Dear Ana and everybody-
-----Original Message-----
From: anamshane@speakeasy.net [mailto:anamshane@speakeasy.net]
Sent: Thursday, August 07, 2003 2:12 PM
To: ematusov@UDel.Edu
Subject: Re: improv
Dear Eugene,
Can you tell us more about "this type of unfinalized and
addressed relations" and how did Bakhtin thenk that they "have to be the
key for any social sciences"?
I think that Bakhtin introduced two notions that have not been well
explored:
1) Spiritualization: problematizing and not finalizing people about (or
with) you are talking about. Let me give examples of problematizing and
finalizing (examples came from our class discussion of Latin American
Community Center - LACC - children on the class web):
Problematizing: "I think that it would be a great idea to make a quick
survey to find out exactly where the children's most favorite place is at
the LACC.". Problematizing involves articulating uncertainty about LACC
children.
Finalizing: "Please don't think that I feel harassed, because I don't. I
feel that they are just boys being boys" (in the context of preadolescence
boys using sexual language toward a female university student). The student
does not problematize the boys actions but normalized and objectivized them.
2) Intersubjectivity: treating your topic of discourse/narrative as a
co-subject and a co-partner in a dialogue. Bakhtin used the term
"personality-ness" (actually Bakhtin used the term "lichnost'" in Russian)
to articulate the intersubjective nature of investigation about another
person in humanitarian sciences as in opposition to "thing-ness". In my
work, I use terms of "subjectivizing others" and "objectivizing others". Let
me give examples of subjectizing and objectivizing (examples came from our
class discussion of Latin American Community children on the class web):
Subjectivizing: "an LACC child says that she was not proud of being American
because Americans bomb her home island in Puerto-Rico". Subjectivizing
involves getting information from LACC children themselves.
Objectivizing: "They provide such a great environment and wonderful
experiences for the children who go there. Kids love them." The student was
talking about the violence prevention program for boys at LACC. What was
interesting is that later the students learned from the boys that they hated
the program and tried to avoid it as much as possible. Students' inferences
based on their observations were wrong. The issue is not where observation-
or speculation-based inferences are right or wrong but rather that the
author does not try to check it with the people themselves about whom they
talk. Objectivizing is based on the author drawing information and
conclusions in his/her statements about the LACC children from his/her
observations, general knowledge, and other people but not from the LACC
children themselves.
Below is a quote from Bakhtin's essay Bakhtin, M. M., Holquist, M., &
Emerson, C. (1986). Speech genres and other late essays (1st ed.). Austin:
University of Texas Press.
"The exact sciences constitute a monologic form of knowledge: the intellect
contemplates a thing and expounds upon it. There is only one subject
here-cognizing (contemplating) and speaking (expounding). In opposition to
the subject there is only a voiceless thing. Any object of knowledge
(including man) can be perceived and cognized as a thing. But a subject as
such cannot be perceived and studied as a thing, for as a subject it cannot,
while remaining a subject, become voiceless, and, consequently, cognition of
it can only be dialogic. Dilthey and the problem of understandings Various
ways of being active in cognitive ac-tivity. The activity of the one who
acknowledges a voiceless thing and the activity of one who acknowledges
another subject, that is, the dia-logic activity of the acknowledger. The
dialogic activity of the ac-knowledged subject, and the degrees of this
activity. The thing and the personality (subject) as limits of cognition.
Degrees of thing-ness and personality-ness. The event-potential of dialogic
cognition. Meet-ing. Evaluation as a necessary aspect of dialogic cognition.
The human sciences-sciences of the spirit-philological sciences (as part of
and at the same time common to all of them-the word)." (Bakhtin, Holquist, &
Emerson, 1986, p. 161)
When Dostoyevsky did not tell about his characters more than they alredy
know themselves, I think that that was a way to ensure that the reader sees
everything from "inside" each character. In other words -- there is no
"narrator" no character to tell you anything more than you would find in
natural life if you were able to follow each character in those relevant
scenes.
I think it is more than just let reader knows how the character thinks and
feels "inside". Rather, as Bakhtin argued, Dostoevsky tried to develop
intersubjectivity with his characters. That is why he never portrayed how
characters die (unlike Tolstoy). Now in words of Bakhtin,
"The hero [student] interests Dostoevsky [the dialogic teacher] not as some
manifestation of reality that possesses fixed socially typical or
individually characteristic traits [like "slow learner", "good student",
"having misconceptions," "learning disability", "African American student",
"lazy", "from poor family", etc..], nor as a specific profile assembled out
of unambiguous and objective features which, taken together, answer the
question 'Who is he?' No, the hero [student] interests Dostoevsky [the
dialogic teacher] as a particular point of view on the world and on
him/herself, as the position enabling a person to interpret and evaluate his
own self and his surrounding reality. What is important to [the dialogic
teacher] is not how his hero [student] appears in the world but first and
foremost how the world appears to his hero [student], and how the hero
[student] appears to himself" (Problem of Dostoevsky Poetics, 1999, p.47)
[in brackets, my 'translation' of Bakhtin's point into education].
This unfinalization engages a reader to build the missing parts of the story
and in a way to be in the story next to every other character and not
"above". The result is a certan kind of equality between the reader and the
characters -- and maybe also the writter as a hidden voice.
Again, I think, according to Bakhtin, unfinalizing is not only done by
Dostoevsky for the sake of reader but also for the sake of the character.
What do you think?
Eugene
PS My preliminary research of my students' postings about LACC kids show
that they almost exclusively objectivized and finalized LACC children in
their discourse on the class web while the instructor was trying to
subjectivized and problematized. However, the students subjectivize and
problematize themselves and some other third-person narratives.
What do you think?
Ana
-----Original Message-----
From: Eugene Matusov [mailto:ematusov@udel.edu]
Sent: Thursday, August 7, 2003 05:40 PM
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: RE: improv
Dear Carrie and Ana-
I just want to make a connection between your characterization and emphasis
on "not knowing" in improvisation and Bakhtin's notion of "unfinalizing". He
also stressed importance of listening and responding to others. Bakhtin
argued that Dostoevsky did not tell about his characters more than they
already know themselves. He generalized that this type of unfinalized and
addressed relations have to be the key for any social sciences.
What do you think?
Eugene
> -----Original Message-----
> From: lobman@rci.rutgers.edu [mailto:lobman@rci.rutgers.edu]
> Sent: Wednesday, August 06, 2003 1:18 PM
> To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> Subject: RE: improv
>
>
> I think improv does change some of the expert/novice dynamic because its
> a not-knowing activity--as Ana says no one "knows" where it is going. I
> do think I think for me the prerequisite to listening and responding is
> not knowing. It is impossible, not to mention not necessary, to listen
> to people if we already "know" what they mean--it stops the process of
> making meaning together.
>
> I see this as different than equalizing people or making people
> equal--in my experience when people improvise together all of the power
> relationships are still there, but they are played with or used in the
> process of creating the performance.
>
> For example, there was one man and seven women in the group of teachers
> that participated in the improv trainings. During the first couple of
> weeks some of the women had reactions to the more his "more male"
> performances--more vulgar or lifting up his shirt... In addition he was
> the only one in the group with any theatre training so his performances
> tended to be a little more polished. Over the course of the eight weeks
> the group began to use his offers to create interesting scenes--they
> began to use their more "honest" reactions to him to create playful
> scenes about sex roles.
>
> Carrie
>
>
> > I loved the idea of improv leveling power differentials. That is a
> major
> > goal of various customs in the 5thD. It is, however, very threatening
> to
> > teachers who are working in regimes where they must appear to be in
> > control all the time!
> > mike
> >
> >
>
>
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