Co-creation, The Psychic Life of Power, by Butler

I cannot read this book before class. I dip into it, trying to understand, and read what others have to say. It doesn't help. The professor tells us to read anyway, and trust that we will absorb more than we know. If we don't like it, look to ourselves for why. "We read to expand the kinds of questions we ask." Reese We don't need answers.
Essentialism- "The only thing that makes something what it is. The primary quality of a thing." Najendra
We reveiw the class from last week. I understand deeper. Our network of conversations includes a self network- "the board of directors" or the voices in my head. What we hear from others doesn't influence us (psychology term); it constitutes us.
Sometimes we attach meaning to a person- "she's the grumpy one." This is false- that is her in relation to me- in other circumstances she is different. This is why we can't understand why are friends are married to the men they chose, sometimes. We don't know the man they know. (just as well, really. That would be rather awkward.)Try changing your circumstances. Practise constituting someone before you interact with him/her. (This could help at work.) Use grace, or willingness to consider- This is the Bishop in Les Mis- constituting Jean as a friend, not a thief, and giving him a new identity.
There is no essential self- we are created in the moment, through language. "You are a new creation in Christ." There is pure religion in this idea. If we aren't locking someone into a preconceived performance, we are allowing the possibility of a brilliant performance, just as Christ offers us. Salvation becomes a performative speech act of speaking our new self into being, possessing the self that the Christ conversation has identified us as. This may, of course, need frequent repetition.
This is one reason why gossip is so destructive- the conversation networks constitute the individual in a negative way- what would be the power of positive gossip?

Co-creation- Without the tension of the opposite, you cannot know that you exist. Thus, master cannot exist without slave, man without woman, etc. Because of this tension, you can change others by changing yourself. Foucalt- Power doesn't lie with the speaker but with the listner. Force is outside pressure; "power is the ability to produce results through language." MLK, Ghandi, etc. Force doesn't work, it leads to more force. When we are subjected to force, the best response is not to change the other, but ourself. (hmm. Sounds like martial arts!)

How do you say Art is right? The network of conversations that create this rightness?
Najendra- "A discipline creates what it studies. The body is created with biology's creation." (What does this mean?) The act of speaking "I" puts the speaker into the game, enmeshing her into the web.

Butler was instrumental in seperating the ideas of gender and sex. I, who have no idea, try to explain queer theory by riffing on something the prof. said- it "queers" or inverts something. Is that what queer theory is then? It turns an idea upside down to look at it?

Conversations- The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, by Goffman

I cannot understand when others say Goffman's name. It sounds like something else to me. Who? I ask.
We begin an inquiry- How do you know who you are?
We are who others say we are, using language. A network of conversations describe me- I react to these descriptions- accept or fight them- and thus fulfill them. "Absent language, there is no world" (Reese, 1/24/08). I cannot know who I am without the language to describe myself. Big L Language- little l language.
A child doesn't know she's a girl until she learns this. (Leila insists that girl's can have a penis. In a picture she has made, the figure is a girl, and the stick element is the thing she pees with, her penis. "Girls don't have a penis," I tell her. She disagrees.
My brief is "bad ass."
Goffman speaks of performers having different fronts for different audiences, and feeling a disconnect when audiences interact. One example, after I became a mother with L, Barbara at work related to me only as a mother. It jarred, because it was not the desired performance for me at that time. Another example, X's fear of birthday parties which brought all his audiences into contact because of the different fronts he presents to each one. This disparity is lessening as he becomes more open about who he is with family, and where he comes from with friends. I, however, have long been allowed backstage at all his events.

Generative

We go around the room speaking how we want to be known. We are free to present ourselves as we like. Mandy has done this before, and gives a metaphor for herself, "silly putty." Some others use metaphors; other just describe. I am almost last, listening hard but trying to think of who I want to be. Coffee, I decide, without thinking it through. During break we are to share with a partner. Why coffee? I write down words- strong, flavorful, energizing, international, Colombian/Jamaican, fresh, process, varieties.
I am creating who I am with my performative utterance.
"The degree to which we are willing to be known yields our degree of creativity." "Class is a creative space."
Language has power to create- our words mean more than their sounds. The professor says we are all brilliant.

An example of a performance breakdown

Translation, by Octavio Paz

Interesting point that Paz makes connects to the Storytelling class- People used to look for connections and similarities in other cultures, and find the "one substance" that was being communicated through "many languages". "Translation was not only a confirmation but also a guarantee of the existence of spiritual bonds." But in modern times, segun Paz, people "began to find it difficult to recongnize [themselves] in [others]" because of the immense variety of differences. Thus, translation and exploration have become abut finding differences instead of similarities. "Foreignness was no longer teh exception but the rule." "Translation had once served to reveal the preponderance of similarities over differences; from this time forward translation would serve to illustrate the irreconcilablility of differences, whether those stem from the foreignness of the savage of of our neighbor."
He speaks about all language being translation. In learning to speak we are learning to translate. I used to think that everyone thought in English, as I did, but spoke in Spanish, or Desano, or English.

Day One- Filters

Dr. Reese is trying to shake us up. This is a way to keep track of the process.
Notes: I notice someone new is in the classroom. People are watching her, shifting in their seats. She's trying to set up the computer. She's dressed in workout clothes, tennis. I do a brain shift. She's obviously the teacher.
We watch a presentation- music with a strong beat sets the ryhthm. The pictures on the screen are snapshots, but powerful- the words are simple: More than 6 Billion People feel- Joy- Despair-Love-Hope. (How do you represent this in photos? Some must be staged.) Wise humans only connect. (How? Through our stories.)
We write and share.
She dances and speaks- birthing of self, raw, universal- parallel to other lives of other race, masculine.
She stops, we write and share. (Very cooperative learning.)
She dances and speaks- "differences are cultural- not innate" "what if I'm no different than you?" Interactive- with cultural differences. TRUST. Shaksperean- 'If you cut me, do I not bleed?' Voice breaks.
We write.
What do you see when you look at me?
performer, man/woman, comedy/serious, black
Methods of seeing:- Observation of what I said/did
Observation from my experience.
Observation from my own stereotypes.
"I beome the opportunity for her to see as she sees."
Breakthroughs:
People are signs- semiotics-sybols with different meanings to different people.
Breakdowns:
It's not important what your stereotypes are, but what you do with them. The idea is to understand yourself and your reaction to others.
Learning Moments:
What does this have to do with Storytelling? I guess we can't hear each other's stories until we can get past what we judge the other to be.
We have to clean our filters. But what about me? All this culture stuff is confusing to a TCK.