RE: Mind in Action 1 (fwd)

James Wertsch (jwertsch who-is-at artsci.wustl.edu)
Tue, 8 Sep 1998 13:54:54 -0500 (CDT)

The question about Burke is perfectly reasonable. His presence is
actually behind a lot more than I had realized when I started out. I
personally began reading him as part of my teaching in the Communication
Department at UCSD, and this reading became more serious during my years
at Clark University, where I had a series of discussions/running arguments
with Bernie Kaplan about the centrality of Burke.

People like Bruner and Geertz have been influenced by Burke, so I am
hardly alone on this one. The way Burke's influence tends to show up,
however, is in the underlying methods people use. This is nicely argued
by the UCSD sociologist Joseph Gusfield in his wonderful edited volume of
Burke's writings (University of Chicago Press, 1988).

Jim

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1998 07:40:51 -0700 (PDT)
From: Mike Cole <mcole who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu>
To: schmolze who-is-at students.wisc.edu
Subject: RE: Mind in Action 1

Hi Nate, Rachel, and all the eager Wertsch readers.

I was pretty sure that we had folks on xmca who asked if we could
slow down a little to allow people to get the book. The feeling that
this is important was reinforced by Rachel's note which includes questions
like "who is this Burke fellow?" A reasonable question, but one that
is answered in the chapter.What concerns me is that if Nate were to
answer carefully each of Rachel's questions, and if others were to chip
in in our normally heterochronous way, the volume of traffice would be
enormous and those who are NOT reading the book would be blown away.

Jim will be joining the discussion. I have sent him the first two notes.
mike