Re: [xmca] Chukovsky-Vygotsky

From: zdravo (zdravo@EUnet.yu)
Date: Mon Nov 13 2006 - 11:18:56 PST


Dear Leif,
I highly appreciate your contribution, I agree with Ana and I think that
totality of conversation including your response means a lot to all of us.
Vesna

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ana Marjanovic-Shane" <ana@zmajcenter.org>
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Sent: Monday, November 13, 2006 7:47 PM
Subject: Re: [xmca] Chukovsky-Vygotsky

> Dear Leif,
> Thank you for sending Gunilla and her friends and family news about her
> popularity. It is so sad that she cannot participate. But I think that
> such news will still maybe mean a lot to her.
> Ana
>
> Leif Strandberg wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I love the ongoing conversation about about imagination, creativity
> > and play. And, it's lovely to see all the references to Gunilla
> > Lindqvist's important work on this subject. I wish Gunilla could
> > follow the discussion but I am sorry to say: She can't. She nowadays
> > lives in a care center for people with dementia. She is well but can't
> > participate in this kind of intellectual work. I will though send my
> > greetings to her close friends in Karlstad where Gunilla lives, and
> > tell them that Gunilla's work is more than alive. It is great!
> >
> > Thanks.
> >
> > Leif
> >
> > Sweden
> > 2006-11-13 kl. 18.23 skrev Beth Ferholt:
> >
> >> Gunilla Lindqvist argues that although Vygotsky stated he was against
> >> nonsense stories for children, such as "Crocodile", in Educational
> >> Psychology (1926), he left this position. In Psychology of Art
> >> (1925) he was already writing about the connections between nursery
> >> rhymes and children's play, writing that by taking a child into a
> >> nonsense world we can see the child's intellectual work and
> >> perception of reality. Then, in Imagination and Creativity in
> >> Childhood (1930), Vygotsky links reality and imagination through a
> >> discussion of creativity.
> >> I will find this in Lindqvist's work and see if she has more to say
> >> on this that is of interest.
> >> Beth
> >>
> >> On Nov 12, 2006, at 9:34 AM, Ana Marjanovic-Shane wrote:
> >>
> >>> This is all very new to me, although I have read Chukovsky's "From 2
> >>> to 5" and also used some of his examples. It is very intriguing and
> >>> I am paying close attention to more information.
> >>> Ana
> >>>
> >>> Mike Cole wrote:
> >>>> I will be following up on all this, David.
> >>>> I view Chukovsky (as well as LSV!) a very complicated figure. I
> >>>> have taught
> >>>> "From 2-5" in dialogue with "1984", which, given what you say about
> >>>> Chukovski's antisemitism and
> >>>> stalinism is just a little ironic. I have ordered his book on
> >>>> translation
> >>>> from the library. I will be interested in what others think about the
> >>>> substance of the two men's ideas in the 1920's
> >>>> and early 1930's. LSV changed a good deal between pedagogical
> >>>> psychology and
> >>>> thinking and speech and in his thinking about imagination (the
> >>>> Lindqvist
> >>>> piece points to this). And
> >>>> I hear somewhere the Chukovsky as an expert on aespopian language,
but
> >>>> cannot find any refs.
> >>>>
> >>>> Perhaps Natalia Gajdamashko can help here? She is very busy but
> >>>> perhaps has
> >>>> some relevant historical knowledge.
> >>>> mike
> >>>>
> >>>> On 11/11/06, Kellogg <kellogg@snue.ac.kr> wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Dear Mike:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> The hostility between Vygotsky and Chukovsky is, I think, quite a
> >>>>> story,
> >>>>> and it's almost completely untold. Yes, there is some stuff
> >>>>> available on the
> >>>>> web, but my feeling is that there's a lot more to it. Here's my
> >>>>> contribution, for what it's worth
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Well, to begin there's the famous footnote to Esthetic Education,
> >>>>> on p.
> >>>>> 270 of Educational Pedagogy, to wit:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> "So fashionable and, now, so popular a work as Chukovskii's
> >>>>> Crocodile,
> >>>>> like all
> >>>>> of Chukovskii's stories for children, is one of the better
> >>>>> examples of
> >>>>> this perversion of children's poetry with nonsense and gibberish.
> >>>>> Chukovskii
> >>>>> seems to
> >>>>> proceed from the assumption that the sillier something is, the more
> >>>>> understandable and the more entertaining it is for the child, and
> >>>>> the more
> >>>>> likely that it will be within the child's grasp. It is not hard to
> >>>>> instil
> >>>>> the taste for such dull literature in children, though there can
> >>>>> be little
> >>>>> doubt
> >>>>> that it has a negative impact on the educational process,
> >>>>> particularly in
> >>>>> those immoderately large doses to which children are now
> >>>>> subjected. All
> >>>>> thought of style is thrown out, and in his babbling verse
> >>>>> Chukovskii piles
> >>>>> up nonsense on top of gibberish. Such literature only fosters
> >>>>> silliness and
> >>>>> foolishness in children."
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I've always felt that was a little harsh, since I have liked what
> >>>>> little
> >>>>> I've read of Chukovsky (remember, I have no Russian). But when I
read
> >>>>> Chukovsky's book, "From Two to Five" I realized that the feeling
was
> >>>>> mutual.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> See Chukovsky's comments about the Kharkov school (Vygotsky and his
> >>>>> students) in the year 1929 (p. 188 of From Two to Five), Chukovsky's
> >>>>> disparaging reference (p. 127) to pedagogues from Gomel (Vygotsky's
> >>>>> hometown) and Chukovsky's attacks on "leftism" (p. 130 passim).
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Part of this antipathy is probably Chukovsky's not very well
> >>>>> concealed
> >>>>> anti-semitism. Yale University Press recently published his diary,
> >>>>> and there
> >>>>> are coy hints of anti-semitism throughout.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On 215, for example, we read that he goes to visit Krupskaya about
> >>>>> the
> >>>>> "pedagogue's" criticisms of "Crocodile" and succeeds in thoroughly
> >>>>> offending
> >>>>> her. He is consoled by Demyan Bedny, with the following words,
> >>>>> which he
> >>>>> quotes approvingly: "Have you noticed that the opposition is 1)
> >>>>> all Jews and
> >>>>> 2) emgres? Kamenev, Zinovyev, Trotsky. Trotsky will announce any
> >>>>> day now,
> >>>>> 'I'm going abroad', but we Russians have nowhere to go. this is
> >>>>> our country,
> >>>>> our spiritual property". (Both Demyan Bedny and Chukovsky were
> >>>>> slated by
> >>>>> Trotsky in "Literature and Revolution".)
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On p. 281 of the diary, Chukovsky says his hatred for Trotsky is "an
> >>>>> aesthetic viewpoint: his hair, his weak chin, his cheap provincial
> >>>>> demonism--he's a combination Mephistopheles and court clerk."
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Interestingly, on p. 161 of the diary, Chukovsky worriesthat he
> >>>>> might turn
> >>>>> out to be Jewish himself--his mother is of good Ukrainian peasant
> >>>>> stock, but
> >>>>> he is illegitimate and doesn't know who is father was. He needen't
> >>>>> have been
> >>>>> concerned, of course; you need a Jewish mother to be a real Jew.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Howevery, I think there is more to the Chukovsky-Vygotsky
> >>>>> antipathy than
> >>>>> racial hatred and Chukovsky's finely tuned instincts as a future
> >>>>> Stalinist
> >>>>> hack. Chukovsky believes that semantic meaning is learned partly
> >>>>> by flouting
> >>>>> it; no sooner does the child learn the meaning of a horse than the
> >>>>> child is
> >>>>> flouting it by talking of saddled flies and flying horses.
> >>>>> Vygotsky shares
> >>>>> this view, but for rather older children; he believes that
> >>>>> imagination is
> >>>>> something that comes to the child from the outside, through social
> >>>>> practices
> >>>>> such as imaginary play.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I think I want to take up your suggestion to continue the dialogue
on
> >>>>> forgiveness in a separate thread, possibly even under a new
> >>>>> subject line,
> >>>>> because it occurs to me this morning that it might indeed be
> >>>>> possible to
> >>>>> have recontextualization without decontextualization, and that to
> >>>>> a certain
> >>>>> extent that is exactly what is involved in metaphor.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> David Kellogg
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Seoul National University of Education
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> PS:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Some refs:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Chukovsky, K. (2005) Diary 1901-1969. New Haven and London: Yale
> >>>>> University Press.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Chukovsky, K. (1928, 1963) From Two to Five. University of
California
> >>>>> Press: Berkeley.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Vygotsky, L.S. (1997) Educational Pedagogy. Boca Raton: St. Lucie.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> dk
> >>>>>
> >>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>> xmca mailing list
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> >>>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>> --
>
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>>
> >>> Ana Marjanovic'-Shane,Ph.D.
> >>>
> >>> 151 W. Tulpehocken St.
> >>>
> >>> Philadelphia, PA 19144
> >>>
> >>> Home office: (215) 843-2909
> >>>
> >>> Mobile: (267) 334-2905
> >>>
> >>> ana@zmajcenter.org <mailto:ana@zmajcenter.org>
> >>>
> >>> http://www.speakeasy.org/~anamshane
> >>> <http://www.speakeasy.org/%7Eanamshane>
> >>>
> >>>
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> --
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Ana Marjanovic'-Shane,Ph.D.
>
> 151 W. Tulpehocken St.
>
> Philadelphia, PA 19144
>
> Home office: (215) 843-2909
>
> Mobile: (267) 334-2905
>
> ana@zmajcenter.org <mailto:ana@zmajcenter.org>
>
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<http://www.speakeasy.org/%7Eanamshane>
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