I am reading Monolingualism of the Other in preparation for a talk with Chang and Lankala this Wednesday.
Derrida risks two propositions:
- We only ever speak one language.
- We never speak only one language.
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.”
Thoughts in anticipation:
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
