So, why, if I were a scholar in the humanities would I EVER bother to read
the work of other scholars.  What is the equivalent of the group of
scientists trying to solve and ultimately understanding how something works!


 

You are making humanities scholarship sound like kind of a circlejerk, not
to put too fine a point on it. 

 

Nick 

 

From: geniegia...@gmail.com [mailto:geniegia...@gmail.com] On Behalf Of
Genie Giaimo
Sent: Friday, October 22, 2010 3:41 PM
To: Nicholas Thompson
Cc: kitc...@lists.clarku.edu; James Cordova; James Laird; Vincent Hevern;
friam@redfish.com
Subject: Re: Chomsky Supports Thompson

 

Haha that is just it--consensus as much as it is something most people
desire is not often what scholarship in the Humanities is aiming for--this
is perhaps why people have such trouble defining literary studies and then
we have trouble "justifying" it when we are questioned. It would seem rather
silly to say that there are a infinite number of approaches to texts because
authors do not have a finite number of approaches. Sure we can create
literary movements, the canon etc. but frequently someone else comes along
and "busts" it and we are left with a new canon and a new way of looking at
the work of authors who may or may not have been looked at previously--it's
a bit silly when I explain it that way but there you have it. And final
point, logic is something that, perhaps, we can't always assume artists and
humans in general use/have. 

Genie 

On Fri, Oct 22, 2010 at 3:14 PM, Nicholas Thompson
<nickthomp...@earthlink.net> wrote:

So how do we "convince" in pomo scholarship.  Bribery?  Threats?  If not
logic, what legitimate inducements to agreement are available?

Nick

 

From: geniegia...@gmail.com [mailto:geniegia...@gmail.com] On Behalf Of
Genie Giaimo
Sent: Friday, October 22, 2010 9:57 AM
To: kitc...@lists.clarku.edu; James Cordova
Cc: James Laird; Vincent Hevern; ForwNThompson; friam@redfish.com
Subject: Re: Chomsky Supports Thompson

 

Hey all, 

Think this is problematic simply because with the introduction of post
modernism (and arguably other earlier movements) authors are not always
looking for logical conclusions for why people are the way they are. Think
about A Clockwork Orange for example. In po-mo form and content sometimes
break down and people do things for reasons that seem beyond a logical "oh
it was their childhood or x y and z experience that did it"--I really am
convinced that we are working within two different frameworks that overlap
but in a problematic way because of the difference in outcome that is
expected in the two. 

Genie

On Fri, Oct 22, 2010 at 10:28 AM, James Cordova <jcord...@clarku.edu> wrote:

>From Skinner's "Science and Human Behavior"

"Social stimuli are important to those to whom social reinforcement is
important. The salesman, the courtier, the entertainer...-- all are likely
to be affected by subtle properties of human behavior, associated with favor
or disapproval, which are overlooked by many people. It is significant that
the novelist, as a specialist in the description of human behavior, often
shows an early history in which social reinforcement has been especially
important."

And of course Skinner was also a novelist.

Best,

James

James V. Cordova, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Director of Clinical Training
Department of Psychology
Clark University
(508) 793-7268
-----Original Message-----
From: James Laird [mailto:jla...@clarku.edu]
Sent: Friday, October 22, 2010 10:07 AM
To: kitc...@lists.clarku.edu; 'Vincent Hevern'; ForwNThompson
Cc: friam@redfish.com
Subject: RE: Chomsky Supports Thompson

Vinnie,
       Nice to see you chiming in.
       Chomsky doesn't impress me, since he isn't very empirical. Now if it
was Skinner, who was both an empiricist and a novelist, that would be
impressive. Actually, since Skinner is dead, that would be really, really
impressive.
       Isn't this all about the feeling of knowing and how that differs (or
not) from actual knowing? And there is lots of empirical research
demonstrating how easy it is to deceive people's feeling of knowing, so that
they feel they know something that they clearly don't. and whatever
skepticism we might feel about the existential state of "real" knowledge, we
can at least agree, I would think, that knowing and feeling of knowing are
different.
       Jim

-----Original Message-----
From: Vincent Hevern [mailto:hev...@lemoyne.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, October 20, 2010 4:49 PM
To: ForwNThompson
Cc: kitc...@lists.clarku.edu; friam@redfish.com
Subject: Chomsky Supports Thompson

Just to add to the mix:

Noam Chomsky (1988). Language and Problems of Knowledge:

"It is quite possible -- overwhelmingly probable one might guess --
that we will always learn more about human life and human personality
from novels than from scientific psychology."

[quoted in Peter Watson (2000). The Modern Mind. New York: Harper
Perennial, pp. 755-56]

I just read this and had to send it along.

Vinny
--

----------------------------------------------
Vincent W. Hevern, SJ, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology
Le Moyne College
1419 Salt Springs Rd.
Syracuse, NY 13214 USA
hev...@lemoyne.edu
(315) 445-4342 (Office)
(315) 445-4722 (FAX)
----------------------------------------------
Web: www.hevern.com
Narrative Psychology: www.narrativepsych.com
IJDS: www.dialogical.org
----------------------------------------------

 

 

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