On Friday, January 4, 2002, Patricia Acone wrote:

Good afternoon! On PBS there is a cartoon with an Asian setting. In this particular segment, the main character, a cat named Sagwa has been told by her brother that there is a terrible animal called the gilded porcupine and that she must be fearful for her life if she should encounter the porcupine. One day. as she and her brother are walking in the woods, her brother spots the gilded porcupine and tells Sagwa that they must run. Much to her brother's suprise he discovers that the porcupine and his sister are good friends. After the meeting, Sagwa's brother asks her how she became fast friends with the porcupine, and Segawa's response is " I stopped letting your perceptions and your imagination impact on my perceptions and my imagination".

On Friday, January 4, 2002, jeanne responded.

Sagwa sounds delightful. Now all that's missing to add her to your thesis project is to conceptually link her answer to her brother in terms of dominant discourse, which constrains the imaginary of most folks, but which Sagwa manages to overcome and befriend the dreaded golden porcupine.

Now, your project involves putting together a community of teacher and student scholars who can write collaboratively for our weekly journal on peace and social justice. How does Sagwa fit into that? Well, she uses the very words we use in discussing dominant discourse. She speaks of refusing to allow her brother's dominant discourse on the gilded porcupine to deter her from getting to know the porcupine. That is, she refuses to accept the dominant discourse packaged version of what a gilded porcupine is. Good for her! And out of that she wins a friend.

How does this fit into your thesis? Well, we see clearly that Sagwa has found a way of getting around the constraint to her imaginary as far as gilded porcupines are concerned. The message is constraints can be overcome if we use reflexive critical thought. If we don't allow others to make up our mind for us. If we follow through on our own imaginary. And that's the role that Dear Habermas sees for students and teachers: thinking their way around the constraints the academy has imposed through academic discourse, and publishing that thinking as a textual gloss. This would open up the academic discourse to a much more inclusive approach, and could turn the educational process into a more meaningful undertaking.

Now can I have a couple of paragraphs for your thesis project?

love and peace, and START WRITING. jeanne

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Pictures for City Folk

So what does a porcupine look like?

- On the Porcupine Photo Gallery Page of Shannon Ford 2000. This is the best picture I could find on the Web for those of you, city folk like me, who wouldn't know a porcupine if we fell over it. I rather like Segawa's idea of turning the little creature into a friend.

br> On the South African Porcupine Page

African Crested Porcupines

NativeTech: Native American Technology and Art About Porcupines...
And their animated gif:

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