Re: [xmca] Vygotsky on Identity? - LSV never wrote on Identity :)

While I don't know enough about the LSV tradition to add anything in that
regard, this question has brought to my mind some thoughts that may be
relevant.

It seems to me that individual identity is a peculiarly Western concern.
When I went to Taibei in 1973 to teach English as a foreign language, I
surveyed a lot of short stories and plays that could be used with people
who had been studying English from textbooks for many years. One text I
chose was Miller's DEATH OF A SALESMAN. This was partly because the
language was authentically colloquial without a lot of
time-and-place-specific slang, jargon, or dialect (which is perhaps
surprisingly hard to find), but also because I thought the themes would
dramatize a preoccupation of young Americans with working out their
personal identities, a preoccupation that I thought would be uncommon in
important respects for Taiwanese and Taiwan Chinese of the same age. This
was generally born out by my experience in teaching the text there. (I
felt my choice was vindicated in some way when Miller's play was chosen a
few years later for the first to be performed across the mainland in one
of the first US-PRC cultural exchanges.)

When I think of literature by my own favorite 20th Century Chinese
writers, such as Lu Xun and Ba Jin, I don't recall the same kind of
thematizing personal identity struggles and crises that are common in US
literature. This is changing now with radical cultural discontinuities in
China today.

I think Erik Erikson (he of the "Identity Crisis") saw Martin Luther as
important in this regard. How, by comparison, does the individual figure
within Russion Orthodoxy?

We can think of the Bildungsroman genre in Europe. Does some of
Dostoievski's work belong squarely in that genre? or is D more "in
dialogue" with that genre? And is D representative of Russian culture, in
that respect?

These are questions that are beyond what I'm qualified to discuss; but
others might find them relevant. Bakhtin would seem to provide a helpful
perspective on this.

On Thu, 22 Nov 2007, Mike Cole wrote:

> Eric-- This is not a case where premature demise is particularly relevant.
> Anton and Andy seem
> to point to more fruitful lines of research in my view. I find the idea of a
> "unified superego" pretty
> scary, ditto cult of personality to which I think it is related. But it is
> an interesting idea.
>
> Jaan was an Estonian, not a Russian, which may also be relevant here.
>
> In recent years there has been a lot of attention in Russian psychology to
> "the subject" or subjectivity.
> Perhaps that would be a fruitful line of investigation.
> mike
>
>
>
>
>
> On Nov 22, 2007 9:01 AM, <ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>>
>> Andy:
>>
>> I would point out that Vygotsky sadly died before his vision came to
>> fruition and Leontiev and Luria forwarded his work but not necessarily how
>> Vygotsky would have invisioned. Valsiner writes a great deal on identity
>> formation. For that same reason when I read articles in the CHAT
>> tradition
>> he is rarely cited. He doesn't fit the collective shall we say.
>>
>> I too am greatly interested in reading what the current Russian scholars
>> have to say.
>>
>> eric
>>
>> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
>> cc:
>> bcc:
>> Subject: Re: [xmca] Vygotsky on Identity? - LSV never wrote on
>> Identity :)
>> Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
>> Sent by: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
>> 11/22/2007 09:16 PM ZE11
>> Please respond to "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <font
>> size=-1></font>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> From my very superficial search it does seem that we have work by
>> "westerners" using basic ideas of cultural-historical activity theory to
>> develop a theory of identity construction, and to my eyes this work seems
>> to be quite valid so far I can see, but it does seem that Anton is right.
>> Could I proffer a suggestion that is somewhat in line with Bella's
>> suggestion: in the conditions of late 1920s/early 1930s Soviet Union where
>> Vygotsky worked, and Vygotsky's social position dedicated to his role in
>> the preparation of the conditions for the construction of the socialist
>> future and the new type of human being, there was really no difference
>> between growing up to become a citizen of the Soviet Union of good
>> character and personality and what we in the late-capitalist world call
>> identity? It is the absence of a unitary super-ego and the multiplicity of
>> available visions of the good, and conflicting claims upon our loyalty
>> which makes the problem of identity-construction such a central problem
>> for
>> our psychology. There just was no such problem for Vygotsky. The work that
>> Eric pointed to about "Defectology" certain gave some hints in the
>> direction of a theory of identity and shows Vygotsky's interest in efforts
>> to appropriate Adler's individual psychology, but I think I can only see
>> hints here, not an actual concept of identity as such.
>>
>> Does that make sense. Can our Russian comrades tell me that I am quite
>> mistaken?
>>
>> Andy
>> At 10:47 AM 21/11/2007 +0200, you wrote:
>>> You are right, Anton- there is no exact word in Russian, but there are
>>> related terms and themas. When he speaks about the role of
>>> national/international culture in upbringing and education is it related
>> to
>>> identity formation?
>>> Bella Kotik-Friedgut
>>>
>>>
>>> On 11/21/07, Anton Yasnitsky <the_yasya@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I would argue Vygotsky never wrote on Identity :) --
>>>>
>>>> unless anybody points out what Identity might stand for in Vygotsky's
>> -
>>>> preferably original - texts.
>>>>
>>>> AY.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --- Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Can anyone point me to where I should look in Vygotsky for his ideas
>> on
>>>>> Identity and Identity formation?
>>>>> I have the LSV Collected Works.
>>>>>
>>>>> Andy
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> xmca mailing list
>>>>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>>>>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Sincerely yours Bella Kotik-Friedgut
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>> Andy Blunden : http://home.mira.net/~andy/ <http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy/>tel (H) +61 3 9380 9435,
>> mobile 0409 358 651
>>
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Tony Whitson
UD School of Education
NEWARK DE 19716

twhitson@udel.edu
_______________________________

"those who fail to reread
  are obliged to read the same story everywhere"
                   -- Roland Barthes, S/Z (1970)
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Received on Thu Nov 22 10:11 PST 2007