Re: Wetsch: Mind as Action

Jay Lemke (jllbc who-is-at cunyvm.cuny.edu)
Thu, 06 Aug 1998 21:40:02 -0400

At 03:11 PM 8/5/98 -0500, you wrote:
>At 12:51 AM 8/5/98 -0400,
>John St. Julien wrote:
>
>But before starting, mebbe: Anybody wanna get the ball rolling
>with a synopsis of the relevant ideas of the least well-known (today, I
>think, anyway; and also least widely--again, now--read, too?) member of the
>triad--a really interesting troika, nyet?--Kenneth Burke? Vygotsky and
>Bakhtin are the others? Wertsch uses (parts of) Burke's communicative
>pentad as an heuristical device for understanding--may we say "unpacking"
>still?--intermediations of mind and action in culture.
>
>Do others have a Burkean background, who can evaluate how (well?) Wertsch
>appropriates Burke?

Not sure if he is currently on XMCA, but Glenn Stillar (Waterloo U, Canada)
has been writing on Burke lately and comparing his views with Bakhtin and
modern discourse and rhetoricl theorists. From his inspiration, I've just
bought _The Rhetoric of Religion_, a very unusual book that in some ways
completes his trilogy by presenting the "logology" of motives; many
convergences with LSV and others. I am far from qualified, or ready, to say
much more, but perhaps Glenn will join in. In any event I have been
convinced by his recent work that Burke definitely belongs in our toolkit,
if not in our "pantheon" ...

JAY.

---------------------------
JAY L. LEMKE
PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION
CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
<http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/education/jlemke/index.htm>
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