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Cultures of ability

Submitted by Paul Grobstein on Mon, 02/15/2010 - 11:15am

"Culture as Disability," a 1995 essay by Ray McDermott and Hervé Varenne has been on my mind for more than a decade.  In it, McDermott and Varenne argue compellingly (for me at least) that human cultures have interrelated bright and dark sides.  By promulgating stories about what individuals in a given culture should aspire to, cultures provide individuals with a sense of motivation and achievement,  The same stories, however, also "disable" other individuals, by setting standards of achievement which they, for one reason or another, can't adequately satisfy.
 

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Making sense of the world: the need to entertain the inconceivable

Submitted by Paul Grobstein on Mon, 02/08/2010 - 6:40pm

An interesting example of the constraints placed on inquiry by stories that make some things difficult to conceive came up in Neurobiology and Behavior last week, during a discussion of the ability of the nervous system to generate outputs by itself rather than simply in response to external stimuli.

"Perhaps I've just had the idea that 'cause equals effect' engrained in my mind for so long that it's just difficult to sway me, but I still feel that there must be some input to trigger reactions in our body" 

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From evolving systems to world literature and back again?

Submitted by Paul Grobstein on Sun, 01/31/2010 - 5:43pm

The Facebook group "Rethinking World Literature" hosts a series of interdisciplinary discussions around the topic of what constitutes "world literature."  The Evolving Systems project on Serendip hosts a series of interdisciplinary discussions exploring the common usefulness in a wide array of contexts, academic and otherwise, of emergent and evolving systems ideas.  The conversation documented below is archived from a discussion on the Rethinking World Literature Facebook site and will be added to as that discussion continues. 

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Evolution of science education as story telling and story revising

Submitted by Paul Grobstein on Sun, 01/24/2010 - 7:27pm

For years, I've been exploring ways of being a "less wrong" teacher.  And that means, among other things, noticing new problems that come along with creating new ways of being.

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Alternative perspectives on randomness and its significance

Submitted by Paul Grobstein on Sun, 01/17/2010 - 3:39pm

Interesting lunch conversation with Mike Sears over winter break, following up on issues that have arisen in the evolving system open discussions.

Neurobiology and Behavior, Spring, 2010, Home Page

Welcome to the home page of Biology 202 at Bryn Mawr College. Pleased to have you here. I'm looking forward to an interesting,enjoyable, productive semester of "getting it less wrong", and hope you are too. Let's have some fun, and see what we can all make out of it together.

 

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Evolving humanity: towards a "third way"

Submitted by Paul Grobstein on Wed, 01/13/2010 - 12:26pm

Rationality and social wisdom/cohesion clearly play important roles in inquiry, in education, and in human affairs generally.  But there are problems with relying on either alone, and with the two in combination as well.

Genres 2010 - Final Papers

This is the final set of webpapers for a course on Literary Kinds: Thinking Through Genre, a course offered @ Bryn Mawr College in Spring 2010. 

Take a look around, and feel warmly welcome to respond in the comment area available at the end of each paper. What strikes, intrigues, puzzles you...what, among your reactions, might be of interest or use to the writer, or others in the class, or others who--exploring the internet--might be in search of thoughtful conversation about how we are making sense of the way literature, and literary theory, portrays the world?

 

Genres 2010 - Web Paper 3

This is the third set of webpapers to emerge from Literary Kinds: Thinking Through Genres, a course about category-making and category-breaking offered at Bryn Mawr College in Spring 2010. Three months into the semester, students are exploring here the questions they have been mulling over since they left Alice in Wonderland: there are essays here about the genre of the graphic narrative, of film, of framed stories, of sequels...

Take a look around, and feel warmly welcome to respond in the comment area available at the end of each paper. What strikes, intrigues, puzzles you...what, among your reactions, might be of interest or use to the writer, or others in the class, or others who--exploring the internet--might be in search of thoughtful conversation about how we are making sense of the way literature, and literary theory, portrays the world?

 

Genres 2010 - Web Paper 2

This is the second set of webpapers to emerge from Literary Kinds: Thinking Through Genre, a course about category-making offered at Bryn Mawr College in Spring 2010. Two months into the semester, students are exploring here the questions that have arisen for them since they last wrote; you'll find essays here about the digital humanities, syllabus construction, the genre we call "parody," and the particular imaginative test case we call Alice in Wonderland.

Take a look around, and feel warmly welcome to respond in the comment area available at the end of each paper. What strikes, intrigues, puzzles you...what, among your reactions, might be of interest or use to the writer, or others in the class, or others who--exploring the internet--might be in search of thoughtful conversation about how we are making sense of the way old and new forms of literature, and literary theory, portray the world?

 

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Remote Ready Biology Learning Activities

Scanning electron microscope image of SARS-CoV-2

Remote Ready Biology Learning Activities has 50 remote-ready activities, which work for either your classroom or remote teaching.

Narrative is determined not by a desire to narrate but by a desire to exchange. (Roland Barthes, S/Z)

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