"There's nowhere else to go to create honest conversation about the working world."
So says Jeremy Blachman, writing an opinion piece for the NYTimes about the lack of legal protection for bloggers.
A Place in Space: August 2005 Archives
"...commenting on a set of papers is itself an intertextual exercise. To point out connections among the papers, and tie them in various ways to one's own text, is a metalevel intertextual task that - if (as one hopes) one is perspicacious or just lucky - is to co-construct the papers' cumulative effect. It is an interdiscursive task [...] intertextualit -, or interdiscursivity - as a specific semiotic effect must be created in practice" (Commentary: Knots and Tears in the Discursive Fabric Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, Vol 15, No 1, June 2005, p. 72).
There are many things I'd like to be able to record about today. In addition to the intentional (required) group work, there are the other conversations - about discourse and quantum physics with Jussi and Elin, about (in)sensitivity to invisible cultural boundaries, about the (un)exportability of american models, my own naivete/lack of education about world history...
This list is inevitably incomplete.
I have been busy in the SocialText webspace for the Dexus Conference. It's pretty wicked cool. :-) Learning a lot, making some friends - hope they last!
the team I'm on is gonna work on Blommaert's notion of polycentricity - figure out how to operationalize it.
Here's an article that links a notion of polycentricity (not Jan's) and part of Terry's asylum discourse data: Does polycentricity aid social cohesion?
Dexus officially starts tomorrow but the wiki space has been going for a couple of weeks. I'm relieved to see I'm not the TOP user (hats off to Tatjana for that!), but I made more changes than anyone else (except the Head Honcho, Paul) by at least a power of ten. gulp Kristina, Jessica, and Karin are also up there with the hit volume, not to mention Jussi, Elin, and Carina. Irene, Kris, Ehya, jbk, and air are also in triple digits.
But, the fact remains, I did "talk" alot. This could be relevant to feedback I recently received on 'being overwhelming.' A friend emailed in response: "When you are overwhelming, bursting at the seams, it is you, not being an American. The sometimes dramatic energy is lifegiving, so don’t ever be ashamed of it." I agree that shame is extreme. But it can be embarrassing!
Dexus Nexus is going to use a wiki! I'm trying to contain my excitement. :-) Finally, an intentional web-community that will use a weblog and some software called SocialText.
