
there is an apparent interest in differences of Russian and American ideas
and language, but without - or so it seems - any deep though towards
cultural and historical differences with regards to pragmatism,
and here, in contexts of political histories and regimes,
in the midst of dominant democratic values and assumptions of liberalism,
rationality, all of which are decidedly American.
to question the cultural-historical aspects of this, all of this being
quite a mish-mash, i know, ha ha,
perhaps some questioning about the relations between AT and pragmatism,
and CH and European intellectualism, might be useful?
i might be simplifying some boundaries here, for the purpose of shifting
the
responses into a wider space of reference - but as temporary windows, it
does seem to me that the interests in AT are dominant in relation to the
democratic, liberal, pragmatic assumptions,
and the notions of how to incorporate a cultural-historical perspective,
as a critical-historical perspective, are ... less clear?
this is a ramble, i mean, these frames of reference come from political
theory, literary criticism, philosophy, and my own undisciplined
vernacular,
ha.
i don't know if anyone can make sense of this, but in terms of the complex
matrices of relations that are taking place here, as responses towards and
from a particular reading, i think the meta-cultural perspectives have
some value for asking more about the CH of CHAT.
and we know, i am sure, that this is the pebble in MY shoe, anyhow.
tks for them what's kept reading up to here,
diane
**********************************************************************
:point where everything listens.
and i slow down, learning how to
enter - implicate and unspoken (still) heart-of-the-world.
(Daphne Marlatt, "Coming to you")
***********************************************************************
diane celia hodges
university of british columbia, centre for the study of curriculum and
instruction
==================== ==================== =======================
university of colorado, denver, school of education
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