Re: [xmca] Francois Cooren

["Duvall, Emily" <emily@uidaho.edu>]

On the subject of toe shoes and other bare footing activities.... Not only is there a very physical connection and possible spiritual connection, but there is a huge social connection Those of us who race barefoot know the time it takes to adjust, the commitment, the change to a Chi running approach and also the physical benefits (no pounding of heel to knee to hip). I can't imagine running in anything else but barefoot shoes (not ready for running in the raw) ... I am intensely aware of the land - it does offer a different awareness of one's surroundings. Definitely an interesting form of mediation with variable results on the sociocultural plain.
Em


Sent from my iPad

On Jun 3, 2012, at 10:04 AM, "Ivan Rosero" <irosero@ucsd.edu> wrote:

> Yeah, that's the branded advantage of the kind of shoe I'm describing
> --it's mostly all true in my experience.
> 
> I've got a couple of friends who have taken to walking completely barefoot
> all the time, and they laugh at me in a (an)knowing kind of way:  "now you
> understand more than the others, but you're not quite there yet, and you
> still think it's the shoe that makes the difference!".  I wanna laugh back
> and say something about culture and artifacts, but then I remember that
> mediation is complex and not about "amplifying" but reorganizing.  So, from
> their point of view shoes have silenced the earth to our feet, while my
> soccer playing friends have other things to listen to.
> 
> baby steps
> 
> ivan
> 
> PS (From the dictionary, organize has some interesting roots.   Archaic
> --arrange or form into a living being or tissue: "the soul doth organize
> the body".  From Latin organum ‘instrument, tool’ (see organ) )
> 
> 
> 
> On Sun, Jun 3, 2012 at 9:27 AM, Greg Thompson <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>wrote:
> 
>> Thanks Ivan and Larry, very helpful for fleshing out this new terrain (a
>> lovely mixed metaphor speaking me, no?).
>> 
>> Larry, I wonder if there isn't some conflict or difference between
>> Gadamer's notion of "opening" or putting into question and what seems to be
>> coming from the MSOC (and Latour and others) and in which the individual
>> seems to be increasingly closed (I suspect that 'determined' might be too
>> strong of langage, but not sure). But maybe I'm misreading your sense of
>> "openng"?
>> 
>> Ivan, love the shoe with toes example (I would add that there is a semiotic
>> strangeness of sitting with a person whose individual toes are visible -
>> not that it bothers me, but I do wonder if this would "offend" in polite
>> company?). And I would add that, as I understand it, the lack of heavy
>> padding on your shoes also makes your whole body accomodate to the shoe so
>> that you tend to strike the ground more with the ball of your foot rather
>> than your heel. And as I understand it, this is much better for posture and
>> for general joint health (heel striking is much more jolting on the body),
>> and it also helps with things like balance and stability because the
>> muscles around your toes are brought into functioning again (as opposed to
>> in a regular tennis shoe where they are rendered useless because they can't
>> grasp or grab anything...). So our shoes "speak" us (as well as "speak of"
>> us!).
>> 
>> -greg
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Sun, Jun 3, 2012 at 8:16 AM, Ivan Rosero <irosero@ucsd.edu> wrote:
>> 
>>> I know the MSOC relies heavily on a Latourian understanding of non-human
>>> actors.  When an artist says that the medium in which she works is alive
>>> and speaks to her, most of us have no trouble granting the *artist* this
>>> use of language.  Artists are quirky like that.  But the compelling idea
>>> I'm hearing here from MSOC, and Latour, and Vygotsky, is that for
>> mediation
>>> to be an effectual process in interaction it *must* be that we are all
>>> artists in tuning into and hearing the voices of non-human actants.
>>> 
>>> I've recently been using five-toed shoes with very thin soles, through
>>> which I can feel the ground much more delicately than before.  So now I
>>> tend to walk off the beaten path and off the sidewalk, because it's very
>>> nice to feel the textured ground below my feet.  The problem is that this
>>> is creating tension with my friends when we go on walks together --I see
>>> them look a bit perplexed and get a bit annoyed when I start crossing a
>>> patch of woods instead of staying on the straight and narrow of the
>>> sidewalk.  Wrapped in thick shoes, they slip and slide, loose their
>> footing
>>> and find it hard to save face --so they get mad at me.
>>> 
>>> But it's not my fault, since the ground speaks differently to me now.
>>> 
>>> Ivan
>>> 
>>> On Sun, Jun 3, 2012 at 12:07 AM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Greg, the "how so" that considers micro-interaction may have an
>>>> *as-structure" or ventriloquation of language as metaphoricity.
>>>> 
>>>> In the foreword to the book, [pageXV] the author states,
>>>> 
>>>> Attention shifts from speech to *figures* of speech. Then an even
>>> stranger
>>>> thing happens: The very notion of figures of speech reverses itself and
>>>> becomes *literal*: we are being acted upon by these invisible entities
>>> that
>>>> *haunt* us and populate (or even crowd) the interaction.  At this
>> point,
>>>> ventriloquism is inverted: we, the human subjects are the *dummies*
>>> toward
>>>> which other entities are projecting their real voices AS IF they were
>>>> coming from us. All the studies of metaphor, of story telling, or
>> staging
>>>> arguments are put upside down. We are spoken or silenced by others, by
>>>> *aliens* toward which we should direct our attention IF we want to
>>>> UNDERSTAND what makes us act or speak"
>>>> 
>>>> Greg, this description of the sequence FROM  figures of speech TO the
>>>> literal as a movement or process  *AS IF* the voices [or texts] were
>>> coming
>>>> from us, points to Gadamer's notion: *fusion* of horizons.  Language
>> *as*
>>>> fusion [language as metaphoricity or as-structure].
>>>> THIS process BECOMES literal as a dialogical relational process.
>>>> When we are spoken or silenced by *aliens* or alterity we are put into
>>>> question and OPENED. How we are opened by the invisible entities that
>>> haunt
>>>> us and populate our interactions becomes a matter of interpretation
>> which
>>>> may lead to genuine understanding.
>>>> 
>>>> Larry
>>>> On Sat, Jun 2, 2012 at 10:56 PM, Greg Thompson <
>>> greg.a.thompson@gmail.com
>>>>> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> don't know about ventriloquation/dual stimulation (sounds promising).
>>>>> Rather I'm seeing connections to a processual/relational ontology in
>>>> which
>>>>> the medium (communication) constitutes the so-called "things" of the
>>>> world.
>>>>> (cf. Korzybski, Abbott, and Packer), with an answer to "how so" that
>>>>> considers micro-interaction. Very appealing (to me).
>>>>> -greg
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> On Sat, Jun 2, 2012 at 9:35 PM, mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>>> I wonder if ventriloquation is related in any way to the notion of
>>> dual
>>>>>> stimulation?
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> mike
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> On Sat, Jun 2, 2012 at 9:19 PM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Greg, here is a further description of the book. It seems to be
>> the
>>>>> book
>>>>>>> is putting into question a similar theme to Gadamer who suggests
>>>>>> effective
>>>>>>> history has its own agency [living text] and the *fusion* of
>>>>>> understandings
>>>>>>> modify [expand] BOTH horizons.  The text has its own agency.
>>>>>>> Not sure if Gadamer is included in this book but the theme seems
>>>>>>> fascinating [and a way to understand organizations]
>>>>>>> The cost of the book is prohibitive but the theme is fascinating.
>>>>>>> Larry
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> FROM THE PUBLISHER
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> What happens when people communicate or dialogue with each other?
>>>> This
>>>>> is
>>>>>>> the daunting question that this book proposes to address by
>>> starting
>>>>>> from a
>>>>>>> controversial hypothesis: What if human interactants were not the
>>>> only
>>>>>> ones
>>>>>>> to be considered, paraphrasing Austin (1962), as 'doing things
>> with
>>>>>> words'?
>>>>>>> That is, what if other 'things' could also be granted the status
>> of
>>>>>> agents
>>>>>>> in a dialogical situation? "Action and Agency in Dialogue:
>> Passion,
>>>>>>> Incarnation, and Ventriloquism" proposes to explore this unique
>>>>>> hypothesis
>>>>>>> by mobilizing metaphorically the notion of ventriloquism.
>> According
>>>> to
>>>>>> this
>>>>>>> ventriloqual perspective, interactions are never purely local,
>> but
>>>>>>> dislocal, that is, they constantly mobilize figures (collectives,
>>>>>>> principles, values, emotions, etc.) that incarnate themselves in
>>>>> people's
>>>>>>> discussions. This highly original book, which develops the
>>>> analytical,
>>>>>>> practical and ethical dimensions of such a theoretical
>> positioning,
>>>> may
>>>>>> be
>>>>>>> of interest to communication scholars, linguists, sociologists,
>>>>>>> conversation analysts, management and organizational scholars, as
>>>> well
>>>>> as
>>>>>>> philosophers interested in language, action and ethics.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> On Sat, Jun 2, 2012 at 8:59 PM, Greg Thompson <
>>>>> greg.a.thompson@gmail.com
>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Anyone out there know much about Francois Cooren or the
>> Montreal
>>>>> School
>>>>>>> of
>>>>>>>> Organizational Communication?
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> As for the former, Cooren's book Action and Agency in Dialogue
>>>> asks:
>>>>>>>> "What if human interactants were not the only ones to be
>>>> considered,
>>>>>>>> paraphrasing Austin (1962), as “doing things with words”? That
>>> is,
>>>>> what
>>>>>>> if
>>>>>>>> other “things” could also be granted the status of agents in a
>>>>>> dialogical
>>>>>>>> situation?"
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> As for the latter, the MSOC is characterized by wikipedia as:
>>>>>>>> "taking communication as the "site and surface" of
>> organizations,
>>>>>> meaning
>>>>>>>> that the latter emerge from and are maintained by communication
>>>>>>> processes."
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Both of these seem to be very important points that, I thought,
>>>>>>> articulate
>>>>>>>> well with recent XMCA conversations.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Anyone have any insight?
>>>>>>>> Perhaps a recommendation?
>>>>>>>> -greg
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
>>>>>>>> Sanford I. Berman Post-Doctoral Scholar
>>>>>>>> Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition
>>>>>>>> Department of Communication
>>>>>>>> University of California, San Diego
>>>>>>>> http://ucsd.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
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>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> --
>>>>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
>>>>> Sanford I. Berman Post-Doctoral Scholar
>>>>> Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition
>>>>> Department of Communication
>>>>> University of California, San Diego
>>>>> http://ucsd.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
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>> 
>> 
>> 
>> --
>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
>> Sanford I. Berman Post-Doctoral Scholar
>> Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition
>> Department of Communication
>> University of California, San Diego
>> http://ucsd.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
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