Dear David, First of all I want to thank you and Andy for the clear and astute reading and rendering of Vygotsky's Psychology of Art. I loved every second of the interview, even hearing and seeing Andy laugh! Secondly, when you shared LSV's notion that a work of art is irreducible I thought of metaphor again. For example, I.A. Richards wrote in 1936 that... “Thought is metaphoric, and proceeds by comparison, and the metaphors of language derive therefrom” (p. 94). In other words, he believed that at the base of all thinking, there is a metaphoric relationship. Richards takes this one step further when he suggests that metaphors are “cognitively irreducible” (Johnson, 1981, p. 19) and cannot be reduced to statements of literal meaning. A metaphoric expression therefore becomes a newly created vehicle of meaning which loses potency as well as the possiblity of providing personal voice and agency when it is made into a literal statement from its component parts. For example, what would happen to this poem? FOG by: Carl Sandburg The fog comes on little cat feet. It sits looking over harbor and city on silent haunches and then moves on. Thanks again, RL P.S. Is there a copy of your paper on this posted somewhere? Robert Lake Ed.D. Assistant Professor Social Foundations of Education Dept. of Curriculum, Foundations, and Reading Georgia Southern University P. O. Box 8144 Phone: (912) 478-5125 Fax: (912) 478-5382 Statesboro, GA 30460 Democracy must be born anew in every generation, and education is its midwife. -John Dewey. >>> David Kellogg <vaughndogblack@yahoo.com> 10/10/2010 9:08 PM >>> Thanks, Nancy. And above all thanks to Andy, not just for making the resource available but for providing a long list of provocative questions that had me tugging my beard rather more than I should have. I was telling Andy that I started the whole project with some contempt for Leontiev's lukewarm preface, where he says that Vygotsky himself did not want the book published, but that it was now a historical document for the understanding of Soviet science so we have to get it out there anyway. Ivanov, on the other hand, says that the book is a complete manuscript readied for publication by Vygotsky himself (and Ivanov, by the way, is pretty harshly criticized, so it is with great generosity of spirit that he champions this book and writes a very warm commentary to it). But perhaps Leontiev's ungenerous preface is right in this much: the most exciting ideas in it are completely undeveloped: a) The hidden link between aesthetics and ethics. Vygotsky REALLY believes this: art's about the GOOD LIFE, and it can help us get there, not just in our imagination but in real ontogenesis and even sociogenesis. b) The true analytical unit of art. It just CAN'T be the "aesthetic contradiction". That's like saying that the analytical unit of chemistry is the "chemical contradiction". Feh. c) The dramatization of egocentric speech in Hamlet. It's a borderline piece, written somewhere between Revenge fantasies and psychological novels, and marvelously contradictory for that reason. It's the self-directed soliloquies that made it totally different! When "To be or not to be" is translated into Korean, it's just "To live or to die". But of course you can read it exactly other way: "to be" is to take up arms, and then not to be, and "not to be" is to bow your head, and go on living. Only human thought processes have this kind of lyrical quality; the perception processes on which revenge fantasies and horror shows of the time were based were shallow, one dimensional things in comparison. d) The "social technique of emotion" and the teaching on the emotions. Vygotsky's on to something here, but what? Just as it's hard to imagine analyzing the "psychology" of a work of art (how do we do a psychological analysis of something that does not have a mind?) it's really hard to imagine a technique of emotion without a "what for" and not simply a "what with". It's tempting to say that a) is really the answer to d)! But if it's an answer, it's not a direct one; there is, and there should be, a whole book in between. The problem is that Leontiev was really right; this book is not that one. Not yet. David Kellogg Seoul National University of Education --- On Sun, 10/10/10, Nancy Mack <nancy.mack@wright.edu> wrote: From: Nancy Mack <nancy.mack@wright.edu> Subject: Re: [xmca] Interview with David Kellogg on Vygotsky's Psychology of Art To: ablunden@mira.net, "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu> Date: Sunday, October 10, 2010, 11:06 AM Andy, I cannot thank you enough for this wonderful opportunity to hear two scholars interpret the Psychology of Art. These videos are a wonderful source for others who are interested in Vygotsky. I greatly enjoyed them and thanks to both David and Peter for permitting these talks to be shared. Nancy Mack Professor of English Wright State University http://www.wright.edu/~nancy.mack ----- Original Message ----- From: Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> Date: Sunday, October 10, 2010 5:07 am Subject: [xmca] Interview with David Kellogg on Vygotsky's Psychology of Art To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu> > Our collection of videos at http://vimeo.com/groups/39473/videos > > now has an interview with David Kellogg on Vygotsky's Psychology > of Art > > http://vimeo.com/groups/39473/videos/15686944 > > Peter's interview http://vimeo.com/groups/39473/videos/14844396 > and > David's are not a debate, or even a dialogue really, but two > different > views of the same work of Vygotsky, by two different people. But > together they bring out the richness of the topic. Anyone else > want to > add their own view? > > Please enjoy, > Andy > > Andy Blunden wrote: > > So far as I can tell, vimeo.com just offers a server to store > and > > stream your video. Anything beyond that we need to put on a > server > > elsewhere and link to the videos on vimeo, I think. > > > > There is certainly a need to have a page(s) (e.g. on > lchc.ucsd.edu) > > where the material is listed, organised, and described. > Abstracts of > > the talks are needed, because on vimeo we have only a few > lines to > > describe the content. But that page I think cannot be on > vimeo.com. > > vimeo does have a blog capacity, and I think David Kellogg is > so far > > the only person who has made use of it. > > > > Were we to go down that road, issues that arise are (1) > Keeping the > > information up to date as new videos are added, (2) Having the > > authority to categorise and prioritise videos. At the moment, > the > > other side of lack of organisation and information, is that > the vimeo > > page is very egalitarian and democratic. :) > > > > http://vimeo.com/groups/39473/videos > > > > Andy > > > > mike cole wrote: > >> Wow, Andy-- I had no idea that so many interesting videos had > already > >> been > >> collected already, and just in time for Natalia's > class!! Now THAT I > >> call > >> a bit of superb international collective action!! A well > oiled > >> machine, a > >> sleek and swift social organism..... > >> > >> One question. > >> Might there be a way of people being able to see the list of > all the > >> topics > >> as they open the page, or a single button they could press > that > >> brings up > >> the list? As it is, people might overlook at LOT of interest, > and that > >> problem will just get worse as the collection becomes richer. > >> mike > >> > >> PS_ For those who wonder what I am talking about, check out > >> http://vimeo.com/groups/39473/videos/15209886 > >> _______________________________________________ > >> xmca mailing list > >> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu > >> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca > >> > >> > >> > > > > -- > ----------------------------------------------------------------- > ------- > *Andy Blunden* > Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/ > Videos: http://vimeo.com/user3478333/videos > Book: http://www.brill.nl/scss > > > _______________________________________________ > xmca mailing list > xmca@weber.ucsd.edu > http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca _______________________________________________ xmca mailing list xmca@weber.ucsd.edu http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca _______________________________________________ xmca mailing list xmca@weber.ucsd.edu http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
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