Re: [xmca] interweaving and intersubjectivity

From: Jay Lemke (jaylemke@umich.edu)
Date: Mon Oct 23 2006 - 13:27:45 PDT


Sounds very interesting, Michael. I quite agree about the connection
between a heterogeneous view and getting at issues of change.
Homogeneous views of culture go hand in hand with static and
reproductionist models of society.

Taking this to the level of the individual, or the pre-individual in
the dyad is a good move. Too often social theory assumes the
individual as a biological pre-given, and tries to build "the social"
on that ground. But the individual is already a social accomplishment
and a "cultural" conception/ideal/goal. So what then do we make be
the ground of the differentiation of, call it proto-community
(communitas?), into distinct individuals? In Textual Politics (esp.
chapter 5) I propose that we start with networks (in those days I
called them systems) of practices, whose actants are not necessarily
"whole individuals" but just, say, movements, gestures, voicings ...
and in the case of infants, about which I know very little,
reachings, cryings, touchings, etc.?

JAY.

At 12:10 PM 10/23/2006, you wrote:
>Hi, all,
>
>>The idea of culture is a shorthand for some very real and important
>>phenomena. But its best, I think, not to appeal to it until AFTER
>>we have figured out what is really going on. Long explanations are
>>better than short ones.
>>
>>JAY.
>
>and this is why in my piece that I referred to yesterday, I present
>an approach in which culture is viewed as heterogeneous, and even the
>individual as heterogeneous, not identical with itself. Therefore
>also, the idea of third space needs to be revisited, when it means
>that it constitutes the place where two pure cultures get mixed. The
>advantage of such an approach is that we can understand why
>culture-- as multiplicity--is generative, ever changing (evolving?), but also
>presupposing and making possible the very invention that we were
>oblivious to just a few moments ago, also making it possible that we
>understand the most innovative poetry, the new languages Rorty takes
>about, and so forth.
>
>Michael
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Jay Lemke
Professor
University of Michigan
School of Education
610 East University
Ann Arbor, MI 48109

Tel. 734-763-9276
Email. JayLemke@UMich.edu
Website. <http://www.umich.edu/~jaylemke%A0>www.umich.edu/~jaylemke
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