From the Psychology of Women Resource List by a Ph.D and emerita prof. (as a response to a question about obsessive attachment, which from the context seems to be the “emotion” which underlies stalking and what not.)
I am not sure what behavior constitutes “obsessive attachment”, but it sounds like stalking which can be physically tracking someone or repeated phone calls and other forms of pursuit. In California this is a crime, not a mental illness. Victims are told to document every occurrence in order to make their case and perpetrators should be told that it is criminal behavior.
I’m curious as to how “crimes” particularly ones that only “exist” in certain locales, therefore preludes classification as a “mental illness.” Clearly it’s both “criminal” and “illness.” Woot, overactive either/or logic in wildly inappropriate settings, by people who should know better.
Cheers,
Sam
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Collecting stories to build a World Trade Center memorial
“BL Ochman has alerted me to this excellent initiative. The World Trade Center Memorial Foundation is collecting stories about 9/11. I guess we all remember what we were doing when this tragic event unfolded.
The story-base will be significant and I can see how it will be an effective memorial. With such a rich resource it would be a shame to see its potential unfulfilled. Here are a couple of ways it could be enhanced. People should be encouraged to interact with the stories by being able to comment on them and perhaps tagging and rating each story according to its impact on the reader. The group intelligence would arise from these interactions and provide assistance for new users seeking stories that matter to them.”
(Via Anecdote.)
I’m really intrigued by storytelling in general, and while the Trade Center is so totally not the cultural moment that I’m interested in exploring, I think what this project proposes is really interesting. If memorial can take forms like the Berlin Holocaust memorial (see blog post which discusses it here,) then why can’t memorial take an intellectual space like story base? And isn’t that really cool, as a concept?
Just a thought…
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Overheard Last night…
A: BigImportant University has two Ph.D programs: one in English and one in Literature.
R: What’s the difference?
A: The website says, that the professors in the English program are interested in literature, and the people in the literature program… aren’t as much.
Sigh.
It’s funny. But it’s also true. The Literature is more theoretical and in with the “cultural studies” paradigm. So it makes sense, but it leads to funny statements like that.
Sigh.
Carry on.
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William Safire, discusses narratives, in his article concerning the 2004 presidential election.
A Softer World a photo/comic, is narrative in the most basic sense.
Novels, plays, short stories are narrative. Mostly. But I have doubts about Rolling the R’s, by R. Zamora Linmark, and Debie: An Epic, by Lisa Robertson may or may not be. And while we’re at it question this too. But I wouldn’t want you to run too far down this path, because there’s limited utility in running in that direction.
I sat down with myself and forced out a definition (really an operationalization, if you must) of Queer, which I think is much harder to pin down. Narratives are a method of using language. Statements which convey a progression of time, and I’d argue depend on some sort of profound change, either in it’s content (the subjects and objects at play) or on the creator, conveyer, or audience.
Having said that, the key issue here I suppose is not, “what is narrative?” but “why study narrative?”
You’d think that would be easier to answer, and that I’d be able to weave a little story about how I was drawn to this, and why I’m putting so much energy into this wacky interdisciplinary endeavor which frankly runs counter to most of the trends in the social sciences (or psychology, which is what my major is in).
I’m interested in narratives because it seems to be a (marginally) viable way of doing social science research that doesn’t completely dehumanize the subject, without sacrificing all but the most superficial claims to validity (a la case studies, which are great tools for imparting knowledge, but rather lousy at producing it.) Because studying narratives, gives worth and meaning to a multitude of different voices and that seems like a useful way to use one’s energy.
That’s not complete, but I hope it’s a good start.
Cheers,
Sam
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I have this habit of writing weird shit down, in random files.
This little gem, slightly embellished (but not that much), has been sitting at the bottom of a reading course proposal for a few weeks. I thought you might enjoy.
“and then one day I, accidentally told the pizza man I loved him”
cheers,
sam
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Ok, so I’ve spent three semesters saying “behaviorism sucks” essentially, because, I was (wrongly) under the impression that it ignored phenomenological concerns like, you know, cognition. Behaviorism has the animal/empericism problems, which I still object too, but I think as a theoretical outlook/explaintory framework, it’s not as
corrupt as I thought it was.
I’ve also been disgruntled by cognitivism, for much the same reasons, that it reduces the impact of experience, and seems to assume that cognitive patterns, because they’re in our brains, are the result of essential or innate characteristics, and not themselves, conditioned
I think cognition is critically important to psychology, as is recognizing the importance of, if not exactly the impact of situations on behavior, then the development/contexts that produce (condition) the individual.
I’ve been saying for–well, weeks–that (noted queer theorist) Judith Butler, has a bunch of really great ideas that I rather appreciate about how gender and sexuality happen, in the Foucaultian tradition, but then attempts to explain the mechanisms behind these theories with a psychoanalytic framework, which strikes me as an always already failing proposition.
She’s not the only post-structuralist who does this, and I find this troubling. In order to accept psychoanalysis you basically have to accept a likely inaccurate view of non/un-concious, and what is ultimately a structuralist understanding of human development. No matter how you shake that up, it still rests on those tenants, and I’m not convinced that Kristeva did a particularly good job of escaping that. (Not that I have anywhere enough unused brain cells to get her).
But anyway, There you have it. I could offer a conclusion synthesizing my exact position on the social/cognative/behavioral playing field, but that’s not ultimately useful, and sufice it to say, I feel like I have a much better grounding. The downside is that I have to look at a lot of different grad programs now.
School has been busy, after this next week, I think things will be much nicer. I promise to report more.
Cheers,
sam
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tagged: TealArt