RE: [xmca] Re: Video-blogging "Psychology of Art"

["Paula M Towsey" <paulat@johnwtowsey.co.za>]

Dear David and Andy

 

I'm up to my eyeballs in crocodiles between Africa and Leiden, but would be
happy to help.  Give me a yell off-line to discuss wand-like requirements.
=:-o

 

Best

Paula

 

From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On
Behalf Of Andy Blunden
Sent: 19 September 2010 06:24
To: David Kellogg
Cc: Paula M Towsey; Culture ActivityeXtended Mind
Subject: [xmca] Re: Video-blogging "Psychology of Art"

 

Beautiful set of paintings, David. If Paula takes up your offer of producing
this I will happily step aside. Like everyone on this list I have a number
of engrossing projects on the go, so I would limit myself to this offer:
when your article is complete, I will read it, and then, after a rehearsal
call, I will record a Skype interview with you, limited to 35-40 minutes,
and use your lovely illustrations to enhance a movie of that interview. I
will ensure the movie is limited to 35 minutes though. Peter gave me a
13,800 word article to read for the 31 minutes we actually produced, and
that seemed fine to me. Otherwise, perhaps we need an xmca blog?
Andy
David Kellogg wrote: 


I have a grad student I will call Mr. Yu, who has an unendearing propensity
to borrow my most beloved books for long periods of time. On the evidence of
his essays, they do not always get read either; like many of us (like me!),
he seems to assume that information stored extramentally in an artefact is
as good as intermentally interiorized.

 

Two weeks ago he borrowed my precious copy of Halliday and Matthiessen's
third edition of the Introduction to Functional Grammar, so I did not expect
it back for a very long time. But on Thursday we were having a rather
fraught discussion on how to differentiate between the Finite element and
the Predicator in "likes" ("s" represents the finite, and the rest is the
predicator, which you can see very clearly by asking "Mowgli likes bananas,
doesn't he?").

 

In the middle of the discussion he turned to a classmate and explained it
absolutely perfectly, using examples from KOREAN. My jaw dropped, and not
just in astonishment (I know Mr. Yu well enough to know that he has kept his
candlepower firmly under a bushel for a very long time). In Korean the
Finite, which also realizes an interpersonal function, is where verbs
inflect for honorification, and I had never really thought of it that way
before. But by the light of Mr. Yu's explanation I could see instantly that
he was right.

 

At the end of the class he returned my precious copy of Halliday's grammar
rather the worse for wear. I admit that I winced for a moment; I almost felt
as if I was being asked to choose between my beloved Halliday and my beloved
grad student. But THAT was a choice easily made. "Mr Yu," I said, through my
best autumn harvest smile, "the worst mistreatment one can give a good book
is to preserve it from being read."

 

I guess I assume that the worst thing you can do to a video-blog is to leave
it unwatched, and that the best way to express my interest in and
appreciation for Professor Smagorinsky's work is to engage it critically.
That is why I commented on it. Perhaps the word "complain" was a little too
colored, although if you read what I wrote you will see I was agreeing with
the complaint. 

 

Anyway, Andy has now kindly invited me to join the video discussion. I don't
have a webcam, though, and upon rereading the book I found that I had a lot
more to say about it than I could easily put in an interview. More, I think
that I would rather show paintings (including some of my own) to illustrate
than just a talking head. Perhaps Paula might be interested in doing
something on this, with her magic graphics wand?

 

So over the weekend I put the attached together. I realize that the length
(fourteen pages!) is rather daunting, and also that I've really only touched
the very first chapter (which I'm afraid disqualifies my effort as a kind of
layman's intro to the subject that Andy really wants and needs here). But if
nothing else maybe the lamentable state in which I am returning Professor
Smagorinsky's readings will express some of the respect and admiration I
have for his work.

 

David Kellogg

Seoul National University of Education


--- On Fri, 9/17/10, Andy Blunden  <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>
<ablunden@mira.net> wrote:


From: Andy Blunden  <mailto:ablunden@mira.net> <ablunden@mira.net>
Subject: Re: [xmca] A matter of priorities in different models
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity"  <mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
<xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date: Friday, September 17, 2010, 5:30 AM

At any time of day, I think it takes a certain amount of courage to put an
unrehearsed talk on a difficult topic into the public domain. The talk was
for educational purposes - the kind of thing which normally never leaves the
lecture theatre - and needs to be viewed by aficienados with the generosity
it deserves. I am sure many, many students of Vygotsky will enjoy the good
humour and insight with which you contributed your observations, Peter.
Hopefully others will be prepared to take the same risk.

Andy

smago wrote:
> Just a brief note on the vimeo I did with Andy: Because of time
differences between Australia and EST USA, we scheduled it for 6 AM my time,
which is several hours before I customarily have any human contact. I surely
didn't mean to "complain a lot about how the essay never really gets over
James and Lange," since complaining about anything is not my purpose in
thinking about Vygotsky. The essay on which the interview is based will
appear in MCA at some point (it was accepted over the summer) and I hope is
more coherent in looking at both P of A and texts from later in LSV's
career. p
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
<http://us.mc1103.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu>
[mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
<http://us.mc1103.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu>
] On Behalf Of David Kellogg
> Sent: Friday, September 17, 2010 3:49 AM
> To: Culture ActivityeXtended Mind
> Subject: Re: [xmca] A matter of priorities in different models
> 
> Dear Larry, Ana, and others:
>  Vygotsky talks a lot about structure, but he is not a structuralist. He
also talks a lot about function, but he is not a functionalist. He talks a
lot about genetic explanation, but he is no genetic epistemologist (and
condemns Piaget for substituting the genetic principle for causality). 
> Sure, structure is terribly important to Vygotsky. In fact, STRUCTURE is
the key to understanding the gap between his idea of a zone of proximal
DEVELOPMENT as opposed to merely one of learning. New structures (e.g. role
play, rule based games, arithemetic, algebra, complexes, the "measurement of
generality" underlying concepts) allow the re-expression of learning in an
infinite number of ways, quite independent of their content. So structural
change is almost a touchstone of development vs. learning, the way in which
we know that "one pfennig of development has given us a hundred marks of
learning.    Function is important too, and not just because form follows
function; mental structures are the way they are because they do what they
have to do. Function is important because mental functions, not behavior,
provide the content of consciousness. I guess that's why I don't think that
functions can really be said to be independent of context. When I remember
something, I remember a context, and I remember in a context, in more or
less the same way that when I perceive something I perceive a background and
I perceive it inside a situation.
>  A genetic account "explains" function in much the same way that function
has to explain structure. But Vygotsky does not really describe his
psychology as a genetic psychology, at least not in Chapter One of Thinking
and Speech. The term he uses is "causal dynamic", and in Chapter Two he lays
out exactly what that means in philosophical terms: psychological phenomena
are caused, and not simply reversible functions of experience the way they
appear in Piaget. The arrow of development runs from communication to
cognition and it is not any more reversible than the arrow of time.
>  We all know that the arrow of time ran out on Vygotsky. One of the things
we learn from reading the latest revelations from the Vygotsky archive is
that Thinking and Speech was really a Prolegomena to a much larger work on
the subject of consciousness. I had always assumed that his great unfinished
work was the textbook on Child Development we see outlined in Chapter Five.
But I see from Zavershneva 2010 that I was probably wrong.
>  Vygotsky died with a gigantic three volume work on consciousness itself
on his mind. He wanted initially to co-author with Leontiev and Luria, and
only reluctantly took it upon himself when both of his dear disciples proved
unreliable. So I am quite willing to re-read the last sentence of Vygotsky's
hasty preface to Thinking and Speech ("This investigation is broken off on
the very threshold") in that dark light.
>  What would the great three volume "Capital" of consciousness have
contained? Well, I think the very first volume would have had to revisit his
long essay on the emotions. In Peter Smagorinsky's vimeo talk on "The
Psychology of Art", he complains a lot about how the essay never really gets
over James and Lange. But I think that a lot of the work that Professor
Smagorinsky is really looking for really right under his nose, in "The
Psychology of Art".
>  He's right, of course: this is EARLY Vygotsky, and I think that a
reworked "Psychology of Art" would have been much more precise about the
higher esthetic concepts that he thinks distinguish successful art from the
mere "social expression of emotion". I think it would have been every bit as
precise as Chapter Five and Chapter Six of Thinking and Speech and might
even bear more than a passing resemblance to them. I even think we would get
a real sense of what artworks mediate these higher emotions and how, just as
we get a sense of how systematic school instruction mediate science concepts
in Chapter Six.  Does that mean "cold cognition" in art, that is, a system
of abstract esthetic concepts that have nothing to do with interpersonal
contexts? I doubt it. On the contrary. The RELATIONAL aspects of
communication in Tolstoy, for example, are large as life and twice as
natural.  David Kellogg
> Seoul National University of Education
> .
>   --- On Thu, 9/16/10, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com
<http://us.mc1103.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=lpscholar2@gmail.com> >
wrote:
> 
> 
> From: Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com
<http://us.mc1103.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=lpscholar2@gmail.com> >
> Subject: [xmca] A matter of priorities in different models
> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
<http://us.mc1103.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=xmca@weber.ucsd.edu> >
> Date: Thursday, September 16, 2010, 10:03 PM
> 
> 
> Ana  Mike and David K
> 
> The thread that  recently discussed Bahktin's and Vygotsky's alternative
> perspectives was thought provoking.
> Mike mentioned that we must bracket out some perspectives in order to
focus
> and elaborate other perspectives. He also mentioned that it's very
difficult
> to remain self conscious of our biases.
> 
> I agree that whenever we bracket out and turn a searchlight on phenomena,
we
> are going to leave other aspects of the phenomena in darkness. However, it
> is possible  to try to become conscious that one is braceting out
phenomena
> for particular purposes and try to gain insight into the value's implicit
in
> what is bracketed out.
> 
> I'm reposting one particular  paragraph written by Ana that speaks to this
> issue of bracketing and hoping for further comments by others.
> 
> 
> "Although Vygotsky criticized Gestalt Psychology for the lack of the
> dynamic, developmental approach to the relationship between language and
> thought, he himself looked at the change of the relationship between
> language and thought as a change in structural and functional aspects of
> language and thought  -- as decontextualized - synchronic categories. In
> addition, although Vygotsky insisted on the unity of the affective and
> intellectual aspects of language-thought and on the "union of
generalization
> and communication", his analysis of communication stayed focussed on
> transformations of conceptual categories (generalization) and did not
> concern RELATIONAL aspects of communication. Was the relational aspect of
> communication somehow there, but just backgrounded? I think it is the
matter
> of priorities -- not just research priorities, but the priorities IN THE
> WHOLE MODEL and the analysis of development." [Ana]
> 
> What do others think of Ana's suggestion that  Bahktin's and
> Vygotsky's theoretical models focus on different priorities.
> A similar question was recently posted by Peter S recently when he asked
> 
> "what are the foundational concepts which inform the CHAT perspective?"
> when he was opening debate on this month's article.
> 
> I personally am attempting  to deepen my understanding of the
"intersection"
> of these different priorities in a spirit that I believe was reflected in
> Ana's thought provoking analysis.
> 
> Larry
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-- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/ <http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy/> 
Videos: http://vimeo.com/user3478333/videos
Book: http://www.brill.nl/scss


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*Andy Blunden* 
Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/ 
Videos: http://vimeo.com/user3478333/videos
Book: http://www.brill.nl/scss

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