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May 31, 2005
More on methodology and theory
I´m quite enamored of Blommaert; I hope I can locate him and make direct contact. The notes on "Text and Context" I´ve generated include ruminations on tentative "findings" of the conference interpreter discourse to date and more sharply defined research questions. Also, Van Manen is being extremely useful and timely with his explanation of a phenomenological approach to research - NOT the usual social scientific mode (and who would I be if I did anything in the "usual" way?!!
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May 30, 2005
“A language that sings the world”
I was asked by one interpreter if there was a difference between what I’m trying to do with my research and what journalists do when they research and publish stories. Many of the points I considered possible distinctions were persuasively argued as not that different, but the one point which seemed most different is the notion of participation in the writing/publication process.
I started reading this book Leda loaned me, Researching Lived Experience by Max Van Manen, which describes the phenomenological angle in terms that reflect my ontology. Van Manen says, “phenomenology attempts to explicate the meanings as we live them in our everyday existence, our lifeworld” (11).
Phenomenology is a focus on consciousness, broadly conceived: “anything that presents itself to consciousness…whether…real or imagined, empirically measured or subjectively felt. Consciousness is the only access human beings have to the world” (9). Necessarily, then, it is through consciousness that we are related to the world; hence a phenomenological approach is always concerned with the dialectic between consciousness and things of the world. Van Manen adds the term hermeneutics to capture the continuous, cyclical nature of phenomenological experience: “We might say that hermeneutic phenomenology is a philosophy of the personal, the individual, which we pursue against the background of an understanding of the evasive character of the logos of other, the whole, the communal, or the social (italics in original, 7).
One key distinction, I believe, between a phenomenological approach and a journalistic approach is that phenomenology is not concerned solely with the so-called rational. “Knowing is not a purely cognitive act” (6). Because phenomenology is inherently dialogical, “to do research is always to question the way we experience the world, to want to know the world in which we live as human beings. And since to know the world is profoundly to be in the world in a certain way, the act of researching – questioning – theorizing is the intentional act of attaching ourselves to the world, to become more fully part of it, or better, to become the world” (italics in original, 5).
Van Manen continues: “Hermeneutic phenomenological research reintegrates part and whole, the contingent and the essential, value and desire. It encourages a certain attentive awareness to the details and seemingly trivial dimensions of our everyday…lives. It makes us thoughtfully aware of the consequential in the inconsequential, the significant in the taken-for-granted” (8). As a science, phenomenology “attempts to articulate, through the content and form of text, the structures of meaning embedded in lived experience (rather than leaving the meaning implicit as for example in poetry or literary texts)…it is self-critical in the sense that it continually examines its own goals and methods in an attempt to come to terms with the strengths and shortcomings of its approach and achievements. It is intersubjective in that the human science researcher needs the other (for example, the reader) in order to develop a dialogic relation with the phenomenon, and thus validate the phenomenon as described” (italics in original, 11).
Consciousness can only be studied in retrospection: “Reflection on lived experience is always recollective; it is reflection on experience that is already passed or lived through” (10) and as such (here’s the unnerving part!), “does not offer us the possibility of effective theory with which we can now explain and/or control the world, but rather it offers us the possibility of plausible insights that bring us in more direct contact with the world” (9). In this regard, phenomenology views “the experiential situation as the topos of real pedagogic acting” (7), and the “textual reflection on the lived experiences and practical actions of everyday life with the intent to increase one’s thoughtfulness and practical resourcefulness or tact” (4). Van Manen refers back to the trickster Diogenes, who believed “a human being is not just something you automatically are, it is also something you must try to be” (italics in original, 5).
In sum, “phenomenological research has, as its ultimate aim, the fulfillment of our human nature: to become more fully who we are” (12). “Phenomenology…is a poetizing project; it tries an incantative, evocative speaking, a primal telling, wherein we aim to involve the voice in an original singing of the world (Merleau-Ponty, 1973). But poetizing is not ‘merely’ a type of poetry, a making of verses. Poetizing is thinking on original experience and is thus speaking in a more primal sense. Language that authentically speaks the world rather than abstractly speaking of it is a language reverberates the world, as Merleau-Ponty says, a language that sings the world” (italics in original, 13).
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May 29, 2005
sgraffiti (more on art nouveau)
Dramed of stained glass last night. :-) And sgraffit, or modern petroglyphs. Saw a frieze I really wanted to take a picture of but hadn´t bought a camera yet: it was in the gymnasium of an Ecole Primaire that was on the art nouveau tour. It said, "Refuge."
"Instead of copying the classical forms of the past, designers turned to nature for inspiration, using the shapes of flowers, plants and insects." This summarizes the architectural movement, which specialized in combining wood, stone, metal and glass.
In addition to the school, the other three stops included: the Comic Strip Library, the Hannon House (also saw the facade of Saint Cyr House), and a restaurant, De Ultieme Hallucinatie.
Here´s an article on the phenomenality of architecture.
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May 28, 2005
late to art; later to architecture
I just began being interested in art the past few years. Never knew enough about it to understand what could be so compelling to folk. Am definitely into symbolic uses - particularly of the ancient kind such as Dan Brown details in The Da Vinci Code (yes, it nurtured my soul) - and also of the protest kind, such as Néstor García Canclini describes with academic and theoretical zeal.
Today, art nuoveau.
We went into four buildings, but what got me hooked was the contrast between art nouveau and art deco in the very first building we saw. Seeing the two styles juxtaposed on the same facade, and hearing them described as pre- and post-WWI did it. My imagination leaped to the level of subjectivity and a totally different consciousness before and after "the war to end all war."
This isn´t exactly the case, as L´Arau guide explained: there are two peroids in art nouveau, an early and later period, each roughly a decade apiece (the movement spanned 1890-1910 here in Bruxxelles). The later period anticipated the straightening of lines and rejection of fluid flourishes that is the most prominent characteristic of art nouveau.
In addition to the splendid buildings and styles, this particular tour provider, L´Arau brings a deliberately political bent. I learned an incredible amount of political history and current political structure of the city and country. It´s strongly Catholic in heritage (although few go to church these days), the liberales are the right wing political party (think free market neo-liberalism), and the socialists are the left (Christian/Catholics in the middle, more-or-less). These three politicql "families" each have two groups, a Flemish (Dutch-speaking) group, and a French-speaking group. The Greens are a recent - and important - addition to local politics.
Our guide explained that the city was quite poorly managed after WWII, and pointed out evidence of same, including the location of the European Institutions where much downtown, residential demolition has had to occur with the ongoing EU expansions. Things are looking up these days, at least partly due to the efforts of this and other activist groups interested in preservation, heritage, and sensible urban planning.
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me `n three from Cameroon
Hilaire showed me the town last night - several parts of it anyway, including the African Quarter.
There is a fantastic mural in the Matongé area depicting a great mixture of peoples of all races and nationalities. Everyone in Brussels seems quite proud of this mix (even as some admit that it is difficult in various ways - politically, for instance, there are no visibly or obviously "identifiable" Belgians). The mural is also a protest, however. In one corner a white man is seen challenging a black man regarding illiteracy. The black man´s brain is on the table between them, attached by an umbilical cord. Not as subtle as Da Vinci, but nonetheless!
At any rate, we met up with a couple of Hilaire´s friends and walked around town, snacking on peanuts and beer in the warm, ever-so-slightly breezy night. Eventually we wound up near Grand Place at a discoteque,where we encountered more friends. They all made valiant efforts to communicate with me in English - American English, no less! Much of the time I listened to their lilting French. There was much laughter; I was content.
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May 27, 2005
hotspots in Brussels
I´ve been having one heck of a time via word-of-mouth, so finally resorted to a Google Search. This article boasts several; I´m going to have to keep my eyes peeled for these info kiosks (haven´t noticed them as of yet) - supposedly five have been installed and are running, with more to come by the end of June. Right after I depart. :-/ The other option is Brussels International Airport.
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"the language is faster and more superficial"
In my quest for themes among interpreters for the European Parliament, one I hope to pursue some more is the perspective of the longer-term interpreters of changes in the way MEPs talk. Thirty years ago, Parliament was solely a political body, designed for debate. Now, with the accrual of legislative power, it’s become “a technocratic body”. It seems to me that this, in and of itself, doesn’t have to necessarily lead to changes in the presentation or style of discourse, but according to a few people it has. They’ve noticed a certain amount of homogeneity emerging over the past years. On the one hand, this is attributed to a reduction in MEPs speaking extemporaneously; almost everyone speaks from prepared statements (which they read very fast, the bane of simultaneous interpretation). This homogeneity is described as a social process, of people becoming more “americanized” and seeking some amount of conformity to the structure – perhaps it is a parallel process with that of the structure of interpreters as the number of languages has increased?
For instance, the historical experience of the interpreters here was characterized as being rather like “a family.” Everyone pretty much had the chance to get to know everyone else, and there was a sense of trust in people’s individual judgments about (for instance) how to put teams together in the booth for particular meetings/topics/speakers. This was enabled because there was enough time to consider who would be the best match for primary speakers not just in terms of the required language profile, but in terms of content knowledge and experience in the setting (e.g., with that particular group or committee). Now, with the large jump in number of languages and consequently, number of interpreters (almost doubled!), there is much less space for careful decision-making of this kind and more reliance on “rules.” So if an individual interpreter fits the language profile needed they are assigned, period.
The effects of this ‘rule-induced efficiency’ are worrisome: reduced quality of interpretation is at the top of the list. And this isn’t just a simple equation of language source – language output as if in a dyad: what is becoming more frequent is the use of pivot. A pivot is what I’m used to calling (in sign language interpretation) a relay interpreter. We use this most frequently working with Certified Deaf Interpreters – Deaf individuals who take the non-deaf interpreters’ interpretation of a spoken text as “source” and rework it into a target language that is accessible to Deaf individuals whose language use is not standard (of which there are a number of varieties).
What is happening with the pivot in the EP is that a speaker’s original text is in a language that few interpreters know. (Most interpreters here know at least three languages, most know more and are learning more.) For instance, if a Czech speaker makes a statement, and there are only three booths with someone who has Czech has a passive language (meaning a language that they understand well enough to interpret into their working language), then every other booth (I counted 19 in the Brussels hemicycle on Wednesday) has to “tune in” to one of these three interpretations as their “source”. If it so happens that the three interpreters (in this hypothetical example) who know Czech are unfamiliar with the topic, or the particular MEP, or the context/history of the issue and personalities involved, or perhaps is a “medium” or relatively inexperienced interpreter instead of a “topnotch” interpreter – then any unfortunate reduction in quality of their interpretation sets the limit on what the rest of the interpreters can produce. This ripple effect can permeate not just the particular meeting, but, a) as the pivot continues to be used and b) discretion in job placements is discouraged by strict adherence to “rules” and c) the institution attempts to streamline working conditions to bring interpreters’ role into more alignment with other roles of EP employees…the entire capacity of the institution to serve as a venue for genuine debate on issues of political import declines.
Not everyone is pessimistic about this change, to some it seems inevitable and simply a reflection of the times. Some don’t see it as a cause for concern – as in a fear for individual job security, or for the persistence of the full language regime. In general, there seems to be a high degree of personal satisfaction in the job itself – which arguably ‘hasn’t changed at all” over the years. It is still about providing a service, of transmitting meaning, of occasionally “contributing to communication by giving people something that they would not otherwise have.” An example of this was a story about a Japanese-French interpreter who “changed the register” from their culturally appropriate flowery and elaborate greeting of respect (“On this day we bow before you….”) to the simple yet culturally appropriate and respect-equivalent target form of “Mr. Chairman…” The interpreter here doesn’t change the sense, but does change the register, “because the output matters so much.”
At any rate, where these musings began was with a sense that MEPs "vocabulary is getting smaller," that passion is reduced, what people are going to say is becoming "more and more predictable," and overall a diminishment of difference to fuel quality debate. This "impoverishment" is seen not just as a loss of interest in the task of interpreting per se, however there are times when the interpreter can [mentally] "go to sleep" and rely on "stock phrases" until something is said that is unpredictable and out-of-the-norm, causing one to "prick up one´s ears." That level of attention used to be the norm; it´s decrease in frequency is being noted with a mix of nostalgia and regret.
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May 25, 2005
I´m in - again!!
I am feeling blessed. Got my badge to the European Parliament here in Brussels; already had one interview today and have another one lined up for tomorrow. And there is an AIIC meeting tomorrow evening where I will meet a bunch of interpreters and hopefully arrange more interviews. Phase two is off to a great start. :-)
I´m still toasted, though, from the past weeks´ marathon of travel, plunge into "the field", paper-writing and all. Mentally and emotionally I am feeling IT. Lucky I have Dan Brown and The DaVinci Code to grant some respite. Here is a tidbit on The Rose Line, which is "believed to emanate a certain spiritual frequency - one that sustains feminine energies and the search for unbiased truth."
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May 24, 2005
"very postmodern of you"
So said a pal of Simona´s when he learned I missed my own birthday party! It was such an accident, and so embarrassing...who knows if I will really be forgiven? At least I hope everyone had a good time (!), and I did get some writing accomplished instead (although I am quite sure I would have preferred dancing!
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Brussels!
This is an enraptured city. :-) I have only walked around a bit so far for exercise in the midst of the marathon of final paper writing and grading of the past few days; but I am looking forward to enjoying it and hopefully meeting loads of interpreters here. :-)
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May 20, 2005
consideration
One thing about being in Europe ~ folks have been amazingly kind. I was warned by a few different people that the French, in particular, would give bad directions and otherwise be unhelpful or even try to "mess" with anglophiles. Not so! I had to deal with some technical stress immediately upon arrival in Strasbourg (my US-Western Europe electricity adaptor was fine but I had neglected a simple 2:3 way adaptor, sigh) and went off in search of an electronics store.
Everywhere I´ve been I found people who spoke some English, or knew someone who did, of otherwise managed to point me in the right direction. I also wanted to puchase a mobile (cell) phone, and the salesperson went out of her way to a) guide me around the mall and b) send me to another store where I could get a better deal. :-)
I´ve also met fluent English speakers from the states and Canada who haven´t hesitated to take me under wing. (It could be that I appear so disoriented that they feel pity - ! - but I rather think it´s something else. A form of kindness or regard for apparently "displaced" others. No doubt my class status helps - me and my backpack no doubt fit some stereotypical image of an educated person on adventure, rather than of a homeless refuge.
[Written May 27 and backdated.]
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May 19, 2005
Do not disturb
“Artists who inscribe in the work itself the questioning about what the work should be … exclude the spectator who is not disposed to make of his or her participation … an equally innovative experience” (27).
:-(
“Should we admit – along with disenchanted artists and theorists – that autonomous experimentation and democratizing insertion in the social fabric are irreconcilable tasks” (27)?
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singing in the rain!
I wonder if there is an Hungarian equivalent? I left CEU last night in a downpour. As I turned out of the main entrance the Basilica rose surreal. All shades of grey in the evening dusk, with the slightest twinge of sepia from the rain. It was stunning. An aesthetic moment. :-) I was drenched in less than three minutes, so I changed my mind about dinner out (no fun in sopping clothes) and headed back to the dorm to wring myself out. Upon debarking the train at Deák Ferenc tér, the most wonderfully happy percussion music swelled in the underground. Brought a spontaneous grin to my face! Gosh – how did I get so happy?
No explanation. Found a great source for the interpreting research, and some other references in the library here. Didn’t get as much done otherwise as I had hoped (ugh), but nonetheless, there I was, “feeling groovy.”
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May 18, 2005
only if we let it!
“Historical changes that threaten the natural and social order generate oppositions and confrontations that can dissolve a community” (p. 24).
Néstor García Canclini
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the paper from ____
go ahead, fill in the blank!
I wrote my opening paragraph today! (Don't they say getting started is the hardest part?)
At least it's a rainy day in Budapest, so I'm not (too) tempted to be outdoors goofing off instead.
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May 17, 2005
conference and department websites
Here's Afrogeeks conference which begins on my birthday. :-)
And I've been holding onto this for awhile, it's the blog for the University of Illinois at Chicago. It hasn't been updated for awhile, but the last entry (April 20, 2005) is a hilarious cartoon.
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May 16, 2005
Bottle-wrestling
Yes, it’s true, we had some difficulty opening the prized Hungarian wine (which I can't remember how to spell!) to celebrate our last night together in Budapest. After a bit of improvisational fieldwork, we managed to pull it off (i.e., pried out the cork). We worked on the collective report this morning (humoring me as the anthropology department outsider as – apparently – only a temporary accommodation, while I commandeered the laptop I was threatened with later revisions). Oh well. I always think a bit of mystery and intrigue makes the story more interesting!
Broughton and I headed across the Danube to the old part of Buda for sightseeing, while Ioana, Zhixiong, Julie and family went on their own separate missions. We reconvened for dinner at a Persian restaurant, with Nitsan and Alyssa, and enjoyed long conversations with lots of food sharing. Cleo kept us entertained. Did I mention what a good nanny Frank is? :-) After we returned to Keripesi and gathered in our Eastern European colleague’s room (host of the region par excellence), we all let down a bit. It’s been an intensive four days. Even though we worked at a relaxed pace, there was deep thinking and serious consideration of methodological issues in general and our own particular projects in specific. Overall, a success; Julie deserves the credit for leading us through, and we each get a bit of a pat on the back for hanging in with each other for so long. :-)
The farewell celebration lasted past Julie’s bedtime (!), including a few drops of absinthe, several handfuls of peanuts, and some shop talk (anthropology department dynamics – interesting! Over the course of this whole trip I’ve learned about some pros and cons in terms of the anthro dept’s governance structure (compared with the Communication department), and their TA system. Anyway, they noted my upcoming birthday and we shared a few warm moments with each other. It’s been a pleasure getting to know each other so well.
Today we disperse – Julie on holiday to Germany with Frank and Cleo, Ioana to Prague with J., and Broughton back to the US via the UK. On Wednesday, Zhixiong flies to Beijing via NY (don’t ask) and takes the train to the Chinese-Russian border, and next Sunday I’ll leave for Brussels. Next time we see each other it’ll be back at UMass, probably in that oh-so-familiar anthropology department lecture room…
[Written on 16 May, posted 17 May, and backdated.]
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May 14, 2005
Simplex Dupla
Who’s over 40?!!! The crew from CEU spent varying amounts of social time with us on Friday, dependent upon previous obligations and however much stress they were feeling due to their theses being due in three weeks. (We “UMasser’s” are still in awe of the amount of work they churn out during their one year Master’s Program.)
Svetlana and Simona had a beer with us post fieldwork methods seminar, and the rest reconvened with us for a very tasty and engaging dinner at Oliva. (Except for Irena, who couldn’t escape a previous commitment.) I had a delicious paprikacs (veal chunks in a spicy sauce with sour cream and pasta on the side). YUM! I enjoyed my confersations with Balocz, Nitsan, and Omer. Would have liked to talk a bit more with Alex, and Alyssa, but they were just far enough away to be out of easy earshot. Once I’d wolfed my dinner, I went to the other end to talk with Ioana, Teo, Helena and Broughton. I’m intrigued by the new Holocaust museum which just opened in Berlin last week ~ seems there is a sense that it doesn’t skirt the brutal/painful historical facts. I’ll definitely manage a trip there later this summer. After the meal, and a huge negotiation about sinus infections (!), Teo and Helena took us to a local bar for absinthe (sans sugar – alas! it wasn’t the same as last year with my other Romanian buddies) and beer, and our youngest, favorite “substance provider” just got plumb tuckered out! Some nerve after dragging me and Broughton out after bedtime the night before!
Zhixiong had plenty of party spirit, but even he didn’t last through to the dancing, which was the next stop of the evening. I rather liked the atmostphere of Simplex Dupla, but our hosts were not impressed. It’s the same ol’ style of the other Simplex, and they didn’t like the music too much either (if it could actually be called “music” – more like computer-generated technobeat). I thought it was fine for dancing, although I could have done without the pornography projected on the wall of the upstairs dancefloor. The outside terrace was nice; but a tad bit chilly, and the graffiti-splattered interior walls were kinda cool. We wrapped up the evening with a quick snack at a Greek place (open at 3:30 am! Who knew Budapest is such a happening place!!), and the night bus brought me back, escorted by a few of the CEU students who lodge out in the boondocks of Keripesi,
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May 13, 2005
“We usually talk about food and sex.”
It may have been quite the sacrifice – not to mention my loss! – for my informants to agree to converse with me during their down time about their experiences as interpreters at the European Parliament. I am grateful, and have I ever learned a lot! It feels a bit odd to use that phrase, “my informants”, as there is certainly no possessive component except for the individual willingness to join an investigation of interpreter’s worldviews: “to get inside interpreters’ heads”, as one participant put it. :-) And “informants” is so technical (down with technicality!) . . . in social scientific terms it is accurate (for this initial stage), but it isn’t the kind of research model I wish to invoke. I hope several of the interpreters who spoke with me over the past three days (and any who choose to join this conversation, publicly here, or by private email to me) will become participating researchers and engage proactively with me/us in not only interpreting (!) the discursive data but also in formulating questions and desirable outcomes of this particularly situated study. In other words, to deliberately and dialogically co-construct knowledge regarding the role, values, paradoxes, pleasures, ambitions, frustrations, etcetera of the job (it IS a job).
I hope no one is "put off" by the informality here. Of course some of my academic-ese comes through, but ideally this is just another venue for chat. :-)
Since I’ve been in school the past several years I haven’t been able to attend as many sign language interpreter’s professional development seminars and workshops, but I find myself immersed in a similar environment here – that kind of collegial comfort which emerges under the “fire” of this profession. Many basic elements are exactly the same – inarticulate speakers (those who mumble, tangentialize incessantly, choose to use their typically inadequate second or third language rather than their mother tongue, read from previously written text at extraordinarily rapid rates, etc); periodic lack of proper preparatory materials and adequate working conditions (“I craved a chair!”); in-house jargon such as “in the booth”, “on this side of the glass”, “on the other side of the glass”; and the personal satisfactions of a job well-done.
The broadest categories that became immediately apprehendable to me as an outsider, (“We don’t get many Americans around here”), are three types of interpreting: conference, community, and whispering. Whispering? It may be literal “whispering into the ear” of a delegate or MEP (Member of Parliament), but it encompasses any interpreting done without augmentive equipment – in other words, the kind of interpreting sign language interpreters utilize most often. This type of interpreting is usually done “on missions” – when delegates (MEPs) travel for various purposes.
Conference interpreters are either functionnaires - staff interpreters, or freelancers who also work on the private (free, open) market. Hardly anyone who works at the European Parliament works in the community proper – not for social service/welfare agencies or hospitals/medical settings. (Note: “the community” is a phrase which is locally used to denote the (political) "European community" – the institutionalized and imagined entity more so than a neighborhood or group of people who interact during everyday living.) A few have worked for the legal system, but not many. There are historical in-house divisions among the European institutions (some of this is now changing, albeit slowly). Functionnaires are employed specifically by one institution; freelancers are more likely to work in multiple venues. Of course, some interpreters were previously freelancers and are now staff, and vice-versa.
The term community interpreting was used spontaneously by some, and understood by others when I used it, but most commonly the primary distinction was between conference interpreters and those who work in the free market. The free market has its pros and cons, and it is here that the “grey market” exists. The grey market is a form of competitive provision of interpreting services that undercuts the professional ranks by charging lower fees and working in sub-optimal conditions. Interpreters are pushed into the grey market primarily by the need to gain experience. Clients include NGOs, corporations, academic (?) and political conferences … potentially anyone who needs to provide interpreting services on a very tight budget.
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May 11, 2005
Sabra
While at CEU, Nitsan and I had a brief conversation about the Sabra Jews and their form of talk - which I didn´t recall then is specifically called dugri. I can’t remember exactly how it came up; I think Nitsan must have said something about Israeli directness in comparison with either Hungarian or U.S. modes of talk. I asked her, “Sabra?” And she said, “No, that was a way of making a distinction at a particular historical moment. We’re all Sabra now.” She went on to explain that the term was used to distinguish the first generation of Jews born in Israel after the state was established from those who emigrated there. I don’t recall her words, but the meaning I took – what I remember – is that sabra was related to a sense of being (if I remember accurately) untainted or uncontaminated by exposure to the world out there, the gentile world, I guess, and its violence, discrimination, prejudice, etc. In other words it implied a certain sense of purity.
When we read and discussed Tamar Katriel´s article on Sabra dugri talk for Donal´s class (2-3 years ago), the conception that stayed with me was one of the Sabra Jews being a particular “group” – a subset, almost like an ethnicity or other more permanently marked-off subculture. I’ve been meaning to share this with the social interaction folk at UMass, and am motivated to finally get to it because of reading Jan Blommaert’s critique of both Conversation Analysis and Critical Discourse Analysis (see previous post for more details). He’s focused on how each addresses notions of power (or fails to), noting:
“Certain discourse forms only become visible and accessible at particular times and under particular conditions…which tells us a lot about our societies and ourselves, and which necessarily situates particular discourses in the wider sociopolitical environment in which they occur. The stories have a particular ‘load’ which relates to (and indexes) their place in a particular social, political, and historical moment. Removing this load from the narratives could involve the risk of obscuring the reasons for their production as well as the fact that they are tied to identifiable people and to particular, uniquely meaningful, circumstances that occasioned them” (66).
Here´s a recent study on Israeli self-conceptions in relation to sabra that might counter Katriel´s conclusions? I´m not sure, as I don´t have access to her article for review, and I´ve only seen the abstract for this study by R Sela-Sheffy - who has written something else on canon formation!!!
[Written 31 May and backdated.]
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May 08, 2005
Critical Discourse Analysis
Jan Blommeart is an Africanist, ethnographer, and synergistic critical discourse analyst. Taking the terms in reverse:
Discourse – “language in society”, not just language use but also the sum of communicative acts, and these acts situated in context.
Critical – the performance of analyses that “expose and critique existing wrongs in one’s society – analyses that should be ‘brought home’” (4).
Synergistic – drawing from multiple sources, e.g., Hymes, Fairclough, Bauman, Bernstein, Bourdieu, Wallerstein, Bahktin, Foucault, Habermas, Hall, Hanks, Scollon. He particularly notes Norman Fairclough, British Cultural Studies (the Birmingham School), and French poststructuralism (23).
Ethnography – “an approach in which the analysis of small phenomena is set against an analysis of big phenomena . . . and both . . . can only be understood in terms of one another” (16).
An Africanist perspective: “in the age of globalization, it is worth having a look at materials from the peripheries of the world system” (20).
The central problem of this approach is to locate the relationship between a text (the microsocial) and its context (the macrosocial).
Blommaert asserts: “an event becomes ‘a problem’ as soon as it is being recognized as such” (4). The epistemology is that discourse “can become a site of meaningful social differences, of conflict and struggle . . . result[ing] in all kinds of socio-structural effects” (4). There is an assumption that discourse is both socially constitutive and socially conditioned – it must be studied as an ecology of cultural forms in which culture and language are firmly set “in the whole of the system in which a group operates” (8). In sum, critical discourse analysis explores “the intersection of language/discourse/speech and social structure” (25) with the goal of identifying and illustrating a position from which to analyze the social facts of globalization (17).
Core assumptions relate power, inequality, and difference.
The main target of analysis is inequality: its nature, dynamics, and modes. Thus, it engages notions of choice and determination. Constraints on choice must be taken seriously. Determination via the world system indicates that people are not becoming more free. [Hence, by default, perhaps raising the need for and stakes of control in those few venues where we feel we do have some choices?] Globalization is the highest level of context determining language usage in any interaction at any time in any situation within any society (18). In other words, what is determinative are “the historical conditions under which particular forms of communication become meaningful or not” (18).
In sum, critical discourse analysis is less a school than a network of scholars who integrate various linguistic methods with social theory, conduct empirical studies of objects of analysis within a set of paradigms, and maintain overt political commitments to social action (24). Institutional settings are arguably one of the best sites in which to apply CDA, education being a primary (perhaps even preferred?) example.
A condition of possibility and a caveat:
For CDA to be utilized as a methodology one must have access to “real, and often extended, instances of social interaction” (25).
Additionally, “it may subvert the practices it analyzes” (25).
[Notes written on the flight; temporally posted on May 13 and backdated.]
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“Vo automat?”
Matthias taught me this “most important phrase to know in German” while I was on the first train from Berlin to Strasbourg. He lives in Mannheim, so I’m looking forward to catching up with him again later this summer. I felt fortunate to meet someone who knew English, as my conversation with the wanting-to-be-chatty cab driver who took me from the airport to the train station gave me a good indication of potential trouble. He told me about a marathon being run in the city, indicating we’d have to take an experimental route. “ How long have you been driving a cab,” I asked, “8 million people,” he answered. :-)
I slept a lot on the plane and the train. Actually deep, unconscious sleep but perhaps not very restful as I couldn’t seem to get enough. I did pull an allnighter before leaving, but had anticipated that and felt basically prepared to finish packing and cleaning. I only had one moment of truly serious stress upon departure from the States, when I couldn’t locate any information about my flight. Sarbjeet and Koushik were no doubt mildly amused by my frantic email search through the laptop in the open trunk of the car after we’d already started on the way to JFK.
On the flight, I met Shirley and Eddie from Ashby de la Zouch in Leicestershire. They were sweet and kind, looking at my pictures of Hannah and showing a lot of interest in my trip. I felt blessed with a bit of nurturing from an unexpected source. The whole trip was like that, really. During each leg I met someone entertaining or interesting with whom to share a human moment. The most surreal encounter was with Chit, a student at the university in Strasbourg who I met on the second train. The train was packed, and several of us were stuck in the smoky, squeaky crease between cars. It was about a 2 hour ride, and the first hour or so everyone endured patiently. It emptied out at one stop and only about a half dozen of us were left. We spread out a bit and Chit and I conversed. He shared with me some ambition to work on teleportation technology and wouldn’t you know the train hit some nasty curve and I went flying! This was the second “teleportation moment” I’ve experienced. One instant I was standing, talking; the next grasping for the air, the next slamming into the floor. No temporal continuity! These were three distinct, separate, disjointed moments that occurred in sequence with blatant gaps in-between. I accused Chit of practicing on me. :-) I realize I did have one similar experience years ago when I was a cable jock (installing cable tv). I hit a power line with my drill in a soffit (where it wasn’t supposed to be): one moment I was on my ladder drilling, the next I was on the ground about 12-15 feet away. I wasn’t hurt that time either. Lucky! The moment of flailing this time was quite extraordinary – I thought, this is what Harry Potter feels when he travels by fluepowder, or what Meg, Calvin, and --------experience when they travel by tesseract.
My arrival in Europe basically occurred without a hitch, despite my (unfortunately - sigh - typically American) lack of knowledge of the local languages. There could have been some stress at the hostel in Strasbourg, where they didn’t have a record of my reservation. GULP! But they managed a way to put me up for the first two nights (a different room each night but I was not complaining!) and at a different place for the second two nights. Nikki’s advice really paid off – she said make the attempt, say whatever little bit you can, and they’ll appreciate it. I’m so glad she taught me, “Parlevous Ingles?” before I left! I learned bon jour, bon sous, merci, and perdon. Five whole expressions. :-)
[Written up from notes on 14 May 2005 and backdated.]
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May 07, 2005
yes!
How does this watch work? :-/
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checking my bags!
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ambivalence
In roughly 15 hours I'll be in route to Berlin. Not that I stay there very long (yet)...unless, as Briankle suspects, I can't find my way to the train station!
In the past few days I have actually felt excited - and at the end of this allnighter I do think I'll be "ready". In some respects it's reminiscent of my lesbian hunting days - the two years I spent working on the road scouring the west, southwest, and midwest for wimmin who wanted to participate in the National Lesbian Conference (Atlanta, 1991). This time I'm searching for interpreters. :-)
I'm leaving connections I'm loathe to leave, both of the more recent and of the longer term kind. And going toward . . . who knows? :-) Most of it will be amazing, I'm sure. Imagine, in three days I'll be witnessing the European Parliament! How awesome is that?!!
I'm leaving, on a jet plane, don't know when I'll be back again....
In theory I'll be back near the end of August. One never really knows, though, what life holds.
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May 06, 2005
for a good fart call...
Sam enjoys the absurd to no end. There I am, all weepy 'cause I won't see him for 3 1/2 months, and he sets off his little fart machine. :-)
We had a nice visit and next time I'll be testing the videochat from France. Ya'll stay tuned in now! Sam gets to read the blog directly when he can con someone at Eden to help him with it. We looked at Phil, Pat, and Jennifer's recent comments this evening.
Sam doesn't always have the energy to reply, but he sure loves to know you're thinking about him! He is thinking of you, too.
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May 05, 2005
not quite the end . . .
Held the last class of COM352 this afternoon. We were mellow together, enjoying the gorgeous spring day. I will miss this group. We went through a lot together. :-)
There were a few students I chatted with, saying something like, "You survived," or "You made it through." And they replied, "So did you." That was pretty cool - an acknowledgment of our mutual learning status, and also a recognition that learning had occurred. (I'm feeling a little mushy!)
I'm looking forward to their final papers. Then, it will really be "over" ~
until we meet again...
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May 04, 2005
holding form
Last week, Briankle gave us a karate lesson, emphasizing over and over again that it is the form that matters.
"The perfection of the form of a thing is its entelechy in virtue of which it attains its fullest realization of function (De anima, ii. 2)."
Entelechy "denotes realization as opposed to potentiality."
What I'm thinking is that entelechy is the achievement of a form's skopos. In order not to lose form - in other words, in order to realize something, to bring it into being - one must train diligently, vigorously. Training is the practice of moving into position, of choosing the form that best responds to contingency, of enacting the form spontaneously, at the level of instinct because it is so deeply ingrained.
Karate is an analogy for life. For communication. For theorizing about communication and life? To theorize is to believe especially on uncertain or tentative grounds. From theoria, a latin term meaning "to see, to stage, theatre, scene, spectacle" (class notes, 4/27/05).
Here's an explanation: "Theoria, in contrast [to phronesis], defines a very different rational capacity, traditionally translated as "contemplation," and by Irwin as "study," particularly theoretical study. Theoria is the activity which expresses nous, "understanding." One understands origins‹origins are not demonstrable, one cannot prove them syllogistically‹however, everything has an origin, and it is through theoria that we know these. It does not lead to "an answer" to a problem. Aristotle does not see theoria as necessarily equivalent to philosophy, then‹I can think philosophically about a number of things, however, rarely do I do theoria. I might, instead, wonder about various applications of ethics to problems in the real world, or about theoretical issues of translation, or what it means to have knowledge‹but this is not theoria. From what Aristotle seems to be saying here, theoria would be strictly reflecting on the knowledge of origins‹almost like meditating on the idea of a god." (from EUDAIMONIA AND THE ACTIVITY(IES)OF THE SOUL IN ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS.
This article, The Place of Phronesis in Postmodern Hermeneutics, discusses Lyotard's suggestion, based on Kuhn, "that scientific knowledge involves a search for instabilities rather than consensus." This reminds me of Immanual Velikovsky. Enoch tried to show us this movie about him yesterday. (Note: he is still being critiqued, but at a level that is incomprehensible to me.)
Juan noted that Velikovsky's theory sounds like Eldredge and Gould's theory of punctuated equilibrium. The difference, I think, is that punctuated equilibrium refers specifically to evolution, whereas Velikovsky's theory has more to do with geology and astronomy.
What intrigued me about Velikovsky is the notion that there may be forces larger than the institutionalized, macrosocial social, economic, and political processes that cultural studies and political economy takes for granted as the biggest patterns that matter. It reminds me of that basic science movie, the power of ten. Here's an interactive web site that does essentially the same thing. Take, for instance, 10 to the +12 as a Velikovskiian "level", compared with 10 to the +7, which shows continental geography (roughly the level of political economy?) Both macrosocial and microsocial perspectives originate from the position of our own perspective.
Our own perspective is grounded in our body and the social mileau we operate within. The flower bed which composes the example could analogically be my immediate peers, colleagues, friends, professors, etc. Microsocially, the first increment "down" distinguishes individuals, 10 to the -1. The next level isolates features and characteristics of an individual. At 10 to the -3, we're dealing with perception, and next at the perceptual apparatus, then to the unique characteristics of each biological element of functional perception.
At 10 to the -8, we arrive at the level of DNA and the capacity for reproduction. At 10 to the -10, we encounter electromagnetism. Arguably, somewhere at this level are the operational structures of consciousness.
This is (if my analogy holds) the level where knowledge is constructed, where language occurs.
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Leslie Feinberg speaks
Colorado State University is not earning any brownie points this year - first trying to fire Ward Churchill, and a few weeks ago trying to silence Leslie Feinberg. (I interpreted a speech zhe gave at UMass a few months ago; it was awesome. The speech, that is.) :-0
An email is circulating with the speech she did deliver; I found it posted on this weblog, but without a direct link - it was posted April 28, 2005.
Here is a story from the Colorado State Collegian that includes excerpts. Zhe is intense and references Audre Lorde.
~ Thanks to Ingrid for passing this on!
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May 03, 2005
metonymy
I'm quite excited! I haven't read this entire article yet, but Linda Shires uses the concept of metonymy in the first paragraph of her paper, ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING: CROSS-DWELLING AND THE REWORKING OF FEMALE POETIC AUTHORITY. Get the pdf.
She's done work in cultural studies too. (There's a paper listed here with a title about "falling ass-backwards" into something. Which is a familiar learning mode for yours truly. !!)
This excerpt is from a summary of writing on EBB by Marjorie Stone:
"Like Kenyon Jones, Linda Shires reframes issues of poetic identity in conceptually stimulating ways in "Elizabeth Barrett Browning: Cross-Dwelling and the Reworking of Female Poetic Authority" (VLC 30 [2001]: 326-343). Exploring EBB's negotiation of female poetic identity "through a wide set of public discourses," including those associated with genre, professionalism, gender, and marketing (p. 326), Shires argues that she reworked female poetic authority through her "ability to live in incommensurate identities": an ability described as "cross-dwelling" in the theory of Charles Spinosa and Hubert Dreyfus (p. 331). As Shires observes, "The theoretical model of cross-dwelling works well with the semiotic model of authorship as a signifying system in culture which can be read like a language." "Barrettt Browning, who carefully studied fame, literary celebrity, and types of success, as if they were another language, like Greek or Hebrew, monitored and managed her career," but her reception history demonstrates the difficulties of accommodating "cross-dwelling [End Page 297] in contradictory social positions." In addition, "the intersection in one person . . . of competing models of intelligibility" helps to account "not only for a particular kind of fame and the decline of a reputation, but also for a reaccenting and reworking of a cultural position that could then be embodied differently by later women poets" (pp. 332-333). Shires opens with an incisive analysis of EBB's barbed exchange with Thackeray concerning his censoring of "Lord Walter's Wife," showing how the exchange and the poem reveal her capacity to "cross-dwell in a world of poetry as a social critic of traditional forms of domesticity" (p. 331) and in the private sphere as "Browning's wife and Peniny's mother," to use Thackeray's loaded terms (p. 329). She also considers the Victorian reception of "The Cry of the Children" and the "collisions of discourses and intertexts" contributing to the layered ironies of "The Romaunt of the Page" (p. 340). One of the most original aspects of Shires' work is her challenging of the linear, diachronic narratives so prevalent in recent feminist studies of EBB (Helen Cooper's, Dorothy Mermin's, Angela Leighton's, Deirdre David's, and my own). Noting that these narratives tend to turn on the extent to which EBB did or did not develop a female-centered poetics and that they remain "unintegrated" (p. 337), Shires emphasizes instead EBB's "co-dwelling in femininity and masculinity" and the "'many-sidedness'" that Christina Rossetti saluted in her (p. 341)."
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May 02, 2005
out of phase . . . ?
I'm catching a lot of heat for being on a different page than a vocal segment of my colleagues working on a joint project...it's a little stressful. :-/
I've been toying with the notion of bi-temporality. I came up with the term a few days ago to describe/explain why I'm not expressing as coherent and clear an argument as my peers would like. It was an individual discovery, but of course I didn't invent the term or the concept.
I would like to see Bitemporal Vision: The Sea.
This essay on time lays out some of the complications. A possibly worthwhile resource: Temporal Patterns. Here are a quantum physics angle and something on the gravitomagnetic field.
The math equations are beyond me, although an explanation helps (a little): The work will proceed as follows...
I downloaded a pdf from bladerunner, and there are two Chinese sites that came up on Google. One article, time variation and patterns includes this quote: "A pattern is an idea that has been useful in one practical context and will probably be useful in others."
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backward chaining
I'm not sure if this is what I'm doing, but it's possible:
"Backward Chaining" Learning Methodology.
"So, what does one do in backward-chaining learning? It is really very simple: we start by finding something about life, or about the world, or about culture, that we are fascinated with. We disregard everything we think we know about learning, and find a question that really fascinates us, a subject we would really love to understand, or a form of creative expression we would really love to master. We don't worry about having the necessary "background" or "prerequisites" to understand this question or topic. We begin to hunt down everything we can find out about it.
Soon enough, we will find ourselves in the position of being unable to progress any further, because we lack the necessary understanding of some conventionally antecedent subject: e.g., my attempts to understand how the brain works run ashore due to my limited understanding of physiology.
What happens now? I take up the study, not of general biology, or even general physiology, but of neurophysiology. I cannot help but be aware of why I want to study this, and how each piece of knowledge I gain about it serves my overall purpose of understanding the brain. At some point in my study of neurophysiology, I run aground again, this time because I do not understand organic chemistry. I begin to study organic chemistry and find myself chaining backwards into general chemistry. Then, perhaps, I unwind the path I have taken, finish learning what I need to know about organic chemistry, finish learning what I couldn't learn about neurophysiology because I didn't know organic chemistry, and arrive back at the brain again."
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prepping for a presentation *sigh*
Here's a great site on Atlanticism, mentioned as an ideological competitor with pan-Europeanism.
I'm psyched by the articles I'm assigned, but also by the piece by Susan Strange (our version is from The Global Transformations Reader).
If you didn't read this as an argument for how to think about the conference we're trying to organize (!) let me say a few words about social metonymy! :-)
George Yudice is pretty hot. He doesn't use the term, social interaction, but I think he's on to it with his noticing of reception.
He mentions this anti-violence group, Viva Rio, which sponsors a host of social justice causes for Rio, Brazil. He's talking about the international linkages between local causes and "certain social movements" in which "culture [can] no longer be seen as predominately as the reproduction of the 'way of life' of the nation as a discrete entity separate from global trends" (89).
Here is
The Fourth Declaration of the Larandon Jungle". These are the Zapatistas. They are fighting hard.
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May 01, 2005
An island with superpower ambitions...
"Steph, your party was an unbelievable success. How do you feel about it?"
Unbelievable!
Of course, it really had extremely little to do with me. I provided the location and the invitations. A wee bit of coordination. Yasser and Elsa cooked a scrumptuous meal (full menu below), which Denise rounded out with her Jamiacan rice, and Andrea & Kirsten topped off with ice cream sundaes. Ya'all came and enjoyed yourselves, and that's what made it work. :-)
The cheers from the garage were great fun, and I thoroughly enjoyed the few rounds of pong and flip the cup in which I participated. Nothing like team competition for bonding purposes! There were a few holdouts on account of germs and petroleum contamination, but hey, what's life without a few risks? :-)
The dancing was nice too, although I didn't do that as much as I would have preferred. Hard to do everything though! My favorite parts of the evening included some really hard laughing, and a series of incredibly warm hugs.
Who shall I pick on first? :-) There was the grumpface, some no shows, a handful of very late shows, and some surprise shows. Some budding couples. Some despairing singles. The usual mix. :-/
Andrea and I discovered that we both get perverse pleasure out of scaring people. Cata and I danced a bit of disco together. Jesse and I commiserated about the challenges of putting together committees of people who a) care about our topics and b) can work well together. Our Australian friend arrived despite going too far. Fernando showed up without his family. "Last to arrive, last to leave", he announced upon departure a little while later. Srinivas loomed up out of the darkness in the driveway with a whole passle of friends, some of whom had rsvp'd and others who filled in for some of the cancellations and no-shows. I consulted with Peter about calling Paritesh, "Pari", cuz I had that outsider vibe of being set up to say something that would make me look ridiculous. I think it was Krishna who tried to put me up to it. Sarubh clearly enjoys being the center of attention! Ramu grinned a lot. So did Sirisha and Swati. I think they might have been in on the longest dancing spree (that I missed, sigh).
I heard that Art told the best stories in the garage, but I missed them. Raz and I talked about a few of my old books that were laying out - blast from the past! Return of the Bird Tribes, Emmanuel's Book, which I'd forgotten was given to me by Mary Frances oh so many years ago, the book that Spotted Eagle had us all read, Beyond the Eagle, and the book that introduced me to phenomenology just before I applied to the Comm Dept, The Spell of the Sensuous.
George and Min were late arrivals (and they both got rowdy!)!! George doesn't seem too upset about losing the election for GSS executive officer, I guess these means he'll run for the GSS representative/treasurer spot for comm-grad? That's a more immediate gain for us. :-) I did learn that one reason the count might have been skewed is because some people only voted for the contested positions, not for those in which there was only one candidate.
Elizabeth brought another batch of books to distribute; I'm not sure if anyone took her up on the offer? Sreela had already read them all! When and how folks find time to read non-academic things is mystery to me. I think there must be some kinda manipulation of time that they pull off, generating extra hours in the day! Nigham and I had a bit of a heart-to-heart. In fact, several of our friends are facing questions about visa or other status and are unsure where they might be next year. Lily, Maria and Arturo (who missed this one, wah!)...Elsa. I hope things work out for each of them the way that they want things to work out.
Mike's a juggler! That was fun. And Chris and I got some tutoring from Denise on turning in the ol' dissertation (as if it's going to happen anytime soon). They get submitted in a box. Literally! A cardboard box or wood crate piled high with all the hundreds of pages. I can hardly wait - NOT!
I knew I wouldn't be able to remember all the friends of Yasser's and Elsa's who came. Jesse's from sociology; Amanda is a fictionwriter - of things that couldn't happen but do (maybe she's done some scripting for my life? no? Darn. I've been looking for someone to blame!)
I have an "Amy & Todd" on my list of rsvp's but I don't think they made it? Amber and Greg were here...and Jed and Megan. I didn't talk with them as much. Mostly just to rave about the food. Oh yes, The Food!
Mauritian dishes, prepared by Elsa:
Chicken curry
Lentils
Tofu Rougaille (creole stew)
Slavic sauteed peppers
There were also two condiments, a very spicy green paste (delicious!) and another sort of ... salad?
Dishes from Syria (a CIA link comes up second doing a Google search!), prepared by Yasser:
Loubieh Bizeit (sauteed green beans with lemon and garlic)
Mtabal (eggplant with tahine)
Bamieh bi Zeit (sauteed okra with garlic and cilantro)
Karass be Humus (sauteed leeks, onions, and humus)
Tabouleh
Hummus bi Lahmeh (with meat)
No one left on an empty stomach, that's for sure! Erin called in the wee hours of the morning to announce her safe arrival home, and to report a left behind umbrella (followed the next day by Mike realizing he'd left his hat). I was still up cleaning, but it wasn't bad at all. Not only did we rival the neighbors' hootin' & hollerin' (the party house two doors up that Eric used to occupy in an example of the small world syndrome) with those reverberating celebrations from the garage, everyone was so conscientious with picking up after themselves that the clean-up took less than an hour. I had a restful sleep and saw Bill at the gym early this afternoon. We be working out!
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