Written Communication, Vol. 25, No. 2, 166-195 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/0741088307313177
© 2008 SAGE Publications
Writing in Multimodal Texts
A Social Semiotic Account of Designs for Learning
Jeff Bezemer
Institute of Education, Centre for Multimodal Research
Gunther Kress
Institute of Education, Centre for Multimodal Research
Frequently writing is now no longer the central mode of representation in learning materials—textbooks, Web-based resources, teacher-produced materials. Still (as well as moving) images are increasingly prominent as carriers of meaning. Uses and forms of writing have undergone profound changes over the last decades, which calls for a social, pedagogical, and semiotic explanation. Two trends mark that history. The digital media, rather than the (text) book, are more and more the site of appearance and distribution of learning resources, and writing is being displaced by image as the central mode for representation. This poses sharp questions about present and future roles and forms of writing. For text, design and principles of composition move into the foreground. Here we sketch a social semiotic account that aims to elucidate such principles and permits consideration of their epistemological as well as social/pedagogic significance. Linking representation with social factors, we put forward terms to explore two issues: the principles underlying the design of multimodal ensembles and the potential epistemological and pedagogic effects of multimodal designs. Our investigation is set within a research project with a corpus of learning resources for secondary school in Science, Mathematics, and English from the 1930s, the 1980s, and from the first decade of the 21st century, as well as digitally represented and online learning resources from the year 2000 onward.
Key Words: writing • multimodality • representation • communication • multimedia • curriculum • pedagogy • textbooks • learning • learning resources
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Cross-Cultural Analysis of Student Writing: Beyond Discourses of Difference by Tiane Donahue
Written Communication, Vol. 25, No. 3, 319-352 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/0741088308319515
© 2008 SAGE Publications
Cross-Cultural Analysis of Student Writing
Beyond Discourses of Difference
Tiane Donahue
University of Maine Farmington
Text analysis traditions in France and the United States include discourse analysis, critical linguistics, French functional linguistics, Bakhtinian dialogics, and "generous reading." These frames have not been used, however, in cross-cultural analysis of university student writing. The author presents a study of 250 student texts from French and U.S. introductory university courses, using a methodology for cross-cultural analysis that draws on other French and U.S. methodologies, particularly those using the dialogic utterance as a unit of analysis, but extended by the tools of reprise-modification and textual movement. The results provide a complex picture of university students' writing as a site of social-textual dynamics, resisting more traditional contrastive approaches while reintroducing a focus on the text. The interpretive analysis brought out more commonality than difference; the author hypothesizes that students entering the university share a discourse of learning and negotiation across cultural contexts. The methodology supports cross-cultural analysis beyond "discourses of difference."
Key Words: reprise-modification • dialogics • textual movement • discourse analysis • university student writing • cultural comparison
DOI: 10.1177/0741088308319515
© 2008 SAGE Publications
Cross-Cultural Analysis of Student Writing
Beyond Discourses of Difference
Tiane Donahue
University of Maine Farmington
Text analysis traditions in France and the United States include discourse analysis, critical linguistics, French functional linguistics, Bakhtinian dialogics, and "generous reading." These frames have not been used, however, in cross-cultural analysis of university student writing. The author presents a study of 250 student texts from French and U.S. introductory university courses, using a methodology for cross-cultural analysis that draws on other French and U.S. methodologies, particularly those using the dialogic utterance as a unit of analysis, but extended by the tools of reprise-modification and textual movement. The results provide a complex picture of university students' writing as a site of social-textual dynamics, resisting more traditional contrastive approaches while reintroducing a focus on the text. The interpretive analysis brought out more commonality than difference; the author hypothesizes that students entering the university share a discourse of learning and negotiation across cultural contexts. The methodology supports cross-cultural analysis beyond "discourses of difference."
Key Words: reprise-modification • dialogics • textual movement • discourse analysis • university student writing • cultural comparison
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Life and politics after humanity by Roberto Farneti
Philosophy & Social Criticism, Vol. 34, No. 5, 499-513 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/0191453708089196
© 2008 SAGE Publications
Life and politics after humanity
A map for newcomers
Roberto Farneti
Free University of Bozen/Bolzano, Italy
A number of academic disciplines are seeking to rearticulate the distinction between the natural and the normative by rethinking the position humans occupy within nature. This article surveys this interdisciplinary debate in which the possibility of understanding humans as normative beings is often called into question. The aim of this survey is to identify the stakes involved in such debates and to reveal the underlying policy dimension of current discussions about human nature. This article concludes by arguing that the main target of the current battles for recognition between disciplines is the `public', which is becoming the ultimate epistemic authority in a game with high political stakes.
Key Words: humanity • normativity • performativity • political theory • public understanding of science
DOI: 10.1177/0191453708089196
© 2008 SAGE Publications
Life and politics after humanity
A map for newcomers
Roberto Farneti
Free University of Bozen/Bolzano, Italy
A number of academic disciplines are seeking to rearticulate the distinction between the natural and the normative by rethinking the position humans occupy within nature. This article surveys this interdisciplinary debate in which the possibility of understanding humans as normative beings is often called into question. The aim of this survey is to identify the stakes involved in such debates and to reveal the underlying policy dimension of current discussions about human nature. This article concludes by arguing that the main target of the current battles for recognition between disciplines is the `public', which is becoming the ultimate epistemic authority in a game with high political stakes.
Key Words: humanity • normativity • performativity • political theory • public understanding of science
On the psychogenesis of the a priori:Jean Piaget's critique of Kant by Horst Pfeiffle
Philosophy & Social Criticism, Vol. 34, No. 5, 487-498 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/0191453708089195
© 2008 SAGE Publications
On the psychogenesis of the a priori
Jean Piaget's critique of Kant
Horst Pfeiffle
Vienna Institute of Economics and Business Administration
The seal of the a priori is imprinted on the reception of Kant's philosophy. Piaget's epistemological argumentation seems to ascribe knowledge a more fruitful constructiveness than Kant, seeing the a priori as rooted in unvarying reason. Yet, it seems, he failed to recognize the complexity of Kant's theory, which does not always follow a quid iuris line. Moments of experience, analysis and self-observation played more than a marginal role in his discovery of the a priori. Indeed, Kant himself raises the question of ontogenetic category assimilation in a review which pre-empts Piaget, borrowing the category of `original acquisition' from the doctrine of the laws of natural right. And although Kant should not be elevated to the harbinger of the knowledge on development issues delivered thus far by the history of science and experiments, he did recognize the temporal reference of their categories in principle without resolving their validity in psychogenetic terms.
Key Words: a priori • categories • genetic epistemology • Geneva School • neo-Kantianism • original acquisition • Jean Piaget • psychogenesis • self-observation
DOI: 10.1177/0191453708089195
© 2008 SAGE Publications
On the psychogenesis of the a priori
Jean Piaget's critique of Kant
Horst Pfeiffle
Vienna Institute of Economics and Business Administration
The seal of the a priori is imprinted on the reception of Kant's philosophy. Piaget's epistemological argumentation seems to ascribe knowledge a more fruitful constructiveness than Kant, seeing the a priori as rooted in unvarying reason. Yet, it seems, he failed to recognize the complexity of Kant's theory, which does not always follow a quid iuris line. Moments of experience, analysis and self-observation played more than a marginal role in his discovery of the a priori. Indeed, Kant himself raises the question of ontogenetic category assimilation in a review which pre-empts Piaget, borrowing the category of `original acquisition' from the doctrine of the laws of natural right. And although Kant should not be elevated to the harbinger of the knowledge on development issues delivered thus far by the history of science and experiments, he did recognize the temporal reference of their categories in principle without resolving their validity in psychogenetic terms.
Key Words: a priori • categories • genetic epistemology • Geneva School • neo-Kantianism • original acquisition • Jean Piaget • psychogenesis • self-observation
Homo spectator:Public space in the age of the spectacle by Margaret Kohn
Philosophy & Social Criticism, Vol. 34, No. 5, 467-486 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/0191453708089194
© 2008 SAGE Publications
Homo spectator
Public space in the age of the spectacle
Margaret Kohn
University of Toronto, Canada
This article develops a novel approach to the relationship between public space and democracy. It employs the concept of the spectacle to show how public space can serve to destroy or weaken solidarity just as easily as it can foster a democratic ethos of equality. A close reading of Rousseau's Letter to M. d'Alembert on the Theatre helps illuminate the political implications of modern public life, which increasingly takes the form of passive individuals assembling in order to view a spectacle. According to Rousseau, spectacles like the theater are depoliticizing because they undermine the opportunity for active participation and interaction with other citizens. By habituating the audience to theatrical modes of self-presentation, they also weaken the capacity for empathy. This article concludes by showing how contemporary theorists including Sennett, Debord and Habermas also contribute to our understanding of the concept of the spectacle.
Key Words: citizenship • democracy • festival • public space • Jean-Jacques Rousseau • Richard Sennett • spectacle • theater
DOI: 10.1177/0191453708089194
© 2008 SAGE Publications
Homo spectator
Public space in the age of the spectacle
Margaret Kohn
University of Toronto, Canada
This article develops a novel approach to the relationship between public space and democracy. It employs the concept of the spectacle to show how public space can serve to destroy or weaken solidarity just as easily as it can foster a democratic ethos of equality. A close reading of Rousseau's Letter to M. d'Alembert on the Theatre helps illuminate the political implications of modern public life, which increasingly takes the form of passive individuals assembling in order to view a spectacle. According to Rousseau, spectacles like the theater are depoliticizing because they undermine the opportunity for active participation and interaction with other citizens. By habituating the audience to theatrical modes of self-presentation, they also weaken the capacity for empathy. This article concludes by showing how contemporary theorists including Sennett, Debord and Habermas also contribute to our understanding of the concept of the spectacle.
Key Words: citizenship • democracy • festival • public space • Jean-Jacques Rousseau • Richard Sennett • spectacle • theater
Antinomies of transcritique and virtue ethics by Giuseppe Tassone
Philosophy & Social Criticism, Vol. 34, No. 6, 665-684 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/0191453708090333
© 2008 SAGE Publications
Antinomies of transcritique and virtue ethics
An Adornian critique
Giuseppe Tassone
University of Balamand, Lebanon
In the wave of critical theory's recent turn to ethics, Karatani's transcritique and Eagleton's ethics of agape have emerged as two of the most outstanding attempts to reinstate morality at the centre of Marx's analysis of capitalist society. This article argues that, in spite of their merits in repositioning the normative generalizations of the moral discourse within the context of Marx's political economy, both theories share certain fundamental flaws which are inherent in the very meaning of the possibility of moral action in a wrong society. By taking Karatani's transcritique as a sample of what Christoph Menke names `rational morality' and Eagleton's revival of classical morality as a variant of `virtue ethics', it is shown that they are both amenable to Adorno's charge that wrong life cannot be lived rightly. Finally, it is contended that what Adorno's criticism indicates is that, when it most matters in real situations, morality always reveals its political overdetermination.
Key Words: Theodor Adorno • critical theory • dialectics • Terry Eagleton • Kojin Karatani • rational morality • totality • transcendental • transcritique • virtue ethics
DOI: 10.1177/0191453708090333
© 2008 SAGE Publications
Antinomies of transcritique and virtue ethics
An Adornian critique
Giuseppe Tassone
University of Balamand, Lebanon
In the wave of critical theory's recent turn to ethics, Karatani's transcritique and Eagleton's ethics of agape have emerged as two of the most outstanding attempts to reinstate morality at the centre of Marx's analysis of capitalist society. This article argues that, in spite of their merits in repositioning the normative generalizations of the moral discourse within the context of Marx's political economy, both theories share certain fundamental flaws which are inherent in the very meaning of the possibility of moral action in a wrong society. By taking Karatani's transcritique as a sample of what Christoph Menke names `rational morality' and Eagleton's revival of classical morality as a variant of `virtue ethics', it is shown that they are both amenable to Adorno's charge that wrong life cannot be lived rightly. Finally, it is contended that what Adorno's criticism indicates is that, when it most matters in real situations, morality always reveals its political overdetermination.
Key Words: Theodor Adorno • critical theory • dialectics • Terry Eagleton • Kojin Karatani • rational morality • totality • transcendental • transcritique • virtue ethics
Levinas, Habermas and modernity by Nicholas H. Smith
Philosophy & Social Criticism, Vol. 34, No. 6, 643-664 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/0191453708090332
© 2008 SAGE Publications
Levinas, Habermas and modernity
Nicholas H. Smith
Macquarie University, Australia
This article examines Levinas as if he were a participant in what Habermas has called `the philosophical discourse of modernity'. It begins by comparing Levinas' and Habermas' articulations of the philosophical problems of modernity. It then turns to how certain key motifs in Levinas' later work give philosophical expression to the needs of the times as Levinas diagnoses them. In particular it examines how Levinas interweaves a modern, post-ontological conception of `the religious' or `the sacred' into his account of subjectivity. Finally, the article looks at some problems that arise for Levinas once his position in the philosophical discourse on modernity is made explicit.
Key Words: Jürgen Habermas • Emmanuel Levinas • modernity • ontology • otherness • religion • social relation
DOI: 10.1177/0191453708090332
© 2008 SAGE Publications
Levinas, Habermas and modernity
Nicholas H. Smith
Macquarie University, Australia
This article examines Levinas as if he were a participant in what Habermas has called `the philosophical discourse of modernity'. It begins by comparing Levinas' and Habermas' articulations of the philosophical problems of modernity. It then turns to how certain key motifs in Levinas' later work give philosophical expression to the needs of the times as Levinas diagnoses them. In particular it examines how Levinas interweaves a modern, post-ontological conception of `the religious' or `the sacred' into his account of subjectivity. Finally, the article looks at some problems that arise for Levinas once his position in the philosophical discourse on modernity is made explicit.
Key Words: Jürgen Habermas • Emmanuel Levinas • modernity • ontology • otherness • religion • social relation
Arendt and Nietzsche on responsibility and futurity by Rosalyn Diprose
Philosophy & Social Criticism, Vol. 34, No. 6, 617-642 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/0191453708090331
© 2008 SAGE Publications
Arendt and Nietzsche on responsibility and futurity
Rosalyn Diprose
University of New South Wales, Australia
This article compares Nietzsche's and Arendt's critiques of the juridical concept of responsibility (that emphasizes duty and blame) with the aim of deriving an account of responsibility appropriate for our time. It examines shared ground in their radical approaches to responsibility: by basing personal responsibility in conscience that expresses a self open to an undetermined future, rather than conscience determined by prevailing moral norms, they make a connection between a failure of personal responsibility and the way a totalizing politics jeopardizes human plurality. Two differences between Arendt and Nietzsche are also explored: Nietzsche's account of the corporeal and affective dimensions of conscience explains how politics can foreclose the futural, undetermined dimension of conscience; Arendt's account of political community exposes the mutual dependence of personal and political responsibility. By drawing together these aspects of Arendt's and Nietzsche's thought, the article aims to show how a failure of political responsibility can precipitate a failure of personal responsibility by undermining the basis of normativity that both liberal democratic politics and individual moral conscience would ordinarily share.
Key Words: Hannah Arendt • conscience • futurity • Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche • normativity • responsibility • somatic reflexivity • totalitarianism
DOI: 10.1177/0191453708090331
© 2008 SAGE Publications
Arendt and Nietzsche on responsibility and futurity
Rosalyn Diprose
University of New South Wales, Australia
This article compares Nietzsche's and Arendt's critiques of the juridical concept of responsibility (that emphasizes duty and blame) with the aim of deriving an account of responsibility appropriate for our time. It examines shared ground in their radical approaches to responsibility: by basing personal responsibility in conscience that expresses a self open to an undetermined future, rather than conscience determined by prevailing moral norms, they make a connection between a failure of personal responsibility and the way a totalizing politics jeopardizes human plurality. Two differences between Arendt and Nietzsche are also explored: Nietzsche's account of the corporeal and affective dimensions of conscience explains how politics can foreclose the futural, undetermined dimension of conscience; Arendt's account of political community exposes the mutual dependence of personal and political responsibility. By drawing together these aspects of Arendt's and Nietzsche's thought, the article aims to show how a failure of political responsibility can precipitate a failure of personal responsibility by undermining the basis of normativity that both liberal democratic politics and individual moral conscience would ordinarily share.
Key Words: Hannah Arendt • conscience • futurity • Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche • normativity • responsibility • somatic reflexivity • totalitarianism
The time of hybridity by Simone Drichel
Philosophy & Social Criticism, Vol. 34, No. 6, 587-615 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/0191453708090330
© 2008 SAGE Publications
The time of hybridity
Simone Drichel
University of Otago, New Zealand
Homi Bhabha's idea of hybridity is one of postcolonialism's most keenly debated — and most widely misunderstood — concepts. My article provides some elucidation in the increasingly reductive debates over hybridity in postcolonial studies, suggesting that what is commonly overlooked in these debates is hybridity's complex relationship to temporality. I suggest that this relationship is not given the credit it deserves often enough, resulting in skewed discussions of hybridity as simply (and mistakenly) another form of syncretism. In focusing on the `time of hybridity' in the context of a bicultural politics in Aotearoa/New Zealand, I draw renewed attention to hybridity's investment in temporality as that which both enables a postcolonial politics and shifts these politics into the realm of (Levinasian) ethics, creating an as yet largely unexplored phenomenon which Leela Gandhi has referred to, in a fortuitous phrase, as an `ethics of hybridity'.
Key Words: biculturalism • ethics • hybridity • Maori • politics • postcolonial • temporality
DOI: 10.1177/0191453708090330
© 2008 SAGE Publications
The time of hybridity
Simone Drichel
University of Otago, New Zealand
Homi Bhabha's idea of hybridity is one of postcolonialism's most keenly debated — and most widely misunderstood — concepts. My article provides some elucidation in the increasingly reductive debates over hybridity in postcolonial studies, suggesting that what is commonly overlooked in these debates is hybridity's complex relationship to temporality. I suggest that this relationship is not given the credit it deserves often enough, resulting in skewed discussions of hybridity as simply (and mistakenly) another form of syncretism. In focusing on the `time of hybridity' in the context of a bicultural politics in Aotearoa/New Zealand, I draw renewed attention to hybridity's investment in temporality as that which both enables a postcolonial politics and shifts these politics into the realm of (Levinasian) ethics, creating an as yet largely unexplored phenomenon which Leela Gandhi has referred to, in a fortuitous phrase, as an `ethics of hybridity'.
Key Words: biculturalism • ethics • hybridity • Maori • politics • postcolonial • temporality
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