A Justice Site
A Justice Site
Current Issue:
Volume 17, No. 7, Week of July 28, 2003
jeanne's schedule - Susan's schedule 
NEW
Pat's schedule - About Us - Academic Resources
Previous Issue: Volume 17, No, 6, Week of July 21, 2003
Mirror Sites: CSUDH - Habermas - UWP
TOPICS INDEX - SITE MAP - SITE INDEX
KIDS, Etc. - ARCHIVES - Daily Site Additions
Yahoo Search - Google Search - Amazon.com Search
Class Preparations - What Is Dear Habermas?
California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Soka University Japan, Transcend Art and Peace
Latest Update: July 25, 2003
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu
The Aesthetics of Answerability
Friday, July 25, 2003: I hope you'll get the feeling of dancing dervishes against a sky exploding with possibilities. This is a first version of my struggle with Bakhtin. To be more accurate, my on-going struggle with Greg Neilsen's The Norms of Answerability: Social Theory Between Bakhtin and Habermas.Why a struggle? Well, philosophy and social theory weren't part of my early training. Literature, mathematics, and hard science (physics) were. And Greg Nielsen, bless his heart, spends a lot of time directing doctoral and masters' theses and research projects, meaning his day is spent a little differently from mine. It would have been easy to avoid the struggle, and stick to traditional sociological texts, but the Dear Habermas project led to Bakhtin, and Bakhtin led to the Norms of Answerability. And struggle to catch up on all that cross-discipline reading, I guess I must. But if it feels like this week's painting, I reckon it's worth it.
Me, personally, as a teacher, and Pat and Susan, too, we're uncomfortable with a general theory of sociology that splits into picayune little studies that are convenient to turn out in the midst of unrealistic teaching schedules, that never really tackle the divergence of micro and macro. We're also uncomfortable with the continuing emphasis on quantitative studies and the retreat from sociology's philosophical roots and tradition. That discomfort with the departmentalization of sociological problems and issues in quasi-new areas, like cultural studies, led us to keep searching for new ways to bring our students interactively into sociology as one of the most significant fields of study to touch on everyday life. No, we don't mean we want them to "become sociologists." It doesn't pay well. We mean that we think an understanding, a deep substantive understanding of sociology is a tool needed to successfully cope with our and their lived experience, especially in this 21st Century.
Rest of the story at Bakhtin and the Aesthetics of Answerability
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Left/Right Perspectives - Cursor - New York Times
Arts and Letters Daily - The Economist - The Guardian
Wall Street Journal -The Weekly Standard - The Nation
Los Angeles Times - Chicago Tribune - The Washington Post
Cursor's Al Jazeera Archive - Ha'aretz - Palestine Monitor
Indymedia - BBC News - New Profile - Progressive Sociologists Network
- Friday, July 25, 2003: Because of unforeseeable circumstances at UWP, Susan is taking over again as Chair of the Department of Criminal Justice. That means that we have even more responsibility for engaging her students in dialog; she's going to be awfully busy, and our own dialog will suffer if we don't make the effort. They start after Labor Day, so we'll have time to plan for them. jeanne
Merriam-Webster Dictionary Search: Today's Word: From the Word.A.Day Site
Peace and Social Justice
Essays, Comments, and Discussion Questions
Monday, July 28, 2003. Knowledge and Trust: Gazing into the crystal ball By Natasha Barsotti, Janet French, Matthew Ramsey, Jin Yin. University of British Columbia Journalism Review Online. Left perspective, students of journalism, questioning journalistic "knowledge" and trust.
- Saturday, July 26, 2003. Restorative Justice:
Restorative Justice and the Aesthetics of Answerability Lecture and discussion questions included.
- Saturday, July 26, 2003. Restorative Justice:
United Kingdom officially embraces Restorative Justice. This is wonderful news and certainly an important step in criminal justice practice. Restorative Justice Strategy is a pdf file explaining the government's policy.
- Monday, July 28, 2003: Clarification:
"Clarification of last week's eForum about the United Kingdom Home Office document, "Restorative Justice - the Government's strategy." The group that will help the government develop policy in relation to training and accreditation for restorative justice is not a formal committee." Message fromRestorative Justice eForum. "To subscribe from the Restorative Practices eForum, send an email to subscribe@restorativepractices.org.For the most part, I am very pleased to see this advance. But I should like to ask everyone to consider restorative justice in terms of the "aesthetic answerability" of interpersonal dialog. It seems terribly important to me that we insist upon dialogic communication and that we keep the entire process self-reflective. To those who have been long concerned that the victim has been inaequately included in the process, I would suggest that this must not lead to monologic utterance that deny answerabiliity and hence, any creative development of the interpersonal relationships upon which our communities depend. For more on this theory: The Aesthetics of Answerability.
- Saturday, July 26, 2003. Visual Sociology:
Blogs and Moblogs Essay and discussion questions included.
- Saturday, July 26, 2003. Visual Sociology:
Conference Panelists See Bright Future for Mobile Publishing . . . Backup. Conference Panelists See Bright Future for Mobile Publishing
Check out the disciplines and interests of the keynote speakers. Our interest will be finding ways to translate this professional and museum approach to fieldwords into dialogic discourse in the local community. See Bakhtin and the Aesthetics of Answerability.
Lived Experience:
Kids, Etc.: Stuff to Share with Others
Gina Adams, Comb Series #3, Copyright, Gina Adams.
The colors are captivating. And my daughter loves insects. The combination was irresistible. Maybe those of you who are teaching could use a coloring sheet for one of your nature classes. If you use it with young people, please be sure to remind them that there are NO rules about coloring within lines. Use Gina Adams' painting as an example. Oil sticks or oil pastels should be a great medium. But crayons will do. Click on the coloring sheet version to get a full page. Coloring pages for creative class or play:
I know for a fact that lots of us grownups still enjoy "coloring." Notice that coloring involves senses we don't usually call on anymore. By manipulating color and form, and expressing our different feelings, we are allowing our own creativity to surface. I know, I know, you might get caught if you print the coloring sheets out, but no one will know if you use the little freebie programs on your computer. And soon, you'll learn that you can produce variations on works that are fully worthy of being pinned up on your walls. for everyone's enjoyment.
Art Critical Theory on this? In My House: A Short Essay About Art in Scotland By Judith Findlay. Backup. If you spent a little time on this, sharing with friends, you might come up with a series of colorings that would make an interesting set to frame. Make a simple frame of found objects. Did the background color matter? Use construction paper or painted or colored sheets for mats. And put it on the wall to share. Now, that's art.
Art Shenanigans
Notice the emphasis on drawing in many artists and their communities. Increasingly, communities are finding aesthetics a binding factor in the building of their solidarity. Notice also the effect of splitting the image into six components - kind of like a six-ring circus.
" The PICA community includes everyone interested in the creative exploration and artistic expression of new ideas. Strengthening and extending this community is one of our primary objectives, and we do it by presenting work that evokes inspired, impassioned dialogue. "We also collaborate with like-minded individuals, institutions, private partners and public agencies, drawing on their respective talents and capabilities to build cultural bridges that connect people to mind-broadening experiences, new ways of seeing - and to each other."
From About PICA.
Academic Assessment
UWP and CSUDH Classes Linked through Dear Habermas in Fall 2003
Class Preparations, Fall 2003