Re: [xmca] Re: fiction as simulation

[mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>]

Buy all means, go back re-read your prior writings, Jay, for identity
examination!!  :-))

With grand kids and kids coming in this pm, I'll see what they have to say
on the topic. Ageliki's ideas about the developmental change.

On Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 12:27 PM, Jay Lemke <jaylemke@umich.edu> wrote:

> I would agree with Ageliki's conjectures about some of the functions of
> repetition, esp. the sense of control/predictability for the very young, and
> identity reinforcement for those a bit older, even up to adults.
>
> I did write something some years back about the issue of timescales in
> meaning-making, and I was looking for kinds of meaning-making social
> practices that extend over VERY LONG timescales. One of those is the
> re-reading of favorite works, and the re-viewing of films and TV episodes,
> over periods of years, even decades and a whole lifetime. Identity
> maintenance through extended identifications and re-identifications with
> characters and fictional worlds is one part of this. Another of course is
> deepening and changing of meanings-made as we re-visit, now with the
> experience of new intertexts, new age-grade concerns, etc. And as usual, the
> functions from earlier times of our lives continue, while others are added
> on.
>
> Another dimension may be that of remembering our previous encounters with a
> work while we are re-visiting it. How I felt about it before, what it meant
> to me before, and how that is both renewed and now changed in the current
> encounter.
>
> I should re-visit my own writing on this topic and see what I am not
> remembering!
>
> As to the wider social functions of narrative fictions, a very important
> one is building up convincing evaluations, and with them, principles for
> making evaluations. This is the "moral" dimension of literature that has
> pre-occupied literary critics for a very long time, but it is also an
> important sociological and ideological dimension. Bakhtin's analysis here
> emphasizes that some literary narratives embody multiple and alternative
> systems of parsing and evaluating the social world (heteroglossia), and
> combined with later work on narrator viewpoints, there is a quite complex
> world of possible evaluations offered in some works. Compared to those,
> people also appreciate morally unambiguous fictional worlds, where we can
> feel some sense of relief from the moral dilemmas of real life. Not to
> mention the pleasures of seeing the "good guys" win, at least in fiction.
>
> JAY.
>
> Jay Lemke
> Professor (Adjunct, 2009-2010)
> Educational Studies
> University of Michigan
> Ann Arbor, MI 48109
> www.umich.edu/~jaylemke <http://www.umich.edu/%7Ejaylemke>
>
> Visiting Scholar
> Laboratory for Comparative Human Communication
> University of California -- San Diego
> La Jolla, CA
> USA 92093
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Dec 21, 2009, at 9:38 AM, Ageliki Nicolopoulou wrote:
>
>  The one person that I know who has written about repetitions of listening,
>> but also telling, the "same" story is Peggy Miller and her students
>> "Versions of storytelling/versions of experience: Genre for tools for
>> creating alternative realities" in an edited volume by Rosengren, Johnson, &
>> Harris (2000) "Imagining the impossible."  Their emphasis in this piece is
>> the type of increasing (and deepening) understanding that this child who for
>> sometime was repeating the story of Peter Rabbit was gaining and especially
>> his increasing identification with Peter Rabbit.
>>
>> While I don't dispute the phenomenon that Peggy Miller et al. capture
>> here, I also think that storytelling (or story listening) repetitions may
>> have multiple functions/meanings.  For example, in children's spontaneous
>> stories that I have gathered in preschool classrooms using Paley's
>> storytelling/story-acting activity, children's repetitions of the same
>> storyline (something that some children love to do!) at times seems to have
>> to do with what I call, narrative concerns (getting the story right: that
>> is, a coherent or logical story as the child perceives it), but other
>> repetitions may indicate more clearly socio-relational concerns (getting the
>> same effect from other children and maybe adults) and so on.
>>
>> I also think that repetitions of the sort Mike is talking about--children
>> asking for the same story to be read over and over again as well as teens or
>> adults reading the same book over and over again--may serve different
>> functions. I believe the young children love such repetitions because it
>> mainly allows them to control the world around them. They can predict what
>> comes next and for a limited amount of time, they have full control of their
>> (often chaotic and unpredictable) world. That's why they are very upset if
>> one changes even one word in these repetitions.  However, adolescents (and
>> maybe adults) may like such repetitions because of the experiences and
>> feelings that the fictional world creates (and they can bask in it) and also
>> through repetitions they learn to discover new things...Maybe adolescents
>> love such repetitions because it helps them see the identity they want/like
>> to create.  At least these are my conjectures about these phenomena.
>>
>> In short, I think these are very interesting phenomena that have occupied
>> my attention for awhile now, but they need to be captured well and in a
>> natural sort of way... Any thoughts of how to capture these phenomena would
>> be appreciated.
>>
>> Ageliki
>> --
>> **********************************************
>> Ageliki Nicolopoulou
>> Professor, Department of Psychology
>> Lehigh University
>> 17 Memorial Drive East
>> Bethlehem, PA  18015-3068
>>
>> Personal Webpage:        http://www.lehigh.edu/~agn3/index.htm<http://www.lehigh.edu/%7Eagn3/index.htm>
>> Departmental Webpage:  http://www.lehigh.edu/~inpsy/nicolopoulou.html<http://www.lehigh.edu/%7Einpsy/nicolopoulou.html>
>>
>> *********************************************
>>
>>
>> mike cole wrote:
>>
>>> Yes it applies to little kids!
>>> I LOVE the Stevenson quote in response to H. James (who seems to have
>>> gotten wrapped up in an odd place in the quote).
>>>
>>> Sheila and i were discussing last night the phenomenon of little kids
>>> like to hear the same story read over and over and over and over again and
>>> young teens reading, for example, Lord of the Rings several times.
>>>
>>> And adults going to Operas or listening to music they particularly love
>>> repeatedly.
>>>
>>> There is an age-related component to these phenomena -- parents go nuts
>>> on the 300th reading of /Where the Wild Things Are/ or
>>> /Goodnight Moon/, little kids cannot stand, as a rule, listening to the
>>> Goldberg variations, etc.
>>>
>>> Has anyone written about this phenomeon and what means?
>>>
>>> Thanks for the /Educated Mind/ tip, David C. Sound relevant to ongoing
>>> discussion re goals of education that might guide reform
>>> efforts.
>>>
>>> mike
>>>
>>> On Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 8:08 AM, Ageliki Nicolopoulou <agn3@lehigh.edu
>>>  <mailto:agn3@lehigh.edu>> wrote:
>>>
>>>   Thanks, Mike, for this very useful article. This relates a lot to
>>>   what I have been trying to do these past few years and it pulls
>>>   the adult literature well together.  My work has centered more on
>>>   preschoolers spontaneous (fantasy) stories and I have tried to
>>>   find ways to analyze them, which goes beyond just using structural
>>>   criteria but also incorporates content in a serious way (that is,
>>>   it incorporates content and structure).  I have also argued (as do
>>>   Mar & Oatley, but for adults) for the significant of character in
>>>   children's narratives (whether for learning to comprehend or tell
>>>   stories) and I'm continuing to think about these issues. More
>>>   recently, I have devoted my attention/effort in creating an
>>>   intervention programs using commercially available children's
>>>   books to promote narrative comprehension as well as social
>>>   understanding, especially for low-income children.  As I'm in the
>>>   midst of writing about these issues, this article is very useful.
>>>
>>>   Thanks again,
>>>   Ageliki
>>>
>>>   --     **********************************************
>>>   Ageliki Nicolopoulou
>>>   Professor, Department of Psychology
>>>   Lehigh University
>>>   17 Memorial Drive East
>>>   Bethlehem, PA  18015-3068
>>>
>>>   Personal Webpage:      http://www.lehigh.edu/~agn3/index.htm<http://www.lehigh.edu/%7Eagn3/index.htm>
>>>   <http://www.lehigh.edu/%7Eagn3/index.htm>
>>>   Departmental Webpage:
>>>    http://www.lehigh.edu/~inpsy/nicolopoulou.html<http://www.lehigh.edu/%7Einpsy/nicolopoulou.html>
>>>   <http://www.lehigh.edu/%7Einpsy/nicolopoulou.html>
>>>   **********************************************
>>>
>>>
>>>   mike cole wrote:
>>>
>>>       Of course, i *would *forget to attach the article. Here it is.
>>>       mike
>>>
>>>       On Sun, Dec 20, 2009 at 4:56 PM, mike cole<lchcmike@gmail.com
>>>       <mailto:lchcmike@gmail.com>>  wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>           Sorting through all the unread journals and seeking to
>>>           bring order to the
>>>           helterskelter
>>>           of my intellectual meanderings, i came across this article
>>>           that I think
>>>           should hold some
>>>           interest for xmca-o-philes.
>>>
>>>           As some of you know, I have an abiding interest in the
>>>           idea of tertiary
>>>           artifacts, works of
>>>           art, for Wartofsky (so I learned from Yrjo), play,
>>>           "alternative worlds"
>>>           like the 5th Dimension
>>>           that Peg Griffin invented and I have played in for a long
>>>           time. But I also
>>>           teach and think (think and
>>>           teach?) about various communication media including novels
>>>           and sitcoms.
>>>           This article caught
>>>           my attention in that odd nexus of interests: fiction as
>>>           "simulations," or,
>>>           we might say, tertiary artifacts, or we might say, "tools
>>>           to think with."
>>>
>>>           Delete or read along, as the mood catches you.
>>>           mike
>>>
>>>
>>>           _______________________________________________
>>>           xmca mailing list
>>>           xmca@weber.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
>>>           http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> --
>>
>> **********************************************
>>
>> Ageliki Nicolopoulou
>>
>> Professor
>>
>> Department of Psychology, Lehigh University
>>
>> 17 Memorial Drive East
>>
>> Bethlehem, PA  18015-3068
>>
>>
>> Personal Webpage:        http://www.lehigh.edu/~agn3/index.htm<http://www.lehigh.edu/%7Eagn3/index.htm>
>>
>> Departmental Webpage:  http://www.lehigh.edu/~inpsy/nicolopoulou.html<http://www.lehigh.edu/%7Einpsy/nicolopoulou.html>
>>
>> **********************************************
>>
>>
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>
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