February 5, 2007
Everyone Blog!
To get our blog going, it was decided at today’s Labinar general meeting that everyone should post a blog about either “the” problem of their ongoing research or “a” problem that is concerning them at the moment, explaining why it is important. Everyone should try to do this within the next week. The entry needn’t be long or especially detailed. A couple of succinct paragraphs will suffice.
The purposes of the Lab Notes blog are:
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1. to develop a space for intellectual conversation outside of the classroom;
2. to allow the group to stay informed about what other members of the group are both thinking and doing;
3. to share information, resources, readings, anecdotes; and
4. ultimately, to discover resonances between domains.
Wordpress (the blogging software we’re using) provides most html codes that you’ll need: for boldface, italic, blockquotes, linking to other websites and photo uploads.
A few tips about blogging (picked up in my I-School class last term):
1. use an effective headline (that captures the point of the post)
2. include links in your post as often as possible. Linking improves traffic to the site and allows others to find your post. Linking is considered the art of blogging, captured in the blogospheric motto: “Link as you think.” Discoveries are a great aspect of blogging: sharing things that people might not otherwise know about or find themselves.
3. write clearly and grammatically — although a blog is relatively informal, the writing should not be sloppy.
Notes from General Labinar Meeting Feb 4
Today Anthony Stavrianakis, Mattias Viktorin, Limor Darash, Amelia Moore, Alfred Montoya, Jerome Whitington, Emily Chua, Paul Rabinow, China Scherz, and I met today to discuss our activities this Spring. Kevin Karpiak, Adrian MacIntyre, and Erin Mahaffey couldn’t make the meeting due to schedule conflicts.
Most importantly we discussed the new blog and the less-new wiki. Anthony has been named the Lab Notes blog administrator, so all concerns among our group should be forwarded to him: stavrianakis@berkeley.edu
Also discussed:
– We decided against having a regularly scheduled face-to-face meeting. On the other hand, we hope to have at least one “event” a month throughout the term.
– Paul reported that he and Gaymon are working on a draft statement on
“contemporary equipment.” Amelia and Mattias will be arranging a event
around it.
– Right now the Lab Notes blog has a glitch that requires anyone commenting to log in first. We are attempting to fix this now so that anyone can comment. Only those logged in will be able to post, but anyone will be able to comment.
– I appointed myself the “wiki gardener” and will keep the “current event” section
of that updated, so that everyone can look there for meeting times, dates,
upcoming events. Just click on: this link. If you have questions about using the wiki, you can direct them to me, but of course everyone should be actively editing and adding to the wiki as he or she likes. People who haven’t put something about themselves on their individual wiki pages, should try to do so, at least their contact info.
February 2, 2007
Last Thursday’s (Jan 25th) Meeting
Following up on the writing group meeting from last thursday…
Mary, Anthony, Mattias and I met at Henry’s to discuss a chapter from my dissertation (see previous post).
Beyond being personally helpful (again, my thanks to all who took their time…), we hit upon some issues that seemed to resonate with everyone’s work. The main thing was the integration (or lack thereof) of…let’s call it “theory” and “description”… in my chapter. From there we had a wider discussion about how ethnographic form:
- the chapter currently exists in, as Mary called it, an “ethnographic sandwhich” (argument/theory–story/ethnography–conclusion/theory).
- what are the problems with this organization? Mattias said it reminded him of Don Kulick’s work, for better or for worse.
- would “mere description” have been enough? The “theoretical” portions of the chapter were latter additions, based on certain readers’ reactions, yet the “ethnography” remains the most successful part of the chapter.
- what are the ways that “theory” and “ethnography” could be put into dialogue, especially in a chapter where so much of the “ethnography” is about “theory”?
January 19, 2007
Writing Group Meeting, Thursday January 25th at 5pm
For those of us interested in getting together to discuss one
another’s texts, the first meeting will be on Thursday, January 25, at
Henry’s, 5-7pm. (Close to campus, the place seems reasonably quiet,
and has a wide range of beers on tap.) Kevin has agreed to present an
excerpt from his dissertation (see attached).
Everyone who takes part on this occasion is of course expected to have
read the text, but to get the discussion going, Amelia and Mattias will
prepare to talk for 10-15 minutes. We suggest the following structure:
(1) Introductory comments (by Amelia and Mattias); (2) a general
discussion about the text and responses from Kevin; and (3) a brief
evaluation of the meeting to improve its form. We should also decide
on a timeslot for subsequent labinar events this semester.
Chapter 3–The King’s Two Bodies: Hierarchy and Distance at the École Nationale de Police