I need me some metis.
Stephen told us last spring about the fox and the hedgehog; then David got into it a few weeks ago. Seems the fairytales have the fox ultimately always losing. If such is true, (I'm in deep doo!) The intellectuals would try to have it otherwise.
I'm really psyched about my paper for Democracy, Rhetoric, and Performance. It's gonna be one long sucker, but fascinating (hopefully not only in a solipsistic way).
Oh how I long for something like this!
"Visible Evidence, in addition to its interdisciplinarity and intense collegial ambience among academics, students and practitioners, is notable for its "manageable" single-stream program, in which all panels are followed by all conference participants in a cumulative process of dialogue."
~ thanks, Sreela, for passing on the call. I'm not into visual media that much (maybe I should be, with the Deaf connection), but the conference set-up itself is intriguing. :-)
~ from David. :-) Sound required.
http://studiointernos.interfree.it/bahianese.htm
http://svt.se/hogafflahage/hogafflaHage_site/Kor/hestekor.swf
That's
*"Butts to the gangway!"*
Seems a bit more apt (?) than "Back to the grindstone!" Don't you think? Not only are we working very hard, but there's this life/death/future career element to it all....
~ credit for the rephrase goes to an *anonymous* commgrad...lest I be blasted for sharing more "secrets"!
ìíinterpublic discursive interactioní. Craig Calhoun (1995, 242) has suggested that we therefore think in terms of ëspheres of publics,í conceptualizing these as ëmultiple intersections among heterogeneous publics, not only as the privileging of a single overarching publicíî (37). Except the blog is currently only one siteÖsuppose, a blog per class plus A Place in Space as the central heterogenous point? Experiment! ìConflictî independent study with Leda, Joanna, +? Raz? He could run an ìinternationalî blog while I run a domestic one? We could hide the URLs, keep the names private, not have the two groups read each otherís stuffÖ.until later, a point in time to be determinedÖ = ìpublic life in late-capitalist democracies involve a plurality of discourses competing for position in national spaceî (37).
Li interviewd me on Friday for the department "oral history project" that Leda is spearheading this semester (mentioned in the comments to "Ghetto Talk"). I'm not sure where it's going, what the plans for it are, but it was an opportunity for me to reflect on what I perceive in terms of present department dynamics and speculate with Li about possible meaning(s).
In my abnormal way, I woke up this morning thinking about it. :-)
Top complaint of department graduate students? Lack of resources.
Anyone care to confirm or comment? For instance, what is most relevant to your course of study that is not readily available within the department and/or for which you have to go some effort to acquire? (Effort that could be better spent directly on your studies.)
Camille, thanks so much for taking on the "grand narrative" bit and reminding us that's passe! The term that came to mind as an alternative is scaffolding. We need some kind of networked structure of tropes and metaphors that complement each other but can be deployed variously and flexibly in myriad situations.
In Class Cultures, we're reading Lisa Duggan's Twilight of Equality and it fills a gap that's been missing from the democracy class - redistribution as the unifying theme of all left politics.
Finally! Stephen asks, "how interesting do you think your personal turmoil is?" Answer: Not Very! But it is "what I'm left with" (group relations perspective) when other engagement isn't forthcoming. Not an accusation, just an observation. Not having done any in-depth study into the tragic/comic frames (I've been missing Li in this discussion, and the class overall this semester), it strikes me that the tragic frame is more individualistically (narcissistically?) based, and the comic frame requires (?) participation of others...or is that just where I go with it? :-) Maybe I can't find a comic basis on my own, or, at least, I can't generate a comic frame without some visceral sense of relational connectedness. Can't say I enjoy that aspect of my subjectivity, and wouldn't it be nice to change it! But, Stephen, you're the one who told me I can't interpellate myself, so who, I ask is interpellating me, in which ways?! Where's the "audience" for the comedy I also try to perform here? Do I suck so badly at it? ;-)
Last night's democracy class was a rollercoaster, to say the least! We started on the floor in the hall, got sucked into Iris' latest crisis and her protests of not wanting to disturb us. "They're all disturbed," said Stephen. "Some of us more than others," said I. "You've gone over the edge," said someone to somebody.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised, Stephen, that you read my tortured story on human nature as about the aftermath of the election and not as a reflection of my current whole life situation. 'Cuz in academia, that's what we do, and you're fulfilling your "function" in the DRP course as our instructor. Or, perhaps you elided that part "on purpose" out of some ethic of propriety - a boundary that shouldn't be crossed in polite company (i.e., publicly)?
I'm struck by the incredible energy on the DRP email list right now - getting religion back in schools, campaigning for school boards, all the great things we can read, and other "debates to be had" (Scott). No Doubt there is tremendous Education occurring at this very moment! And I don't mean to impugn it, although for some reason I keep getting pissed off when I start to write about this. Apologies for any misdirected stray rage.
