I´m quite enamored of Blommaert; I hope I can locate him and make direct contact. The notes on "Text and Context" I´ve generated include ruminations on tentative "findings" of the conference interpreter discourse to date and more sharply defined research questions. Also, Van Manen is being extremely useful and timely with his explanation of a phenomenological approach to research - NOT the usual social scientific mode (and who would I be if I did anything in the "usual" way?!!
phenomenology: May 2005 Archives
I was asked by one interpreter if there was a difference between what I’m trying to do with my research and what journalists do when they research and publish stories. Many of the points I considered possible distinctions were persuasively argued as not that different, but the one point which seemed most different is the notion of participation in the writing/publication process.
I started reading this book Leda loaned me, Researching Lived Experience by Max Van Manen, which describes the phenomenological angle in terms that reflect my ontology. Van Manen says, “phenomenology attempts to explicate the meanings as we live them in our everyday existence, our lifeworld” (11).
Dramed of stained glass last night. :-) And sgraffit, or modern petroglyphs. Saw a frieze I really wanted to take a picture of but hadn´t bought a camera yet: it was in the gymnasium of an Ecole Primaire that was on the art nouveau tour. It said, "Refuge."
"Instead of copying the classical forms of the past, designers turned to nature for inspiration, using the shapes of flowers, plants and insects." This summarizes the architectural movement, which specialized in combining wood, stone, metal and glass.
I just began being interested in art the past few years. Never knew enough about it to understand what could be so compelling to folk. Am definitely into symbolic uses - particularly of the ancient kind such as Dan Brown details in The Da Vinci Code (yes, it nurtured my soul) - and also of the protest kind, such as Néstor García Canclini describes with academic and theoretical zeal.
Today, art nuoveau.
I am feeling blessed. Got my badge to the European Parliament here in Brussels; already had one interview today and have another one lined up for tomorrow. And there is an AIIC meeting tomorrow evening where I will meet a bunch of interpreters and hopefully arrange more interviews. Phase two is off to a great start. :-)
I´m still toasted, though, from the past weeks´ marathon of travel, plunge into "the field", paper-writing and all. Mentally and emotionally I am feeling IT. Lucky I have Dan Brown and The DaVinci Code to grant some respite. Here is a tidbit on The Rose Line, which is "believed to emanate a certain spiritual frequency - one that sustains feminine energies and the search for unbiased truth."
“Artists who inscribe in the work itself the questioning about what the work should be … exclude the spectator who is not disposed to make of his or her participation … an equally innovative experience” (27).
:-(
“Should we admit – along with disenchanted artists and theorists – that autonomous experimentation and democratizing insertion in the social fabric are irreconcilable tasks” (27)?
Last week, Briankle gave us a karate lesson, emphasizing over and over again that it is the form that matters.
"The perfection of the form of a thing is its entelechy in virtue of which it attains its fullest realization of function (De anima, ii. 2)."
Entelechy "denotes realization as opposed to potentiality."
I'm catching a lot of heat for being on a different page than a vocal segment of my colleagues working on a joint project...it's a little stressful. :-/
I've been toying with the notion of bi-temporality. I came up with the term a few days ago to describe/explain why I'm not expressing as coherent and clear an argument as my peers would like. It was an individual discovery, but of course I didn't invent the term or the concept.
I would like to see Bitemporal Vision: The Sea.
I'm not sure if this is what I'm doing, but it's possible:
