Meeting early for Wednesday's Qualitative Class

Hi guys!

First of all, apologies to those who aren't taking our Qualitative Methods class on Wednesday...but I didn't have a group email address available, so I thought that this blog would be the easiest way to contact you guys.

I spoke to Prof.Bailey earlier today, and had suggested for us to meet earlier on Wednesday Dec 10th, at 3PM instead of 3.30PM to make sure that we all get to present on that day, so that neither of us would have to go back and present on Tuesday morning at like 8AM or something:)

Bailey is OK with it, so perhaps for those of us who can make it earlier, we could start the class early. For those who can't make it, you could just come at the usual time.

What do you guys think? Shall we go for it?

Take care and perhaps you could respond to me via email? slie@comm.umass.edu

Thanks beforehand!
Sunny

A cat

Leda asked me to share this photo of my cat Vuk with you all. As you can see, he takes after me. And yes, I am one of those people who think their pets are the most interesting thing in the world :D
d

Communication as. . . identity

Here's a great video/song--some of the better theorizing on identity. . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YO9FpWX57E

Thanks to those of you who have posted. Sunny, thanks for your stories!

Leda

Communication as Ritual?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wN0oDnoc3-c

Communication as storytelling: macho macho man

Sunday afternoon, November 16th, 12.30PM, Amherst Coffee

Sitting across the folk band that was headlining the Sunday entertainment offering at Amherst coffee, I wandered and wondered around the room observing the patrons (wait a minute...is that a plastic banana one of the band members is using to hit her bongo?? It is! it's too yellow and...plastic-y to be a real one). You have the good looking, middle-upper class, contemplative sketcher, sketching away in his little black book interesting characters in the cafe, maybe even the plastic banana. Of course, he was donned in Burberry wear. He's missing a pipe and checkered hat. He could be Sherlock Holmes.

Sitting next to me in the long table are two college girls with their hippie accessories and hand-knitted hats. They were both knitting and exchanging tips on how to cross stitch the right away. Across from me a big tattooed-armed man sat with a cup of Jade Dragon Green Tea (pretentious at best, ethnocentric "let's call everything Chinese-related Jade, Dragon, and Green" at worst). He was looking down, his hands were busy. He was....knitting. Shock! Horror! Biker dude with eyebrow piercings and elaborate tattoo knitting??

He looked up (god please don't let it be because of my staring), walked towards me and...started conversing with the 2 college girls. "Excuse me, I couldn't help but overhear that you were discussing about cross-stitching. I was wondering if you could take a look at what I did for this scarf I'm making. Do you think I should cross twice? I'm not sure because I don't wanna waste yarn y'know." The 3 immediately engaged in an exclusive conversation on their creations...with needles yarns in their laps. "I come here every Sunday to knit" says Harley (dude), "it's so great to see other people doing the same as well" He bid the girls goodbye and slowly made his way back to his little private universe of peace-knitting.

Gender is social-construction.

the IAT

This is interesting:

https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/takeatest.html

Maxwell's pressed lenses during an Indonesian lunch event

Hi everyone!

I would like to share an interesting experience I had yesterday afternoon. I was invited to an Indonesian lunch event Apparently it's a monthly venue for Indonesians in the Pioneer Valley area to socialize and get together. During the few hours I was there, I experienced both gender and ethnic chasms that reminded me of aliens and Maxwell's pressed glasses.

When I arrived, I found some women doing last minute preparations for the meal. The men were asked to come at 12.30. It was 1PM. I assisted with the setting up and preparations. The organizer commented that it's the job of us women to cook and prepare, for the men to come and eat, and for the women again to clean up and make sure that everyone goes home with packed leftovers (it was a delivered in a joking manner, but nevertheless, that's what we did). When the men finally arrived, we proceeded to the buffet table (with the women insisting that the men go first, but at this point I didn't care so I just joined in on the line because I was hungry). Each of us then brought our plate to designated seating areas: again, the men sat on the living room couch, and then women stayed in the kitchen area. I drifted between the two areas, both as a conscious effort to bridge the chasm between the 2 apparently gendered spaces, as well as to have closer access to the food (yeah I wrote the first reason to justify why I'm posting this story on the blog in the first place:))

To add to what I now consider as uncomfortable and divisive gender roles was my ethnic Chinese background, which is a tender issue due to historical and institutionalized hostilities between us and the so-called "native" Indonesians. When I introduced myself to one of the gentlemen who came late and was ready to fill himself with a delicious home-made meal, he asked me where I'm from. Although the imaginary bubble in my head had these words in it: "Indonesia you idiot, why else would I be here??", my gracious (read: hypocritical:)) social-self answered politely that I'm from Jakarta.

Peters, in this week's reading, said something about how our attempts to communicate with the so-called non-humans; machines, animals, and aliens, functions to cover up the fact that we are alien to ourselves, that we seek to bridge the communication failure amongst one another through efforts to reach out to these other beings. Attending the lunch yesterday reminded me not only of our inability our to bridge ours self-created chasms of gender and ethnicity, but also of Maxwell's pressed lenses and how no matter how hard he tried to make the lenses meet, there's still a gap between them. In a setting where the rules of the game I'm supposed to be most familiar with, written in an unspoken language that I'm most familiar with, I felt the unbridgeable chasm, and went home feeling like a well-fed alien.

lame...

Good morning,
I realize this is kind of lame and we're kind of past the whole "paradigm shift" drama, but I was listening to this (one of my favorite songs) just now & thought hm... think of an old-paradigmer singing this in times of change (especially the refrain). Here is Fleetwood Mac's "Landslide" (I also like the Smashing Pumpkins version in case anyone was wondering; in fact, first I heard the song, it was Smashing Pumpkins):

I took my love and I took it down
I climbed a mountain and I turned around
And I saw my reflection in the snow covered hills
'Till the landslide brought me down

Oh, mirror in the sky
What is love
Can the child within my heart rise above
Can I sail thru the changing ocean tides
Can I handle the seasons of my life

Mmm Mmm...Well, I've been afraid of changing
'Cause I've built my life around you
But time makes you bolder
even children get older I'm getting older too
(Gutiar solo)
Well i've been afraid of changing
'Cause I've built my life around you
But time makes you bolder even
Children get olderI'm getting older too
ohI'm getting older too

Ahh, take this love, take it down
Ahh climb a mountain and turn around
If you see my reflection in the snow covered hills
Well the landslide will bring you down

Emily's story

It is with some degree of a confessioners shame that I admit that I am “one of those people” who has always wanted to do one thing. J It is my personality to love only a few things and love them deeply, and I cannot remember a time when my love for words and stories, was not the deepest love of all. (Oh crap, do I sound like a Whitney Houston song?)

I have never spent much time distinguishing between which type of story to love. Was it Mark Twain who said journalism is lies about real people and fiction is the truth about fake people? I will read it all, and my head spins now with names and titles, authors and phrases I have never forgotten… Even the words in cookbooks. All of the possibilities in those recipes! (I would have invited Socrates to my picnic, but something tells me he wouldn’t want to come!)

The first moment I can remember on my journey to “communication” happened when I was 12… I have never made excuses for my painful shyness and general awkwardness but it may have had something to do with why I thought I was hot shit laying in my bed with the covers over my head, wearing a gigantic headlamp that made me look like a coal miner from South Africa, reading a book I could not put down. (Yes, I really did think that if I hid under my bed with my gigantic headlamp that my parents wouldn’t be able to tell that I was still awake.) I was reading Betty Smith’s “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” and I was crying, my hands trembling. I could not believe the words I was reading. They belonged to me in a way nothing had belonged to me before. This book, these worn sheets of paper and ink, was my mirror, my life raft, my escape. The words meant everything to my 12-year-old self. I read them again and again.

Words like these: "She was made up of all of these good and these bad things...She was the books she read in the library...Part of her life was made from the tree growing rankly in the yard. She was the bitter quarrells she had with her brother whom she loved dearly. She was Katie's secret, despairing weeping. She was the shame of her father staggering home drunk...She was all of these things and of something more...It was something that had been born into her and her only."

And words like these: "Let me be something every minute of every hour of my life. Let me be gay; let me be sad. Let me be cold; let me be warm. Let me be hungry...have too much to eat. Let me be ragged or well dressed. Let me be sincere-be deceitful. Let me be truthful; let me be a liar. Let me be honorable and let me sin. Only let me be something every blessed minute. And when I sleep, let me dream all the time so that not one little piece of living is ever lost."

I was 12, but reading that book was the first time I felt exhilarated by words. I wanted to write like that. I wanted to make people feel the way I felt. I wanted to “communicate” with words, to tell stories that made people feel alive. That made them burn the way I was burning then... And if I couldn’t do that, then maybe I could just make them feel a little less lonely. Even for a few pages.

It is funny and a little bittersweet to think how little has changed in 20 years… :0)

Brian's story

My journey to Communication has been a little more circuitous than most, itseems. Going into my undergraduate work, I was one of the few people who knewexactly what he wanted to major in - English Literature. English was always myfavorite subject in high school (I was always the type of kid who waspermanently attached to a book growing up) and I never even questioned what mymajor in college would be. That being said, I was also a huge pop culturefanatic (I had a subscription to Entertainment Weekly in the third grade). Butit never even entered my head that you could study pop culture in college. Myeducation seemed fairly clear on that matter. Reading books was what one didfor work, and watching television was what you did for fun. This all changed,of course, when I met the professor who would eventually become my advisor formy undergraduate and master's work at FSU, Dr. Edwards. Like me, she came topop culture studies through the back door (she began as a specialist in globalliterature before a paper on the multicultural limitations of Disney cartoonsopened her eyes to media studies). Needless to say, this completely changed myacademic track. Rather than studying contemporary literature (as I had beendoing), I completely shifted gears to television studies. Of course this wasall from an English perspective. I was basically taking the textual analyticaltools that I had been trained in from my previous classes and applied them totelevision texts. It didn't take long for me to discover that this practicewasn't exactly favored within my English department (or most Englishdepartments, for that matter). Media studies is still something of a contestedarea within the English discipline, and although the discipline certainly has astake in media studies, it still is quite marginalized. This became ratherclear when I began applying to English programs for my Master's degree and wassoundly rejected from the vast majority of them. After that experience, I satdown with my advisor to reassess my future in academia (I was convinced that Ididn't have one), and she suggested that I think of switching gears (again) toCommunication departments. Media studies, it seemed, was much moreinstitutionally accepted within Comm departments than in English Departments.And so during my Master's work I began taking more and more classes within ourCollege of Communication to begin building up experience within that disciplinein preparation for my Ph.D. applications. It seemed that the decision to switchto Communication was a smart one, since I was accepted to those programs (a muchnicer feeling than the mass rejection from two years ago). Of course, now thatI'm here I'm swinging even farther away from my English background, as I'm nowlearning that you can explore the types of questions that I want to exploreusing quantitative methodologies (which is a much better fit for my admittedlyanal-retentive personality). My academic journey, then, seems to be more like aperpetual exclamation of "I didn't know you could do that!" rather than a structured plan.

Allison's story

Here's my post. I'm so bad at this, I had trouble finding it...sigh.I would say that my journey to communication started with my mom. As a littlekid she was always telling me that I shouldn't let people tell me I couldn'tdo things because I was female. Fueled and informed by this, I would get inarguments with my grandmother (who lives in Hadley) about gender issuesstarting from about the age of 6. I remember watching family feud with her anda question on the show was "name things that men do better than women." Shestarted listing things: "well, they're stronger, they know more about cars,they can fix things around the house..." I got angry and came up with counterarguments for everything she said. Ultimately she decided that women hadbetter handwriting (I still show her my chicken scratch to this day).Anyway, my interest in gender issues never really went away. Though I hate theterm, people called me a "tomboy" growing up. I was interested in sports andhad little interest in shopping (which is still true). When I started mycollege career, I played for the university soccer team, which I considered mymajor until midway through my sophomore year. When it came time that I had topick an actual major, a friend of mine (Rosie) on the soccer team told me thatcommunication was a cool major, so I went with that. Quite amazingly, I think,Rosie is also getting her PhD in communication at the University of Utah.After I started taking classes in communication I really felt at home. It wasreassuring for me to hear people apply technical terminology to the genderissues that bothered me. So, in short, I would say that it was something aboutthe world that my mom pointed out to me from an early age that led me towardan interest in communication.Allison

From Thanu

My story of how I came to communications is a simple one. I had always wanted tobe a writer and a journalist. Like many South Asian girls coming of age at thetime when Arundathi Roy's 'God of Small Things' and other political writingswere gaining prestige- it was like a sign, "Look, I can actually do this!" Italso became a feasible money-making dream in the eyes of my parents, whose rangeof choices of what their children could be (doctors and engineers) expanded to"Well I suppose you can be a writer if you are EXACTLY like Arundathi Roy andtherefore make money like her."I helped run my high school newspaper, and wrote small articles for the BangkokPost and other such city newspapers in Bangkok, Thailand (where I grew up.) Iwas always unsatisfied and upset by the ways in which editors would edit downone's story, sometimes changing the meaning all together.When I got to college... I took a class called "The Culture of Imperialism"which was my first introduction to postcolonial studies and political economy.It changed how I viewed my world, and for the first time I understood the realways in which colonialism had touched every aspect of my life- from the strangephenomenon of being taught by American teachers in an international school inThailand (all of whom were paid more than local teachers), to the ways in whichall of us Asian students strived to 'Americanize'. My second semester atHampshire College, a friend from UMass told me to come to a class being taughtin the communications department. The class was called, "Global Media and SocialChange" and was taught by Paula Chakravartty. That class really made everythingclick for me. I appreciated studying media in a larger context, understandingthe connections between political economy, history, and the media. I feltempowered and felt that I was gaining a sense of self, and therefore anunderstanding of the world and how it is that I wanted to change it. I liked theinterdisciplinary nature of communications- I felt I wasn't limited. My dreamwidened from just being a journalist/writer, to dabbling in film/video and newmedia, blogging, etc.I study communications because it does not limit me.-- Thanu

unrepentant trespasser...

My story is non-linear and non-traditional, and I echo Lily’s attribution of folklore as one of my foundational experiences of “communication.” By now everyone knows that I used to be an engineer, etc. etc., ad nauseam, but I think it is particularly because I was a successful engineer that people are surprised by just how much I dislike science and engineering. As someone trained in linear and non-linear mathematics, I think this is where the non-linearity comes in. I genuinely want nothing to do with a major portion of my “previous” life, except perhaps someday to critique it roundly and soundly.

A couple of years ago, in the midst of my burned out phase Alexis asked me what I really wanted to do, and my gut-level answer was simple: teach. She pressed me on what I wanted to teach, and refused to accept my initial (and logical) thought that I would naturally teach engineering. She suggested to me, pointedly, that the very things I detested about engineering would be the things lauded as virtues by engineering curricula and therefore the things that I would be forced to teach! I couldn’t stomach the thought, but what else could I teach? Alexis has her degrees in Sociology and Philosophy, and she helped me through an intense period of mutually narcissistic navel-gazing.

Non-linear shift... Perhaps gazing at one’s navel is good after all -- it reconnects one with the messy humanity of one’s birth... Growing up as a “transnational” made me experience life in terms of stories. Certainly I had to tell stories over and over again, often to explain to yet another bureaucrat why my messy and unresolved life did not fit in the neat boxes on the forms they wanted me to fill out. Then I had to tell stories about my religion to my “friends” who believed strongly in the stories of their holy texts which told them to cleanse me out of their lands. Then I had to tell stories about my “friends” to my relatives “back home,” who were all too eager to draw confirmations of their own holy convictions. A childhood of conflicting and contradictory stories made me deeply skeptical of religious stories, especially the neatly packaged ones that I concocted for my own survival... And yet I found solace in the messy and unresolved stories of the Hebrew Testament when I was suicidally depressed in engineering graduate school at the turn of the century. So I became that most insidious of pop-culture villains: The American Evangelical Christian. I became a Sunday School Teacher, a Youth Group Leader, a Missionary-wannabe, one of the in-crowd, one of the ones who thought Bush was a Godly Man of Faith.

Uh-oh, my non-linear narcissistic survival instincts are kicking in again... It is no mere coincidence that I left the evangelical fold at about the same time that I became disillusioned with engineering -- my critiques of logical positivism are linked to my critiques of evangelical systematic theology. Story: I am currently searching for my immunization records -- UMass says I will not be able to register for Spring '09 unless I can show I have been immunized. I have been poked and prodded and inoculated and injected so many times since I was seven years old, every time I crossed yet another border, and I do not have any precious “records” to show for it. What are y’all trying to immunize against anyway? And maybe there is a metaphor here -- social scientists probably wonder if I carry the positivist disease, humanists probably wonder if I carry the scientific disease, and artists probably wonder if I carry the analytical disease... And everyone probably worries that I still carry the Jesus disease.

I often find myself performing the rhetoric of betrayal: “Don’t worry, I’m not one of THEM... I used to be like THEM but I am not anymore...” Sometimes I forget who I am not.

Let’s finish this thing. I want to teach stories, to teach young people (of all ages) to become more aware of the narratives that are alive and kicking all around them and in them all the time, to engage with people in hearing and performing and criticizing the world of stories that both form and change our identities. At least, that is what I told Leda when I met her a year ago. I had a vague sense that I wanted to do “folklore” but I did not know the terms or jargon or lingo of the “field” and I still do not know what “field” I want to be in. Leda encouraged me and invited me to sit in on her Comm Theory class last Fall. I also met Stephen Gencarella, who likewise encouraged me and invited me to sit in on his class titled “Theories of Language as Action and Performance.” Both classes blew my mind -- I still remember my reaction when someone mentioned Marxism in Leda’s class last Fall and I did a double-take. In my world of high-tech industry, my MBA friends hated unions and Marxism was a dirty word synonymous with “failed economic experiment.” I did not understand what Marxism had to do with Communication, but I was profoundly stunned by the very real connection of the work that Leda and Stephen did with critical social issues.

A couple of months later I had enough of an amateurish understanding to write a final paper on Marxism and folklore for Stephen’s class, based on Raymond Williams’ book “Marxism and Literature.” I enjoyed writing that paper so much that I applied to the M.A. program here at UMass as well as the Folklore Institute at Indiana University. [My shameless insecurity compels me to add that I got accepted into both places...] Alexis and I agonized over the decision, and I decided to come here mainly because I want to work with Stephen and Leda and Claudio during the first few years of learning my “new” career. At least, that is what I tell them -- UMass also let me teach (yay!) but if you really press me on it I’d have to say the economics worked out pretty well too, because IU gave me no funding. Sure, at UMass I make only 10% of what I used to make as an engineer, but it’s more than the absolute zero that IU offered...

So that’s my “story”... I am here as a brazen interloper and shameless traitor, with no “business” being here and with a long history of ungrateful betrayal. I don’t buy any talk of Founding Fathers -- I am a subversive subaltern with a non-academic chip on my shoulder. And I like my chip, I call it George :-) I am here to explore and to question -- this field is so broad that it encourages me to not feel insecure about being puzzled. And I am here to figure out where to go next!

On my way to Communication

I found myself in communication studies much how communication studies found itself - at the intersection. Bouncing between interests in psychology, sociology, philosophy, and theology, I was constantly inquiring into that which is closest to us, but found each discipline to (at least from my position) close off the possibilities of the others in conversation.

I found myself, like many students, with passion yet without direction. I refused to give up on each of these subjects, but choosing a discipline was itself a choice to give up the others.

Enter the Communication Studies Department at Arizona State University West. With a focus in critical, rhetorical, and cultural studies, the department stood at the intersection of my interests at the time. My first class on Rhetoric and Argumentation proved to be the most interesting class I'd been to yet, and drew me into a love of Communication Studies.

I had never tried very hard in school until that point - I just wanted to get through to get a degree - but I went from a mediocre-at-best student to joining the honors college in one semester. Communication Studies literally saved my education by giving me something to care about.

So where I find myself is where I began - at the intersection, yet focused on Communication. It allows for perspectives I don't find in most disciplines.

Lost in translation?

I thought I was going to be a translator.

In my junior year of undergrad, I started looking into graduate schools that offered translation/interpretation programs. I was studying in Tokyo at the time and having served as an interpreter many a time for fellow classmates and such, I thought that was what I wanted to do. I wanted to facilitate communication—none of this broken communication that Peters talks about.

I loved language (and still do!). My best friend had gotten into the Sociolinguistics MS program at Georgetown and while linguistics wasn't exactly my thing, I still wanted to work with language. My parents worried about me constantly, wondering how I would make money speaking Japanese. While I worried as well, I didn't worry as much as they did.

I applied to the Monterery Institute of International Studies. My backup was San Francisco State's Japanese Studies MA program. It wasn't until a good two-thirds through the application for Monterey that I realized that this wasn't going to work. That I wasn't at a high enough language level to be even applying and I wasn't totally sure I wanted to be applying in the first place anymore. Least to say, I was rejected. ;)

Popular culture and media had always been an avid hobby of mine, but I had never looked at it than more than that. In my final semester of senior year, I had an extra class available, so I decided to take a class in the Media Studies department, International/Global Media. My professor, Vamsee Juluri (an alumni of our department), really opened my eyes to media studies and communication as disciplines. I had always looked the Media Studies department as a department of fun classes that I would've loved to take in another life, if I hadn't been a Japanese Studies major. But in that class, Professor Juluri showed me that I could easily combine both my love for popular culture and Japan into something that could be taken seriously, something that could be academic. What's more, I came to realize that I had been working in communication all along—writing papers on gender roles in Japanese television dramas or the ways media was employed to create intimacy between pop idols and fans—but had never known it.

I feel like I'm still in the processes of "coming" to communication. Every day I learn more, my horizons expand, and I find myself settling in to what communication is about for me. As for founding fathers of communication to me, I would have to say Koichi Iwabuchi. His works on Asian media flows and transnationalism were the first I encountered when I was still blind and without a clue as to what communication was and I continue to admire the work he and others are doing in bringing Asian media into prominence in the English-speaking academic circles.

Now that I think about it, I suppose I still am a translator. Of sorts. :)

I picked the pen

Ok, I guess, since I asked the question, I should also offer my answer… My story is actually not that interesting, but would probably be long. I grew up in an economy/society that encouraged us to think of our future careers from very early on. To illustrate the importance being professionally oriented, let me share a custom we have: when a baby starts walking, we bake a special bread (pitka), we put in on the table, and arrange a bunch of profession-related objects on and around it (pen, pliers, toy truck, thread, etc., whatever’s in the house); then, we let the baby walk toward the pitka and whatever object s/he picks, that’s a sign of her/his future profession. Legend has it that I picked the pen. But one can use the pen for many different things; even if writing is the primary purpose – who is to say what is to be written with the pen (now, I’m thinking it indicated I would become a professional student).

At any rate, I knew (just like my friends knew) from early on that whatever I choose to study should better lead to a career sooner than later. With both my parents engineers by education (they are not teachers) and my brother following in their footsteps and pursing an engineering degree (he is now a journalist), I enrolled in a mathematics-focused and very competitive school where I spent 8 years. I guess I’m kind of slow, because it was not until the 10th grade that I admitted to myself and my teachers that I wanted nothing to do with math. So, I had to find a new “career-path”…

I credit my grandparents, both teachers of literature and philology, with giving me the love for the written word… and I blame them for suggesting journalism as a possible profession. In Bulgaria, I had no idea one can study communication as a social science, because everything was so career-focused, and, I guess, being in academia was not considered a real “profession.” I ended up studying PR and journalism for two years. When I came to the US, I more or less had decided that I’m committed to PR & declared communication w/ PR concentration as a major. At that time, I was still thinking that I’ll end up working for some corporation. My notion of communication was purely commercial – only it turned out I ended up in a lot more critical than hands-on, “this is what you do to get the big bucks” kind of department. In Bulgaria, we had an advertising course centered around the mantra of “sex sells;” our final goal was to produce an ad using sex to sell; in the US, I also had a course that more or less centered around “sex sells” only from a critical feminist perspective. I guess the second option fit my personal ethics better & opened my eyes to a different side of communication.

As for the matter of “my” fathers and mothers in communication… Outside of those we learned about in school, I consider (as I mentioned in class) the anonymous creators of folklore to be the parents of communication as I now understand it. A lot of the Bulgarian folklore talks about resisting the Turks and preserving our culture – these anonymous songs and stories not only provide models of how communication may have served resistance; as texts, they also are resistance.

My turn

Lily’s own description in class, of her personal founding mothers of Comm, made me realize how my initial reaction to her question was to go through a mental inventory of theorists I’ve read and/or read about with respect to the field and its history. Her story made me realize that I took the question too much at face value, forgetting to think imaginatively. Does this episode of my lack of imaginative thinking exemplify the brainwashing metaphor of graduate education, mentioned in some earlier class? I worry about it, you know. But, I know, things are not so black and white, as usual.
Nevertheless, thanks to Lily, my ability to think in a non-linear way about a personal history that led me to Comm was (at least temporarily) restored. So, to that initial linear list of founding fathers and mothers (because, even though incomplete and too “academic,” it still means something), which includes, among others, Chomsky, Ong, Bordo, Foucault and Butler, I want to add the teachers (both institutional and metaphorical) who introduced me to the works of these people – I’d like to name some here, as my founding mothers and fathers: Sava Tintor, Zoran Paunovic, Danijela Stojanovic, Aleksandar Bogdanic, Polly Gannon, Tom de Zengotita, Mimi McGurl, Heather Lukes... the list goes on. Additionally, a few writers influenced me in ways that go beyond the Comm discipline per se, but are prominent factors in the way I think about the field nevertheless: Laza Lazarevic, Mesa Selimovic, Mihail Bulgakov, Virginia Woolf, Vladimir Nabokov, not to mention Dostoevsky, and many many others. Then, there is also Yugoslav cinema, especially the Black Wave of the late 1960s and early 1970s, and the way these films went about “communicating” something completely new and different. And there’s also the inescapable Hollywood, and that scene between Robert de Niro and Christopher Walken in The Deer Hunter, when they are forced to play Russian roulette and are in a state that is beyond words and beyond fear. That could be my “founding scene” for reasons too complex to elaborate on here. ☺
So, I’ll stop with that, because a non-linear list is usually also a non-finite list.

On being lost

While I was doing my undergraduate studies way back when, I took a class on Chinese History with this professor who told us the story of how he was studying to become an engineer when one day he tripped over (literally almost fell flat on the floor) Confucius' "Analects" in the library one evening while looking for an engineering book for his assignment. He picked up the book, opened it up out of curiosity....and that marked the beginning of a 40+years love affair with Chinese culture and history.

My love affair with Communication started out in a similar way. I entered USC as an International Relations major, thinking that I wanna learn about international stuff (I was 18, what can I say?:)). This was quite a departure from the usual Accounting/Business/Engineering track that most of my relatives took on when they did their studies in the U.S. I had an appointment with my adviser, and got lost on the way to the IR building. I entered the Comm Dept building instead. While trying to figure out how to get myself to the PoliSci building, I noticed a couple of flyers advertising this basic Interpersonal Comm. class that was being offered. I took a look at the class description and though that it sounded interesting (oooo...we'll be learning about romantic relationships and stuff...again, I was 18:)). I took the class as part of my liberal arts /general education requirement, and the rest was history.

In terms of the founding fathers/mothers of Comm. for me, I'd like to say that I'd attribute it to the social-constructionists. I always had the feeling that there's more to the process of communicating than what's being said and done...on a fundamental level, being exposed to Levi Strauss' dyads/dichotomy of the way we organize our world views (I've spent most of my academic informative years in the U.S., so I can't help but think in that dyadic way) changed how I think about both my own thoughts, and how people arrange theirs.

What I love most about the field is its vastness and ability to embrace all kinds of topics from many academic traditions which could be applied to all sorts of texts. Yes, I sometimes I feel a bit lost in defining what I'm studying in a sense that nothing is communication since everything can be appropriated into the field(have you guys tried explaining what you're studying to your parents and failed miserably?:) My parents still think I'm doing Marketing and PR:)) ...but this freedom to roam through different topics is worth the confusion...right guys?

My history of communication

Once upon a time in a far away country, called the kingdom of Denmark, an ordinary child was born. Or maybe it was a less ordinary child. She grew up telling stories about dragons, witches and far away countries and everyone thought she had a wonderful imagination and a gift for storytelling. The little girl got older and desided she wanted to be a journalist. When she finished High School she took journalistic courses and applied to journalist school. But wasn't accepted. It broke the girl's heart. Instead she was accepted to University to study media science, which she had applied to half hearted as her second choice. How would she be able to tell her stories then?

She started her studies with the intensions of leaving within a year to apply to journalist school again. Journalism would let her tell stories! But as time passed, the girl experienced anomalies. She found answers in media science. She started asking questions more profound than ever before. When it became time to apply to journalist school, she realised that a paradigm shift had occured in her life. She no longer wanted to be a journalist. She wanted to be a academic.

The years went by, and the girl loved her studies. But she was troubled by the fact that she was no longer able to tell stories. Her studies took up all her time and there was no change of her combining her studies with her storytelling. In academia you have to stick to facts and prove your points. You cannot make up things! Eventually the girl forgot her stories. She became nothing than an academic scholar.

When the time came to apply to her masters degree the girl was frustrated. She didn't know what to do with her knowledge. Did it have a purpose in the world? She wanted to experience the world. She wanted to experience stories. She travelled for a while. She worked in television journalism. She worked in radio. She worked in PR. And she had odd jobs where she met interesting people. She found that her knowledge was very much usefull in the real world. Her frustrations disappeared. Gradually her stories came back. It dawned on her, that she could study and tell stories at the same time if she got better at prioritising her time.

She started grad. school with the knowledge that she was neither an academic scholar nor a writer - she was both. As long as she believed in it, she could do what ever she wanted, and go where ever she wanted - maybe even the USA one day? and the girl lived happily ever after (or at least I hope she will!).

The End :-)

Accessible Language

After all this discussion on method and accessible language to reach the "oppressed", I found myself reading up on popular communication for my paper and this passage kind of struck a cord with me since it speaks to a lot of what was brought up today in class. Thus, I'm just putting it out there.

"To share what we know with nonacademics entails an intentional commitment to accessible language - at least sometimes. One of us decries the use of mystifying language and arcane terminology in scholarship, while the other understands such jargon as an inevitable and necessary part of the theoretical enterprise. Both of us suspect, however, that such usage is often designed to perpetuate a priesthood, an elitism, a mystery among academics. That most academics who engage in such deliberate mummery - particularly at conferences - would tell you they are all in favor of leveling power in this country, of demystifying politics, and of breaking the foundations of privilege, sometimes makes the manner in which these folks speak shameful (recently one of us witnessed a paper presentation that was full of so much mystifying terminology that it was clear only one person in the audience understood it). Although there are good reasons, and space enough, for dense, theoretical discussions that touch on the popular, insofar as we recomend scholars to deliberately address more promiscuous and popular audiences, writing and speaking in more common, less specialized vocabulary from time to time is important." (Gunn and Brummett. (2004). Popular Communication After Globalization. Journal of Communication, 54(4), 705-721)

Do with it what you will. :)

Quick "poll"

Would you say that Kuhn is a critical theorist dialoguing with the "oppressed" community of traditional (normal) scientists?

Thomas Kuhn got away from me...

Hi ya all (is that right?)

Thomas Kuhn got away from me the other day. He decided to stay in class on monday, while I went home. But now I really miss him, and I'm sure that he misses me to. So if any of you guys have my Kuhn-book please give me a ring on 4135599817 or send me an e-mail crelsted@acad.umass.edu. It is highlighted in yellow.

Thank you so much. I'll see you monday. If I dont forget myself :-)

Christina

Attempts to bring the Kuhn readings down a notch

So...after thoroughly enjoying the wonderfully crystal clear way Kuhn writes his magnificent essay tracing the history of scientific revolutions (....not!! that was sort of a cheesy Borat reference:)), I thought I'd like to include some things I read towards the end of Chapter 10 on Scientific Revolutions and Worldviews that I thought brought the overall reading a bit down-to-earth (in a level that suits my limited understanding:)).

His first comment that really hit home was how he stated on P.128 that scientists have a "...paradigm-embodied experience of the race, the culture, and profession..." which in of themselves are paradigms through which he views his researches and their consequent results. I liked how this one brought a more human aspect to the omnipotent "male-gendered, sterile, objective scientist who's main purpose in life to solve puzzles and gets puzzled in return by scientific revolutions" definition of scientist that he seemed to be operating under before this particular chapter.

In terms of the objects of nature which are presumed to be studied by the scientist, there's another sentence on P.135 that I feel reflects how often, as scientists, we tend to try to "...make nature fit a paradigm..." Of course there are merits to our attempts in organizing nature into neat little categories through which our current limited brain capacities can rationalize and make sense of the world. However, I think we should be reminded that nature is a lot messier and mysterious than we tend to assume it to be...especially when we are merely analyzing a piece of it inside a sterile laboratory environment.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend guys!

Speaking the language, but lacking the thought

I came across this quote today (see it at the bottom of the post) that made me wonder about paradigmatic shifts on the individual level - the kind that requires us to accept the new paradigm if we don't want to end up at the philosophy department (as per Kuhn's warning). I admit it's kind of a long shot, and an even longer question-filled post, but if you manage to bare with me, I'd really appreciate hearing your thoughts...

In a paradigm’s popular success, how often does the change of vocabulary mask the actual change of thought? Do you think that scholars (including graduate students) sometimes espouse the idea of identifying themselves with a certain paradigm; then, master the language that goes along with the chosen image, and use that language freely without really understanding the meaning behind the words? Really, the closest metaphor I could think of here is the learning and speaking of an actual foreign language – a continuum from 1) memorization and reproduction of verbiage (does not really require understanding) to 2) learning a language by cultural immersion and developing an understanding of the social significance and nuances of the language. Or… I am also reminded of Leo DiCaprio in “Catch me in you can” – putting on the pilot uniform did not mean he can drive the plane, though it was perfectly sufficient for him to fake his way into being treated as a pilot.

So, how ready are we to accept, master, and use the “esoteric vocabulary” (Kuhn, p. 64) of the paradigm-de-jour without grasping the meaning of that vocabulary or, for that matter, the claims of the paradigm? Has it ever happened to you to listen to someone who uses all the appropriate terminology for the topic, and still think to yourself “This person really has no idea what she/he is talking about”? But just as use of appropriate language can mask our lack of understanding, not using the appropriate language can mask our perfect understanding of the issue…

Before I become too incoherent, here is Kristeva’s quote that triggered this rambling… perhaps committing the “sin” she warns against:

Please, no! Dare to invent words, but not without the ideas that you lack; cut the long sentences with foreign syntax for which you don’t have the thought; change the rhythm; don’t drone through the old elementary stuff, but also don’t ape the tricks of those who, unlike you, come from a boudoir and a baroque of which you have no idea. (…)

In principle, I am not even at war with neologisms, if they are the result of an attempt to think anew, if communities of men and women have ripened them in a concern for singularity in the memory of their language and in the discussions that forge their concepts. I do not see these communities, I do not see these singularities, I do not see this memory of language, I do not see these discussions. This is my suffering. Perhaps it is only a matter of blindness, since distance deprives me of information. This will be the lesser evil, and I ask your pardon. But if my suffering is justified, these lapses in taste would be only the final sign of the abject surrender of a people (and so many other) to the new world order that
wants to see only a single head – no, a single computer.

(J. Kristeva, from "Bulgaria, my Suffering")

"Creationist" Resigns from Royal Society

I was trolling Slashdot and found this interesting article about a fellow from the Royal Society (the Director of Education to be specific) resigning. More interesting than that is news that the Anglican Church (C of E) is reading to apologize to Darwin - "The Church of England will concede in a statement that it was over-defensive and over-emotional in dismissing Darwin's ideas. It will call 'anti-evolutionary fervor' an 'indictment' on the Church."

Interesting "evolution" of a theory and the issues that surround it (even 150 years later!)

Link

BYOP

Hi all,

I will remain hopeful that this class blog generates more than the one or two posts I usually get per semester. In keeping with tradition, I am the geek who posts on a Saturday night. . .

So, here's the message:

in keeping with my desire to decrease the paper and plastic products in our landfills, I would appreciate it if each of you could bring your own plate (and utensils if possible) to class. BYOP!

Hari is bringing some food--and i will chip in as well. We will discuss Kuhn and revisit the earlier readings to discuss paradigms in comm.

happy weekend

Leda

Just a start

Hi all,

I realize that I have not included everyone in this invite, but I am working with the email addresses I have here at the moment. I will try to include others asap. I am happy to get us started with a question:

How/does a theory differ from a paradigm?

What are the paradigms in Communication?

FYI, I will post the presentation schedule as soon as possible. In the meantime, Lindsay is scheduled to present next class.

Enjoy!

Leda