March 2008 Archives

I am playing at staying soft. :-)

A vigorous debate between two faculty members dominated conversation about Marc Crépon's "What We Demand of Languages," an extended footnote to Derrida's Monolingualism of the Other.

I had been worried about arriving late to the Center for Communication Studies event, however Briankle Chang and Vernon Cronen were deep in discourse, ranging from the mistake of theology (not a feature of all religions), the influence of the Platonic opening, Aquinas' linkage of physics with the New Testament, to structuralism as the antidote to transcendentalism, and whether "topos" is a place that contains all topoi and all vocabularies or a place that can be talked about in infinitely many ways.

I always learn more from faculty interactions with each other than from monologistic pedagogy!

A colleague translated Crépon's article from French. Srinivas Lankala explains:

"Crépon summarizes Derrida’s argument, provides references to the argument that Derrida did not provide, and extends the argument to new areas:

• the question between what language is and what language means in terms of politics of nationalism or politics of identity
• the definition of identity
• the definition of the self

"One important thing called into question is the notion of a singular cultural identity: identity is formed in advance by language – the whole question of identity which cultural studies depends on, what post-colonial studies depends on, is nonexistent in that sense, it does not exist before language. Crépon extends Derrida’s proposition that the monolingualism of the other is not just his unique case of (to put it too simply) a French-speaking Jew in Algeria who is speaking French as the language of colonizer, this is one kind. Derrida goes beyond the particular to show that the idea of monolingualism is not simplistic. Crépon builds on the understanding that the colonized has no other language than that of the colonizer, but that all cultures are always colonized, because a culture comes into being through the question of naming, giving names, which is a function of language and calls language into being."

Naming sets Chang and Cronen off again (providing me descriptive data for "saying something," according to Chang). [Note: the provided link is not particular to the discussion, it merely invokes the complexity.]

It was suggested that "The point behind this extension of monolingualism is so that it is not understood as the empirical problem cultural studies tries to make it but rather a broader problem that applies to all of us: we all only ever speak one language and we never speak only that language." I am not familiar enough with cultural studies to know the (attempted?) formulation of this "empirical problem" - and I certainly won't speculate (although I am curious!)

Meanwhile, Lankala continues:

"What Crépon is doing to extend Derrida’s notion is to explore: how do we go beyond this situation, what do we do to go beyond this restrictive monolinuguaism that we all share? Derrida suggests the way beyond is to invent one’s language as one is speaking it. This is something Derrida associates with translation as a radical way to call language into question, to call identitiy into question. Not in the simple sense of from one source language to another, but a translation without sources, which only has a target language, which only has arrival; in its arrival it creates its own sources. This radical idea is what Crépon extends. How to invent new language to go beyond the monolingualism of the other that is a common situation for all."

The subsequent exchange between Cronen and Chang was much too quick to transcribe adequately, here are the main points that I think I can parse from the words I managed to capture.

Cronen questions the privileging of the speaker, the one who speaks, i.e., the one who names over "the responsiveness of the other." His argument is that there is no stability of language - any language - without a correspondence of action/response between the speech of one and the responsiveness of another. Cronen goes so far as to say that "the emphasis on naming is fundamentally misplaced" and poses "joint action" instead.

"Where," Chang asks, "does that joint come from" Joint, you already presuppose jointed, being joined. That is la langue, the package." Cronen illustrates by describing how a child learns language only through interaction. Chang concedes "two facts: we all have a father and a mother, and we speak," agree also with Cronen's emphasis on vision. Later, Cronen will characterize this vigorous exchange between them as a horror to those with a strict or narrow conception of dialogue, and Chang will call it "quotidian. We do this every day."

Hmmm. Yes. I am getting ready to "say something" (but certainly not everything! and guaranteed not yet well enough) by building on the use I made of their exchange to illustrate a distinction between representation and symbolism. After some more discussion on Derrida's emphasis on language, Lankala asserts, "The whole question of naming comes up because he’s talking of language as the force which calls culture into being, and culture is nothing but this whole process of naming."

• Lankala: Leaving Derrida’s book aside, how can one disagree that culture is nothing but naming? Culture means singular. The point exists because someone is naming someone else…. It exists because it is named as a culture….. [this is] "naming" properly understood; it is not making things ostensive.


• Cronen: Then what is [language]?


• Chang: [Language] allows us to call things out from their natural state, again. Not fixing a lexicon, it is about establishing presence.


• Cronen: [The] complexitiy [is] in the interactive process.


• Chang: No. Naming – we found the point of disagreement. Interaction makes no sense without naming having already taken place.

It is this "point of disagreement" that I will take up, eventually. First, here is the rest of my re-construction of the conversation. Lankala moves to another interesting question:

"the relationship that Crépon makes between language and how language is appropriated in movements seeking nationalism or defining identity. [Crépon uses a] completely opposite definition of what language should mean from the way language is generally used in more mainstream cultural studies tradition, [which is] as the language of the colonizer or language of the oppressed without calling into question or breaking apart what language actually is, what its function is in defining that movement or culture, where is it from. [Derrida and Crépon’s] move goes one step beyond the relationship between language-culture to discuss the functional role of language in creating a culture….."

What ensues is a discussion of how forced multilingualism can lead to monolingualism (e.g., the case of India), and problems of language being misconceived as a possession - the "mother tongue," as if language exists outside of/beyond the "me," which returns us to the beginning assumptions of appropriation (for identity construction: of "self", "culture," "nation," etc.)

• Cronen adds that promise is "linked to the notion that meaning is not just a presence but a pointing-into the future" (drawing on William James).
• Chang: A promise never promises anything, nothing but another promise. This is why it is linked to time, the future; that’s why they smuggle in Kant (law) and Kafka, how can they assemble these ideas together?!
• Cronen: Dewey [also, with his notion of] ends in view, not fixed. Using my vocabulary, [there is] always a punctuality, not a destination, [there is] always opening up, even when we think we’ve fulfilled ... still [there] opens up a new horizon of possibility
• Chang: If fulfilled, [a promise] is not a promise any more, it is not promising.

Finally the giants (!) relented enough (!) to let us peons into the fray. :-)

I mentioned the ideas I'm working on regarding interpretation as a way to keep promising, to keep language and meaning in motion. George asked about the use of the term, "political." Ellen brought in the notion of "power."

The entire 90 minutes rocked!

Received via email, March 21, 2008:

"I understand you're using my book in your course this semester. May I ask how you're using it? Colleges all over are adopting my book for a wide range of classes, and I try and see how it's used.

If it's a major part of a class, perhaps I could stop by and talk to your students.

Best wishes
John Elder Robison"

Hi John,

I am glad you contacted me.

How did you find out that I'm using your book?!

I like the idea of you coming to the class. I need to think about how and when. The course is "group dynamics" - we are studying ourselves going through stages of group development, which means self-reflection and interpersonal communication skills are crucial. The Aspergian way of stating the obvious (i.e., what you observe, think, and feel) is a trait that I admire and find immeasurably useful in groups who seek to understand relationships among themselves (say, within the group of students and me in this course) and between them/ourselves and others (e.g., people in other classes at UMass; people who aren't in college; or people in college in other countries).

The first idea that comes to my mind - if this seems good to you? - is to have you read and respond to some of the public conversation that I've structured through the use of weblogs (I have one for teaching, and each student has created one for certain assignments). If that goes well, then you could come to the class in person...

What do you think?

"If your students have blogs on this tell me where they are and I'll look."

I wrote about your book for the first time today, in the blog I use for teaching. Students will probably not do their homework and respond until next Sunday or Monday, but there are many links to their work/writing so far if you want to get a sense of how things are developing: Why are you writing sideways?

Hi John,

A friend read the same link I sent you and said it is "thick." I know. The links to student blogs are way at the end, when I'm writing about the various cultural terms that they analyzed. (Or you can wait until they post replies to that blogpost and then follow the links.)

Class was not well attended yesterday (first day after spring break) but half-a-dozen students had read your book completely and others were a third of the way into it. They really wanted to talk about it! Obviously they benefited and were excited. I will post some pictures from notes I wrote on the board and send you that link when it's ready.

steph

"Steph,

Your use of my book in this context is unlike any other application I've seen to date. And that's interesting to me. And I do agree, the blog entry is "thick."

I have talked to parents, people on the autism spectrum, special ed teachers, psychologists, psychiatrists, neurologists, and many other sorts of specialists.

You, however, stand distinctly apart from all those folks.

You wrote:
Robison's tendency was to answer "with whatever I had been thinking." This is not so different, in my mind, from people who simply say the first thing that comes to mind. Neither response involves any anticipation - there is no forward-in-time quality of considering how the thing one says might lead to a certain kind of outcome, be it as mundane as a polite social interaction or as intense as a long-term relationship. And then, even within the range of possible responses that one might choose among, hoping that they might lead to the outcome you want (or at least one that you dimly perceive or otherwise don't outright dislike), you can still get it wrong.

To me, the interesting phrase there is: Neither response involves any anticipation

To have anticipation, I think one must have a grasp of what the autism shrinks call Theory of Mind, or the recognition that other people have their own unique thoughts.

I am very focused, and very driven. In many cases, I enter into exchanges with other people with some goal in mind. That goal may be to buy, sell, learn, teach, etc. It could be almost anything. However, even though I may have such a goal clearly in mind, I may still answer with whatever I am thinking about.

For me, there may not be a clear and strong connection between the stream of words I address to a person, and my overarching goal in the ongoing interaction with that person. Yes, while that response is happening, I still retain an anticipation; an overall goal for my dealing with the person. It's just that the actual spoken words may not take me closer to the goal; indeed, they may take me farther away.

As a child, that was a nearly insurmountable problem as I described in the book. As an articulate and mentally agile adult, it's usually something I can recover from in the ongoing stream of conversation.

I see new twists to this stuff every day. Very interesting.

Best wishes
John"

I did the math. :-)

My body's capacity to contain joy maxxed out last night at the All Things Spring Potluck, replete with a special bean (with bits of corn) dip.





Meanwhile, one Bird of Paradise begins to peek out amidst daffodil glory. (Notice Muffin is determined to remind me of her claim to everything; a fact countered by Work It Out playing in the background.)

I am reading Monolingualism of the Other in preparation for a talk with Chang and Lankala this Wednesday.

Derrida risks two propositions:

1. We only ever speak one language.
2. We never speak only one language.

Meanwhile, I enjoyed another Equinox sunset and am delighted by the opening of my Irish Daffodils! (Birds of Paradise soon to follow...)

We started at the UMass Sunwheel circa 6:15 pm. The clouds cooperated, beginning to clear an hour in advance of sunset. The wind was bitter, though: fortitude was required to make it through until the moon cleared the 7 degrees of forest obscuring the horizon in the East.


Dr. Judith Young from the Astronomy Department at UMass regaled the crowd (52 brave souls who stayed) with enlarged photos, anecdotes, history, and education. I was struck by the range of nuance embedded in the careful alignment of static stone with the motions of our solar system. In particular, I learned of the Callanish Stones for the first time. Dr. Young showed some pictures and explained the presence of an "extra" stone that - if one stands just right - creates a visual notch with the stone next to it that outlines the precise location on the horizon where the summer solstice sunrise occurs. "They found," she said, "a way to let us know."

Hmmm, a way to know - what? If there is a message in these stone circles, what might it be? Was there an active intent to leave a sign that would invite us to wonder? What would people from four or five millennia ago want to convey to us, their descendants in a future as dim to them as their present is removed in a distant past? I considered these questions: they want us to know there is another mode of perception. They want us to remember that scientific measurement with all its technical specificity is not the only way to apprehend life. (My conviction was profound in the moment. Some hours later, I imagine that the possibilities of their intended meanings range beyond imagination, yet in this time - our time, now - this meaningfulness jumped into consciousness.)
I missed parts of the lecture walking around taking photographs and whispering with friends, still - the qualities of the equinox that I did learn struck me as propitious. Were there four? Equal lengths of night and day, sun (and moon?) rising and setting due east and west, sun directly above the equator, and . . . well. At the moment I heard the list I thought, this is exactly how I need to go about my upcoming research. (When I told Anne the good news she described it as "impossibly cool!" "I know!" I hollered.)

Just-in-Time and I spoke about the need for evenness in one's emotional life as we drove from the Sunwheel to the apartment for soup. Suppose 80% of your emotional experience is "okay," 10% is elation, and 10% is all the other stuff? That 80% takes in a lot, eh? It's good! Is such a spread worth the highs of the high and the lows of the low? "Hey, maybe I've already done my ten percent? Five years or so of the lows....finished! It's out of my system! Been there, done that!" :-)

The Béguine Cream Soup was a hit. (Yah!) I confess I doctored it a bit. (Who, me?) Check out this description from Twelve Months of Monastery Soups:

"This recipe is a version of a soup from Flanders in northern Belgium. Its name suggests it originated among the Béguines. Béguinage was a medieval institution that allowed pious laywomen to lead a form of religious life in common, without becoming actual nuns. It was one of the few alternatives to either marriage or the cloister...In general, they were a progressive group of women who wished to assert, as much as the times allowed, their independence from men. They were women of great culture, and some of them became renowned mystics."

The recipe calls for chervil, which I could not locate. Having received an email from one of my teachers about the Apache New Year (which, like many other cultures, recognizes the spring equinox as the beginning of the year), sage seemed an ideal replacement. We were cold coming in from our hour in the wind; it took a few minutes to settle in and get the soup warming. Soon enough, the Wanokip put on The Doors and the party started. :-) Pete and Sinead got me going on my research question, so much so that I had to take notes! They gave me an absolutely crucial framing, later clarified even further by The Ever-Smiling Evil Indian and Ambarish, who asked, "Isn't it obvious [why certain people use or don't use the interpreters]?" Aha! The fact that they are making a choice is obvious, but the reasons for the choice are not! I have no idea what their reasons are, and (to be honest, gulp) I'm not sure (?) they have thought (?) very much (?) about it themselves. This is what I need to find out!

Searching human behavior for patterns is not so far removed from searching the stars for meaning, is it? I mean, come on, Renee found her way to the event by approximating a time in memory and correlating that temporal position with its internal references to other times (if she received the invitation two days ago and the event was specified as "tomorrow" then that meant "tonight" not Friday). A skill she has improved, apparently, after reading Longitude by Dava Sobel. (What role does the chronometer now play as "control" in a cybernetic civilization?!) Then there was the long convo with Anuj about inattention blindness and the basic fact that our brain must select - and therefore also de-select - where to aim one's focus. (We also conjured the amazingly cool idea of eye tracking deaf people as they watch sign language.)

Obviously, with so much goin' on in this puny brain, I had to take notes and remind everyone about the blog. "Is this informed consent?" I was challenged. I responded with the options. "Shut the F*** Up" has been duly noted.

Some interesting ideas presented at this conference on Social media and the future of PR in Brussels last week. Erkan posted some pix of slides on Facebook that caught my attention. Possibly I'll be able to access papers once they are uploaded. Meanwhile, there is a lot of other neat stuff open to the public already.

Obama balances on a tightwire in which he affirms everyone's basic humanity. I would hate to be judged solely on the basis of selected excerpts in other people's talk! His analysis is incisive: some people would prefer to perpetuate the myth that all whites are inherently racist, instead of promoting a politics that acknowledges growth and change as real. We are not limited by history, even if we foolishly choose to repeat it. The possibility of choice exists. A different future, diverging from the trajectories set so deeply in motion, is within reach. Such a future will not be secured by one vote, or even by one election. The pull of the familiar will persist, the risks of uncertainty continue to challenge. How deeply do we desire a new framework for our country and the world? We can set a new path, and not only this: we can follow through to the promise of absorbing pain and establishing new, healthier, and happier social and economic relations.

An analysis from the Boston Globe: "Obama goes beyond generalities...", which is a rhetorical skill he has utilized effectively all along.

Israel and Palestine may be the world's best example. News media repeats the fiction of "the Palestinians" as if Hamas and Fatah represent something in common. Hamas follows the breach of the Gaza Strip wall with Egypt with increased suicide bombings in Israel, and Israelis initiate attacks on Palestinian neighborhoods that are disturbingly like pogroms.

What happened to the peacemakers?

Where are those who know how to do dialogue?

Meanwhile, Navy Carrier Squadrons philosophize: "Move Along" -

and George W. Bush plays cheerleader:

Bush, who used his family connections to avoid Vietnam, told troops serving in Afghanistan on Thursday that he is “a little envious” of their adventure there, saying it was “in some ways romantic.”

I don't know for how long the dancing jig from Sinead (courtesy of Blue Mountain) will be viewable but it is quite entertaining. :-)

"Hope this greeting finds you 'having the craic' on this festive day....wherever you are, around the globe!"

No spilled pints here. (Yet.)

I'm closer to Brian Butterworth than Stanislas Dehaene, as this comparative review describes:

"Butterworth is a neuropsychologist who came to studying mathematical ability via his work on natural languages....Dehaene, on the other hand, started off as a mathematician, but became fascinated by the abstractness of his subject. He began to wonder where mathematical ability came from, and why some people are so bad at it, and others so good."

The Mathematical Brain appeals to me from the start, with the author's writing style being compared with Oliver Sacks (Seeing Voices: A Journey into the Land of the Deaf). The Number Sense reminds me of Barry Mazur's, Imagining Numbers (which I started and now want to finish).

The reviewer argues, "cognitive science tells us that it is possible to teach mathematics in a way that fits with our psyche, a way that minimises maths-induced fear and boredom." Lots of "sideways" exposure is doing it for me....all that three-dimensional American Sign Language interpreting has (seriously!) re-wired my conceptual circuits for math.

Just last week, the New Yorker's "Numbers Guy" wrote about whether our brains are actually wired for math, featuring Stanislas Dehaene.

One tidbit: in addition to a certain kind of math perception, the language you use also influences cogniive processing:

English is cumbersome. There are special words for the numbers from 11 to 19, and for the decades from 20 to 90. This makes counting a challenge for English-speaking children, who are prone to such errors as “twenty-eight, twenty-nine, twenty-ten, twenty-eleven.” French is just as bad, with vestigial base-twenty monstrosities, like quatre-vingt-dix-neuf (“four twenty ten nine”) for 99. Chinese, by contrast, is simplicity itself; its number syntax perfectly mirrors the base-ten form of Arabic numerals, with a minimum of terms. Consequently, the average Chinese four-year-old can count up to forty, whereas American children of the same age struggle to get to fifteen. And the advantages extend to adults. Because Chinese number words are so brief—they take less than a quarter of a second to say, on average, compared with a third of a second for English—the average Chinese speaker has a memory span of nine digits, versus seven digits for English speakers.

This is pretty cool (better than 4-20). 3.14, or 3/14, or March 14 is a day to celebrate the mathematical ratio pi, and is coincidentally Einstein's birthday. Fortuitious? :-)

"Pi, more commonly known by the 16th letter of the Greek alphabet, is the most widely-known mathematical constant in the world."

"While there are many infinitely long numbers in maths, pi is the only one in which an infinitely simple idea - the circle - unfolds into an infinitely complex value."

"For 3,500 years, humankind has attempted to solve the puzzle of pi, also called "squaring the circle", calculating the exact ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. However, no matter how hard anyone tries, they find only a new approximation."

"...pi beckons us on further. Some mathematicians believe that if we could only find some pattern in pi, even some hint that there were more fours than sevens, it could lead to a huge breakthrough in our understanding of the universe."

"The late physicist Carl Sagan, in his novel Contact, imagined a time when Earth scientists were sufficiently able to unravel enough of pi to find encoded messages from our creators-messages that would allow our primitive race to leap into a greater universal awareness. After all, if you were going to hide a long numeric message in the very fabric of our reality, pi would be a natural place to do it."

• November 10, 2007: "nothing is straightforward"


• November 11: "Buy before you die!"


• November 13: Yad Vashem


• November 13: Palestinian peace activists


• November 14: "Go ahead and see what you can do."


• November 16: ownership impossible, accountability within reach


• November 23: a pledge for the future


• November 24: Oslo


• November 24: "a conscious depot of history"


• November 27: ever hopeful (Anapolis)


• November 27: Spots of Light


• March 8, 2008: Dialogue: Violence

Thoughts in anticipation:

• October 27, 2007: preview: all hallows


• July 27: "a hui hou"


• January 24: DUO II

Index from the first DUO conference (Chicago)

UMass will host an extraordinary event in early April: Landscapes of Violence. I approach it with two trajectories, one from the Dialogue under Occupation conferences (DUO 1 in Chicago, 2006; DUO 2 in the West Bank, 2007). The "dialogue" of the DUO conferences is still
"young" (as in, "new" for us in conversation with each other), but I remain hopeful that we academics and activists will be the ones to learn to talk soldiers and politicians toward other tactics. If not us, who?

I am not sure if this event in December, "States of Exception, Surveillance and Population Management: The Case of Israel/Palestine," is directly related to - or an outgrowth of - the work of DUO II participants, but the content certainly overlaps. Perhaps there is a dialogic trajectory we can build?

In considering the upcoming UMass conference, am also considering the students in the Group Dynamics course I'm teaching. Several of them mentioned concerns with a recent string of threats on campus (three messages, found in three different locations on different days, with similar content). Of course many in the campus community were affected by the shootings at Virginia Tech ... this instances are not comparable to the systemic and horrible repetitions of violence being played out among Palestinians and Israelis (or, arguably, among Colombians - with/against FARC and/or the paramilitaries and between Colombia and Venezuela) - but these are the touchpoints of violence in the lives of young U.S. Americans with which we must work.

Writing and Violence, April 20, 2007
We are Virginia Tech, April 21, 2007
"a matter of language", April 26, 2007

The first-year students' College Writing CourseWiki has a record of student reactions to a bomb scare last fall. These were captured serendipitously as a coincidence of the day's assignment with the threat of violence.

At least one student in this semester's Group Dynamics course is vocal about hating politics (i.e., "I hate politics"), and seems intent (evidence of argumentative rhetoric?) to make sure (evidence of nonverbal behaviors?) that the product designed by this semester's course doesn't "go" in that direction...I am sure he is not the only one who feels this, even if he is the most forthcoming about it. What a tension to resolve, isn't it? The world we live in is brutal, even if - here at mostly-cushy UMass - we are protected and insulated from having the day-to-day violence in our faces . . .

I'm excused from interpreting this talk, Nanometers, Femtoseconds, and Yoctomoles: Molecular-Dynamics Simulations of Diffusion in Garnet, which means I can take notes and play!

The professor is highly billed: Dr. Bill Carlson from UT at Austin. You think I'm kidding about "play"? No way, Jose!
Scale: plates, rocks in the field, mineral grains, atoms....
Geologic Time:
Sizes from macro to nano.....

Diffusion gives direct qualitative information on rates and duration of metamorphic processes. Garnet is present in a wide range of bulk compositions, is stable, and has a wide array of diffusive behaviors that can be monitored to help us understand rates of diffusion and the mechanisms behind them. You know my parallel? Groups (of people) and knowledge/understanding (disseminated via language).

Main topic: Molecular dynamics simulations.... (microdynamic intergroup relations?)

Problem: existing theories for diffusion at atomic scale don't explain the phenomena we observe...(sounds like social science to me!)

Novel systematics emerge from recent synthesis...

Elastic Strain Theory (EST) - diffusion by vacancy mechanism: work is required to move atoms apart and squeeze this atom in-between them....larger atom = more strain which slows down diffusion. Like all theory (!) "sometimes it works...sometimes it doesn't."

There's a "misfit parameter" (!) = "how badly an atom fits in its new site." If a good fit, then the number is small; if the atom is too big you get a positive misfit parameter, if the atom is too small you get a negative misfit parameter. (No speculation, thanks, on the size or charge of my misfits!)

Observation: a fundamental gap in our knowledge, sometimes smaller sizes diffuse more slowly (instead of faster, which is what theory predicts).

How else can observable systematics be explained if EST doesn't do it? Perhaps - molecular dynamics (MD) ...EST relies on a visualization based on Hooke's Law ;MD takes into account all of the binary potential fields (imagine: all 756 (?) potential dyads we calculated as the total combination of interpersonal pairings (28 individuals, each with 27 unique relationships - except I don't know how to do this math!) in the current course on Group Dynamics).

Comparison of Potential Barriers for Atoms of Different Size: take potential energy, over time, and compare it to optimal diffusion (and yield (?) energy barriers to diffusion). EST predicts well for larger atoms.....for smaller atoms....start with lower energy well because more tightly bound....then a smaller atom has a larger energy barrier to cross than the optimum size....

MD: Newtonian mechanics at the atomic scale.... with forces as sum of pairwise interactions: interatomic potential, interatomic distance.

Interaction potentials:

1. ionic charges (same = repel; different = attract)


2. Born-Mayer repulsion - atoms can't get too close to each other, will begin to push each other away = gives an indication of how hard the atom is (large value = billiard ball, small value = nerf ball)


3. dipole attraction (van der Waal) - an induced dipole, if the force is strong it leads to a large value, if the force is small then it leads to small value.

Interaction parameters are determined by fitting MD models to data on static properties, eg...molar volumes, expansivities, compressivities (ah, no static properties in human relations - although social science (and basic prejudice) TRIES to make "identity" static/stereotypical...)

You have to select time steps that are a function of atomic motion...durations long enough to obtain many diffusive jumps... (time...always time! not to mention timing!)

Assign initial positions ("groups" never simply "begin" they are a convergence in time of dynamics already in motion, already historical), throw in random velocity (intensity/emphasis of attention to the storming phase of group development?)....

Diffusive Jump - Dr. Carlson shows an animation of atoms in motion.....cute!!! I wanna link to it! Could we model interpersonal relations in some kind of analogue? I've envisioned forever - do we have the technology?

Einstein relates diffusivity to time using a mean-square displacement.....average over all atoms, average over all possible times....get tau....then see how it changes, the slope is the diffusion quotient...

Vacancy concentrations are crucial - but how do we figure this out? One method comes up with a physically impossible result (100% vacancy) which indicates some of the physics is still being missed in the calculations. The standard MD simulations.... tend to significantly underestimate.... (something crucial. Kinda like social science, language, social construction of reality, you know what I mean).

Tracer diffusion simulations: replace 10% of the atoms with some other elements and examine the rate of diffusion of that element. (Can I just say, as if anything only ever goes in one way?!!!!!?)

Failure to generate (via simulation) the relationships that match measured behavior in strain relationships but the gaps/discrepancies point us to what we're missing... STATIC properties all MATCH up But the DYNAMICS do not!!! (Same as with social science?!)
Failing to account for what's happening to atoms when there are other atoms in the vicinity. Different cases pending varying polarizability. (I swear this is group relations jargon!)

I haven't busted any of them for awhile.

Our celebrity chemist gets in a tease against (?) engineers, although I have to say, the students I've had with Asperger's in Communication classes have contributed to the learning processes (interpersonal communication, group dynamics) in extraordinary ways.

A brilliant all-purpose academic advertises 60 second science . Cool! :-)

Gifts still accrue to the most recent birthday boy - whose half-hourly fortunes, apparently, ranged from the moribund to the obscene.

It's too bad Brattleboro wouldn't take a stand against the FCC, but they're following up on earlier calls for the impeachment of G.W. Bush with a new call to arrest him and Dick Cheney, too.

The non-binding resolutions are symbolic; whereas resisting the FCC would have required follow-through. :-/
I'm proud, nonetheless.

I know its just my peculiar egoism, that brand of juvenile "it's all about me" self-centeredness, but - come on - it is rather coincidental isn't it? Top headlines in international news involve Israel and the Palestinians (where I visited last fall) and the bickering of South America's once-upon-a-time "odd couple" (about which I've become interested/involved since the FARC kidnapping of friends of a friend in January).

I just recognize my being as an intersection of so many societal valences....it doesn't mean any of these largescale dynamics are "about" me or have anything special to do with me (or me with them) - but I feel them. Whatever sensory mechanisms enable such perceptions (explanations range from delusional psychosis to overactive imagination), they compel me. This leaves me with options from active resistance to passive ignoring to casual acknowledgment to proactive engagement. In the old days (read: exuberant immaturity), "choice" was not part of the package. I reacted, sans critical thought or consideration of consequences.

Speaking of coincidences....I began writing this yesterday (2008-03-05 14:41:14) and saved it to finish later...the day prior I lent my English (!) to a letter on behalf of Ana and her family to reserve an academic invitation for her even though "at this time we are unable to predict when Ana Maria will be able to continue her promising work in conservation research...To date, we have received no information from her captors, and are thus unable to speculate when she may be released."

That girl knows a helluva lot more about being "at the center" than I do. All the best wishes to her for a smooth re-entry and redoubled sendings of spirit to Alf.

This semester I've had the opportunity to work at the extremes: one professor who has seamlessly blended me into her extensive use of the chalkboard, and another whose gaze apparently registers only empty space whenever she accidentally happens to glance my direction. The contrast heightens my belief that attempts to make ourselves "invisible" (while interpreting) are worse than "professional": they are downright counterproductive.

For instance, the day I knew I could not possibly reconstruct the meaning for something uttered very quickly yet of obvious conceptual importance for the subject matter, and had to ask professor #2 (the one for whom language accommodation is nonexistent) for a repetition or clarification (I forget which), an expression crossed her face as if a voice had come from the woodwork. Her answer was curt (to say the least). However, I had established my presence (albeit momentarily). An interesting consequence of actually "being there" was that a non-deaf student requested my attention to a sight-line that I thought I was not blocking but, in fact, was. This had been going on for some time; the students had suffered simply because the non-verbal behavior of the professor indicated that I was to be ignored. I am always annoyed by teachers who assume that they have no responsibility for accommodating a bilingual situation - as if the interpreter wields some special magic that automatically transforms the laws of physics such that what you say is signed by me in fully comprehensible fashion before you're even done saying it, so that you can pick up and go on without pause, without any need to confirm meaningful understanding!

It is this matter of time that seems to drive much of the refusal to recognize the presence, and unavoidable effect, of having a language interpreter involved in the interaction. Not that everyone does this!

But here's the rub:

the time we experience bears little relation to time as read on a clock. The brain creates its own time, and it is this inner time, not clock time, that guides our actions.

This dilemma with time came sharply into focus for me while interpreting some one act plays. Occasionally a dialogue would be paced in such a way by the verbal turn-taking between the actors that the interpreters could replicate it in its entirety, building in the proper visual cues, creating pauses - fully mimicking the action instead of being in a constant rush to catch up to it. Yes, it may have been obvious that the interpreters were a turn "behind" the actors in the dialogue, but I can imagine that this would not appear so except at the beginning and end of the scene... if you were bilingual you could follow the auditory-and-visual languages in the echo or prelude, if not, you could focus exclusively on the accessible language and tune is as you wish to the additional layer of communicative spectrum. A sophisticated troupe could craft storylines that complement and replicate each other in ASL and English - neither audience would miss out nor find the process of interpretation distracting because the languages would be part of the weft and weave of the action.

It may sound abstract, but I'm closer to an articulation of such a bi-linguistic merger than I've ever been because of the experience working with professor #1 this semester. She was as surprised as most teachers are when I walk in on the first day of class and introduce myself, "Hi, I'm the interpreter for your class." Usually there is not much time to talk about the how (and, in my experience, those conversations don't usually mean much until we've actually gotten through a class or three). On the first day of class I'm usually a bit more concerned about where the Deaf person chooses to sit, and how that affects my range of choices for creating good sightlines between them, me, and the action. If a teacher uses powerpoint, I have to be near the screen, if they use the blackboard, I've got to be near where they are writing , if they lecture without visual aids, then I need to stick close by. Most teachers move, they pace, point things out on the board, may even drift among student's chairs....I have to judge whether the talk coming from the person is most important, or the visual matter they are talking about (on the board or screen), and position myself accordingly.

Most interpreters plant themselves in one place, and deaf people are accustomed to this - they know the interpreter is always going to be in that location. But the ACTION is happening ALL OVER! The meanings move, the important stuff is not only the conceptual message that an interpreter repackages in another language - it is the relationship between those words and the person saying them, to their audience, with particular intentions in mind, and - especially in the case of teaching - with relevant symbols or concepts, a diagram or an equation represented in visual form. I don't have to know how to do calculus, for instance. But I sure as heck need to comprehend the relationships between numbers, the rationale for procedures, and the ways different applications relate to each other! If I do not, then I cannot sign them in a meaningful way.

No one has ever said, "That looks like babble," but it must. I know - plenty of interpreters say, "I just sign the words and they get it because they do know the subject"....I have even had this experience myself. One deaf student in an upper level math course on matrices used to love teasing that she could tell the difference between when I understood what I was signing and when I didn't. How many deaf people just put up with us when we don't understand because it's better than nothing? ugh.

I know that it matters, now, for two reasons. One is that when I get a concept it enables me to sign it differently and I watch the deaf person's mental lightbulb go off simultaneously. This is wicked cool. Obviously, there's an argument to be made for specialist interpreters in the maths and other deeply-developed sciences. But here's the thing, if the teacher understands that the interpreter must understand, and if the teacher realizes that there is no one:one correspondence between English words and ASL signs, and if the teacher is able to incorporate the added dimension of this extra mediator between them and one (or more) students in the class, then magic can happen.

I'm not kidding! I enter a math classroom this spring, introduce myself per usual, and the teacher and I have the usual brief conversation:


You'll use the board a lot?
Yea.
Ok, so I'll try to stay out of your way but I need to be able to be in the same sightline with the student and whatever you're writing.
Ok.


After the first day, immediate debrief: "How did that work?" the teacher asked me! I can tell you I almost fell over. Very well, I responded, I think I stayed out of your way, eh? A few times I get into my head working on the puzzle of expressing a concept and can't simultaneously move out of her path as she fills the boards from right to left....but no problem, she simply moves around me and we continue. Oh, I remember: can you explain this concept of differentiation? Because the sign in ASL for "different" implies that there is no relationship between the objects being described, but I figured out that in the math usage, "differentiation" is a process that can be reversed: in other words, there is a very definite relationship, which seems more like a transfer between terms rather than a categorical distinction. I showed her the sign, "BUT" which is also "DIFFERENT," as we spoke. She began to wrap her mind around the challenge of translation.

We get easier over the next few classes as I find the positions that work best depending on whether she's working the right, center, or left sides of the board. We pace back and forth, with me shifting from right-to-left of her, and sometimes lagging behind as I make the connection between what I'm interpreting and the part of the procedure she wrote on the board several seconds before. I keep myself within her field of vision as much as possible, as well as keeping her, me, and the board in the visual field of the deaf student. It's a kind of choreography. She offers to meet with me to explain the trajectory of the course, help me get a handle on the conceptual flow. My questions are so basic it's embarrassing.

But the meeting helps, and a rapport continues to develop. She knows she's not teaching me, per se, but she is trying to provide the conceptual framework so that the particular lessons make sense. She has grasped that - in order for me to interpret well - I need to know not only the details of the immediate lesson, but especially how that lesson relates to the larger principles this course is all about.

The day I figured out how to sign anti-differentiation conceptually accurately, the deaf student's eyes lit up. I could almost SEE her thinking, "Oh, THAT's how those two processes are related to each other!" Meanwhile, it isn't just my own comprehension that is improving. The teacher has been listening when I've spoken about sightlines, she now notices how far behind her I am in the interpretation and takes advantage of those moments to pause. "I'm sure the other students appreciate it too," she said to me one day, "we are covering this material very quickly." She's gotten so good at observing the visual information that most non-deaf people never even register, that she is aware of when I am waiting for the deaf student to look at me so that I can interpret! I've never had this occur before; I think it is quite extraordinary. She'll see that I'm not signing, look at the deaf student, and then make a judgment how long to wait until she continues. Sometimes she does start before I've delivered all the info to date, and of course I get lost somewhere and have to ask a clarifying question. No problem: immediate and precise repetition is provided.

Last week, some new concepts came up: convergence and divergence. I had convergence down but the way I was understanding divergence it was like the line never catches up to the limit, the limit is constantly receding. But I wasn't sure and I kept listening for some hint about how to convey the concept within the three-dimensionality of American Sign Language. Finally, I asked for clarification. "For the interpreter," I said, "I need to understand the concept of divergence so I can sign it accurately." I showed her what I was doing for convergence, then, as I adapted to show the way I thought I was grasping divergence she jumped in, explaining that the line always crosses the limit, there IS no limit, not because the line can't catch it, but because the line always exceeds it. Wow! I was excited. :-) Ok, I confess, some of it was selfish (I understand how mathematical divergence contrasts with mathematical convergence!) but the neatest thing was the simple 20 seconds it took, the natural flow we've developed where a question from the interpreter is obviously not a reflection on the deaf student, and all that is required is a precise, focused response: a genuine collaboration in guaranteeing conceptual understanding across two perceptually- and grammatically-distinctive languages.

Again, the deaf student's nod of comprehension provided the icing on the cake.

Which way will this bit of public (!) feedback be read?

1. "these awkward scenarios Steph likes to impose on us."


2. "these awkward scenarios Steph likes to impose on us."


3. "...despite these awkward scenarios Steph likes to impose on us?"

Now, THAT is a beautiful example for an in-class test!

That most kids lie should not be surprising, that they lie because their parents teach - even validate the behavior - may come as a shock.

Although we think of truthfulness as a young child’s paramount virtue, it turns out that lying is the more advanced skill. A child who is going to lie must recognize the truth, intellectually conceive of an alternate reality, and be able to convincingly sell that new reality to someone else. Therefore, lying demands both advanced cognitive development and social skills that honesty simply doesn’t require. “It’s a developmental milestone,” Talwar has concluded.

Reflecting on my own teenage lying behavior, I definitely fit this pattern: "Any sudden spate of lying, or dramatic increase in lying, is a danger sign: Something has changed in that child’s life, in a way that troubles him. “Lying is a symptom—often of a bigger problem behavior,” explains Talwar. “It’s a strategy to keep themselves afloat.” The thing is, I don't have a sense that my parents lied on purpose, rather that they simply said nothing about important things - the silences were as devastating as any overt attempt to tell an untruth.
I know my parents were unskilled at addressing the difficult situations we faced. I don't blame them (anymore, grin), but I do still struggle - albeit less often - with residues of adaptive self-training: the things I learned to do to protect myself which have often played out in creating distance instead of intimacy.

Laughing at myself helps. :-) For instance, "to an adolescent, arguing is the opposite of lying." I enjoy arguing - even if my emotions get involved (usually as frustration or exasperation, if I label myself). I take the presence of emotion as more information: something about the topic-at-hand is important to me! What? Why? Maybe I am doomed to a life-stage developmental plateau: permanent adolescence. :-)

Now, here's a hell of a statistic, evidence of which I consistently witness in college classrooms: "The average Pennsylvania teen was 244 percent more likely to lie than to protest a rule." Some democracy, huh? Can you say, "freedom of speech"?! I agree, wholeheartedly, that "Certain types of fighting . . . [are] ultimately signs of respect—not of disrespect." I also believe, in principle, that "fighting strengthen[s] ... relationship." Conflict, in-and-of-itself, is normal: "the variable that seem[s] to really matter [is] how the arguments [are] resolved."

I totally appreciate the author's divulgence of how "having lying on my radar screen has changed the way things work around the Bronson household. No matter how small, lies no longer go unnoticed. The moments slow down, and I have a better sense of how to handle them" (emphasis added).

As I have worked through this article, applying its lessons to my own life, I also recognize the power of framing. I imagine that the legacy of family habits for dealing with conflict, lying, honesty, etc., could appear in other venues as part of the stage of group development pithily labeled "storming." Bronson asks (emphasis added): "Does how we deal with a child’s lies really matter down the road in life?"

The most devastating (to me) finding of this research into lying is how adults often recall an apparently innocuous lie from childhood as their worst:

DePaulo had to create a category in her analysis just for them. “I had to reframe my understanding to consider what it must have been like as a child to have told this lie,” she recalls. “For young kids, their lie challenged their self-concept that they were a good child, and that they did the right thing.”

Many subjects commented on how that momentous lie early in life established a pattern that affected them thereafter . . . The lies they tell early on are meaningful. The way parents react can really affect lying.”

A Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill is up for debate and passage in the United Kingdom which uses language about in vitro fertilisation (IVF) in which, critics charge, "a deaf person or embryo with the genes for deafness does not have equal status ('must not be preferred’) to a person without the genes for deafness."

The specific wording at question is in Clause 14 (linked above), and - extremely alarming if you think Deaf people have as much a right "to be" as any other human being - "a number of commentary notes and ‘consultation’ documents that indicate Deaf people are being used as an example of what this amendment would entail in practice."

Filmmakers are now working on a documentary on "the issues arising" from this Clause. (The documentary will presumably include concerns of other communities, for instance those considered with the categoraization and treatment of gender related abnormalities.) Kate of Popkorn offers to interested parties in the U.S. and U.K. an open invitation to comment or participate in the documentary. She does say that in the current version, "Deafness would be included as an ‘abnormality’, therefore any parents would be forced to choose embryos with hearing genes as opposed to those with deaf genes. This is further elaborated upon in the official explanatory notes of the bill…"

Some time back, in an email to participants of the Dialogue under Occupation conference in Abu Dis, Palestine, I made a statement comparing the (historically) recent fears of Palestinians with the millenial fears of Jewish people concerning identity-based violence. A response from an Israeli participatn indicated an interpretation that such Jewish fears need more support and validation.

No, that is not what I meant! I was arguing that Israelis need to break out of strategies that are held hostage to this fear. In a feature story about Barack Obama's campaigning within the American Jewish community, J. J. Goldberg, editorial director for The Forward, a Jewish newspaper, is quoted, putting into words the tension that I meant to highlight.

Some Jewish leaders said the anxiety over Mr. Obama might reveal more about Jews than about the candidate. By their analysis, those who heed the [inflammatory anti-Obama] e-mail are generally older and have closer ties to Israel. The break is between “those who are motivated by traditional Jewish liberalism and those motivated by traditional Jewish anxiety over Israel.”

The tension between "traditional Jewish liberalism" and "traditional Jewish anxiety" is at obvious play in the peace efforts I observed among Israelis and Palestinians (and outsiders, academics and activists). The liberal rhetoric is often not followed up with action, the absence of which is justified by the anxiety. I'm impressed with Obama's insistence that the Palestinians are getting a raw deal (they are) and with his obvious intention to find new ways to mediate between entrenched extremes.

Yea, I watched it: total eclipse of the moon. Propped myself up in bed, backwards, on pillows, so I could gaze out the window. I worked between gazes, some laptop project - possibly related to teaching? I can't recall for sure, now.... been behind and falling behinder on the daily blogging routine....

I thought about time, trying to project myself backwards millennia to imagine the experience from the point-of-view of humans of the moment. I considered both the incredibly focused attention to global detail that enabled the prediction of such events as well as the primal uncertainties such an unusual event must necessarily evoke.

Yes, I've seen an eclipse before, glanced up at certain times for perhaps an entire minute to see that, indeed, it was fully shrouded. Maybe peeked a few other times to catch a snapshot of its progress. Actually watching the show for four hours, though....never. And I couldn't quite pull it off this time, either. The eclipse was the main event, but I was dually engaged with a computer project. I looked up quite often through the beginning of the partial eclipse, each time gazing long enough for my mind to wonder. I found myself most engaged during the shifts: first entry into the penumbra, transition into the umbra, and especially out of the umbra, re-entering the penumbra. The second half of the eclipse seems to me the most dramatic - unfortunately by then the moon's orbit was out of window range except by extreme neck-craning. I let it go, unwilling to venture into the night's bitter cold.

As I create meaning for myself, based on speculation of the past, personal experiences, and visioning for the future, I choose to emphasize the re-emergence of the moon rather than its disappearance. I have become familiar with so many ways that I fall into some version of the glum moodies, yet not as intimately aware of how I transition out of them into happier states-of-being. I'm still caught off-guard more often than I'd like by events and circumstances that plunge me into uncertainties and insecurities, but I have - slowly, painstakingly - begun to be more confident in the knowledge that the passage of time allows the re-establishment of a psychical foundation. Now, if I can just keep hold of this consciousness when I need it! 'Cuz the cycles will most likely continue to recur, one way or another.

Photos by Ambarish Karmalkar