the "i" word etc.

From: Andrew Babson (ababson@umich.edu)
Date: Wed Mar 30 2005 - 21:29:21 PST

Don, you've inspired me to break away from "breaking away" for a minute to muse about my favorite intellectual problem children- metaphor and "identity". As you are all aware, much ink has been spilled on both topics, and it's also that time of the semester, so I can't devote nearly as much time to discussing them now. But I can highly recommend an article by Rogers Brubaker and Fred Cooper (2000) as a starting point for "breaking away" from the term identity ("Beyond Identity", Theory and Society 29: 1-47).

For an assessment of anthropological takes on metaphor, I have an article coming out in the next Semiotica (153–1/4, 1–30) that might be of interest. Shameless plug, but what the heck.

Best,
Andrew

Cunningham, Donald J. wrote: 

Grinch, huh. That must account for the green ring around some of the
quarries.

It's my bed time so I will be brief but there are several literatures
one could consult. David Kirshner cited one today, identity. The stone
cutter has a well established identity but this identity does not allow
him to feel comfortable in the building his stone enabled. The son is
struggling with his identity. He says he is a "cutter" (the actual term
we use is "stoney"). His father disagrees! So what is he?

I link identity and umwelt, one's personal world. The strength of the
movie "Breaking Away" is that it touched a "real" difference that
persists to this day in Bloomington. I'm sure a number of university
towns have the same town/gown issues. Is learning the acquisition of
skills or the cultivation of an identity that others come to recognize?
Wenger's recent work is another literature that has stressed identity.
Most of the "social semiotic" literature is about this. One
discontinuity is that between the identity an individual assumes for
him/her self and what others recognize. I for example, am a legend only
in my own mind!

None of this is particularly empirical in what I take to be the spirit
of your request. What would you prefer?

Don Cunningham
Indiana University

-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Cole [mailto:lchcmike@gmail.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2005 9:49 PM
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: Re: Capitalism Sucks - RE: Breaking away?

Sorry to be playing the grinch here because I love all the examples.
But, Don (your
message is most recent) could you point us ot an empirical study of
development
(the functional reorganization of psychological processes with respect
to each other and the way they relate organism and environment -- a
provisional LSV-type
definition) that would allow us as educators-developers to be in a
position to promote the process thought to be desirable?
mike


On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 21:41:56 -0500, Cunningham, Donald J.
<cunningh@indiana.edu> wrote:
  
Pretty scary, Tony.  That is exactly the scene I cite and that I have
indexed on my video tape. That and the scene where he discovers that
    
the
  
"Italian" bike team cheats. Could you leave it up or let me post it on
    
a
  
server here (no real Hoosier would object)?

Here again, the "irritation of doubt" promotes growth.

Barbara Barrie often quotes Marx in the film so Paul Dooley was
undoubtedly about to offer a pithy quote then thought better of
it.......djc

Don Cunningham
Indiana University

-----Original Message-----
From: Tony Whitson [mailto:twhitson@udel.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2005 9:13 PM
To: mcole@weber.ucsd.edu; xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: Capitalism Sucks - RE: Breaking away?

-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Cole [mailto:lchcmike@gmail.com]
Still in the realm of fiction, Don. Hoosier style?
mike             -----------
-----------------

maybe, Mike, but there can be much truth in fiction.

Breaking Away is a great movie -- won Academy Award for Best
    
Screenplay.
  
It also contains the most succinct presentation I know of Marx's
    
theory
  
of
alienation: ("Capital is dead labour, that, vampire-like, only lives
    
by
  
sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks."
Capital Vol. I Chapter Ten )

In other words, the material conditions that limit the freedom of
    
living
  
workers are imposed by the appropriation past ("dead") labor, which,
    
in
  
the
form of capital, dictates the conditions of employment for current
("living") labor.

The scene takes place outside the IU's (limestone) library building.
A PDF file slideshow of the scene can be downloaded from
www.udel.edu/educ/whitson/files/BA2library.pdf

Because of the file size [1.5 Meg] I will keep the file there only for
the
next two weeks.

Bonus question for Don Cunningham (or anybody else who's seen this
    
movie
  
more than once):

What did the father stop himself from telling the son (which would
    
have
  
completed the sentence that begins "Well, your mom ...") ?

I never made this connection before, but it reminds me of
Sennett's "Hidden Injuries of Class."

-----Original Message-----
From: Cunningham, Donald J. [mailto:cunningh@indiana.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2005 8:23 PM
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: Breaking away?

http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hv&id=1800041061&cf=info&intl=us

Don Cunningham
Indiana University

On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 20:22:51 -0500, Cunningham, Donald J.
<cunningh@indiana.edu> wrote:
    
http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hv&id=1800041061&cf=info&intl=us

Don Cunningham
Indiana University

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