A Place in Space: April 2005 Archives

The Stoics distinguished between the skopos (intentions) and telos (results) of an action.

Stated another way: The Stoic thesis is that while a skopos (expressed by a noun, "happiness") is a body, a telos (expressed by a verb, "being happy") is an incorporeal. The expressions "living" (zên) and "being happy" (eudaimonein) used in Stoic definitions of telos were regarded as "predicates". In other words, the end (telos) in the strict sense turns out to be a predicate, something incorporeal, not the thing itself, but the agent's attaining the thing. Thus "being happy" (eudaimonein) is the telos, not happiness.

More recently, it seems this distinction has been conflated.

"I take gods and spirits to be existentially coeval with the human, and think from the assumption that the question of being human involves the question of being with gods and spirits" (Dipesh Chakrabarty, 2000:16).

Thoughtful questioning is more important than construction of systems (Moran summarizing Heidegger 246)… can thoughtful questioning itself be structuring in a systemic way? Seeds are sown – production, address, negation, accessibility – a trajectory will unfold, its velocity overdetermined by dissent, assertion, resistance, negotiation. A group forms within the limits of language, guided by what ideology/ies? A Marxist view juxtaposes persons with historical movement; Marcuse claims Heidegger accounts for the bourgeois deconstruction of social life from within (Moran, 245). Are we transcendentally homeless?

“We are caught up in a structure of care…it is not a matter of indifference to us” (Moran, 241).

"The adjective "social" implies that the verb or noun to which it is applied is somehow more communicative, cooperative, and moderated by contact with human beings, than if it were omitted. That is, it implies that larger society has played some role in defining the idea or the principle."

"Social" implies relationship, refers to communal activity and the boundaries between public and private, and presupposes structures of human Being.

Activism is defined as conscious action to achieve a desired result.

Social activism, then, is intentional activity that seeks to achieve change in modes of human organization.

Yes, this is a title track by Sarah Mclachlin. I"m not sure if the lyrics or tone is what we might want to project, but I had the mental association as I was thinking about "the footage" as a model for publicity.

Also, what is Future Search?

global-local nexus

psychic coherence

foot fetishizing (!) no no no. It's sneaky publicity!!!!

I really wanna send my "seriously" snapshot to reddirt....

labor extension people? when/how/who else do we bring in?

the DEPARTURE matters

the performative nature of questioning: "every seeking gets guided beforehand by what is sought" (Heidegger, Being and Time, in Moran, Intro to Phenomenology, p. 236.)

Donna! "When biography matters." Not only Heidegger, but Althusser, who murdered his wife.

A reprise of the "mentoring" project? Really, the "international and domestic relations climate" project.

Difficult Dialogues, a grant from the Ford Foundation.

"I'm from that old-school feminist school that believes that so much of our personal is political, so the distinction seems arbitrary. Being political without being personal must be the exercise of privileged white men who can talk politics in the abstract without having to think about what it feels like to be called 'nigger' in the Castro, or 'faggot' at your black church." ~ Tim'm West, in bitch, issue no. 28. Interviewed by Matthue Roth.

GEO is calling for a 'No Business as Usual' grad employee walk-out and student boycott on Thursday, April 21. Full details are at http://people.umass.edu/geo/a21.html. This is planned in conjunction with Take Back UMass, which has been fighting the administration's anti-diversity initiatives for the past few years.

Danny - , esp. "the footage".

Oy. I just bailed on the Society for the Anthropology of Consciousness conference. None of the presenters were bad, it's just that they conform to the structure of making academic presentations ABOUT the object of study, rather than doing/being the subjects of study. Highlight? Meeting VJ. :-)

I'll go to the liminal lecture by Carlos Tanner tonight - hopefully it will be better.

I went to the plenary at the World Systems Conference this morning, and it was dynamic as all get out! Saskia Sassen turned me on. :-) Immanual Wallerstein set an important tone for the conference with his keynote last night, but he's not the most dynamic speaker. He might be in Spanish, but his pacing in English was a bit tough.

Of course, I'm envisioning the COM dept's proposed/potential conference for next year...

Can we effect change on the massive institution known as UMass? We're going to find out, April 21.

James - Future Search?

Shemaya and Kathy.

Donna - Heidegger - his exchange with ... that guy who confronted him (DRP).

S:D, L:D.

vision

phenomenology

esoteric knowledge