Wonder or Wander

Herman Hesse (1932) Hesse's oriental mysticism and his perspicacious insight to human natures--their gifted talent for forgetting and their ever capricious soul--culminate in this novel divided into two parts. Meticulously interwoven plots brings this short piece to a concise unity although it was hard to grasp at the first glance. Probably its narrative style, built on the flow of mystical religious mind and subtle actions, makes the understanding the theme more difficult. I will have another time to read it over.

Hermann Hesse (1877-1962) 1927 in German / 1929 first translated in English My inexplicable affinity to Hesse reoccurred in a dread time and I grabbed Steppenwolf again--I failed to read some years ago. While reading the first half of the story, a crispy-sharp icy chill penetrated my skin because of its needle-like high precision in describing human nature and striking resemblance to my own. Harry, who describes himself as half a man and half a wolf, a savage animal, suffers from the cacophony of the two kinds in himself. He, helpless bourgeois, longs for the innocent indulgence in bourgeoisie life in his youth, simultaneously detesting its unbearable lightness and vanity. Besides humanities that Hesse wished to preserve, his abomination of war appears to lie beneath the entire story grounded from the author's desperate exhortation to the world for self-reflection beyond politics. Harry's life makes a sharp turn when he gets to know an mysterious woman and his dark time climax

3700 McTavish. December 15, 2008

Hamish Hamilton Pub. (1946). Camus' first novel, L'étranger shares the same breath on absurdity with Reflection on the Guillotine , which appears twofold in this novel: the first is his murder and the second the background of his accusation. Meursault only murmurs at the court that he murdered the Arab because of the sun, which is not persuasive in every sense. But the mise-en-scene of the story, laid out on a nearly unilateral evolution of the stifling power of the sun, as if all happened in one day, gives much excuse for his unintentional crime. His mothers' mortuary, a bright and spotlessly clean room with whitewashed walls, was flooded with skylight. While the undertakers were working, 'the sky was already a blaze of light and the air stoking up rapidly.' That Sunday morning, when Meursault walks out, 'the glare of the morning sun hit me in the eyes like a clenched fist.' Then, the light became almost vertical and the flare from the water seared one'

Camus, A. (1957). In Resistance, Rebellion and Death (1961). This research essay is worth a special note. As the title suggests, it is based on a historical analysis but nevertheless full of reflections and reasoning. He refuses purely sentimental confusion because it is made up of cowardice and eventually stands on the worst side. Every paragraph is written with his conviction. The supporting documents which described moments at the guillotine are as chilly as excoriating one's own. He argues that if the capital punishment is a regrettable necessity as its advocates say and an example in the effort of preventing another crime, the execution should be performed publicly and described vividly so that all others know. But the State hides it because such punishments paradoxically would blame the state for letting such crimes happen. Statistically those who faced capital punishment in fact had seen its execution in their life. So, criminals who commit such crimes are less likely to be

Resistance, Rebellion and Death (1961). NY: Knopf. My inexplicable affection toward Camus reoccurred while reading Darkness Invisible. Death seems a reoccurring theme throughout his career. Understandably he was born one year before the WW I, lost his father during the war and fought under the German occupation. Thus, as McCarthy (1988) suggests, absurdity becomes a resolution in his view with religious first of all--it is man's capacity to be aware of the divine--and political connotations. Meursault's happiness is after all his domination on his body and fate. Within this context, the dividing line between murder and suicide becomes blurred. Here is some quotes from his essays or speeches. Man's greatness lies in his decision to be stronger than his condition --The Night of Truth, 8/25/1944, around the time Paris was taken back from Nazis. When that intelligence is snuffed out, the black night of dictatorship begins --Defense of Intelligence, 3/15/1945, against the new F

A memoir of Madness. William Styron. (1990). He said he found the repose, assuagement of the tempest in his brain only after being hospitalized. Anonymity free from occupation in a startling solitude and a feeling of disconnectedness may bring one sanity back. Then, I wonder whether my long-term travels actually kept my sanity on track for the past few years. Didn't I feel so fresh among strangers who were unlikely to come to the edge of my life? And yet, I pay more attention to this episode: the author found the problem with his tranquilizer by accident before being admitted to the hospital. After changing it, his reoccurring suicidal obsession disappeared. It was that simple! He actually warns people of what they take for their mental health and slightly scorns habitual irresponsible tasks given by doctors. He also mentions his childhood with a memory of loss of his mother when he was thirteen. So-called, "incomplete morning" may preoccupy certain people especially a su

Three months have passed at McGill. The time was not boring. Even though there were certain difficult moments where my spirit got low, one thing I do not regret is to come back to academia. New ideas and new thought have entered my mind and made my life coherent. EV at her graduation said that they had not come to the Odyssey Project with an empty vessel but with desire to reach higher complexity. What a great insight! Now, I invite five people in my dinner table. Who's going to be there? First my adviser, no question. But important is to be able to delineate what she could do for my dissertation work and what I should take away before I leave this school. Her ethnic background that allowed her to see a different world is strong and she made her career. I should learn her insightful ideas. Next, one from neoliberal globalization and education. I just got a message about REF series. Carlos Alberto Torres. I want to know more about him.

The term of journey is often encountered while describing the process of doctoral studies. Then, one may reach the point to compare doctoral students with tourists or travelers. First of all my instinct response to this questions is that doctoral students are travelers rather than tourists because travelers, in a general sense, are more independent to the ritual process that sticks around tourists, who hardly go about without a guide to look around or a prearranged planning. On the other hand, travelers are ready to meet new settings and new people on the road and be more flexible to change their routes on occasions. A plan is in their mind, but doesn't dominate the path absolutely. It is rather loose. Definitely looser than that of the tourists. Moreover, tourists usually spend a very short period of time, but travelers do more, although they may not embark on the traveling that often. Yeah, now I think that I am very morally comparing doctoral students with travelers. I mean, the

The speaker talked mainly about work conditions for migrant manual workers. Among the topics he mentions, I note about domestic workers. Domestic workers, the majority of whom are Philippines, had been excluded from health/safety access because house was not considered as a work place. Through a campaign, health/safety regulations for the workers became legitimatized. I asked about skilled workers: Skilled workers may have work conditions as good as Canadians, but they may face similar situations that jeopardize their jobs. Where can these people go for help? Usually there are only a handful migrant skilled workers in an entire company and isolated from each other. When something comes up, it tends to be treated as a special case, relatively not-so-serious, and thus there are hardly collective resources where they can refer. I remember an online forum that skilled workers who are on the process of immigration share individual information in a pool to accumulate cases. A problem I see i

Dear Dr. Kincheloe, I have encountered your emphasis on multiperspectivism several times, but I am not quite sure whether I understood the essence. I might include some other perspectives strategically as a vehicle to argue deficits of each perspective and assert my own. But I guess this is not what you meant. In addition, I wonder how I can maneuver this cubism as I limited on my subjectivity and won't give equal, or near equal emphasis to those perspectives. Don't I have my own questions and angles even before conducting research? Would you phrase your insight to this dilemma that I feel? Also, it seems that I am undertaking historiographical research for my term paper, not history itself, strictly speaking. Is it correct? Best regards, Kay ------------------ Bricolage comes across multiple levels from theoretical grounds to methodological strategies. For instance, interpreting a phenomenon without social theories will impoverish research and taking perspectives from critical

Hannah Arendt. (1968). NY: Harcourt, Brace & World. "People remembered everything, but forgot what mattered," the author wrote somewhere in her essays about Rosa Luxemburg or Bretolt Brecht. I also like a quote from Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919), "I have a cursed longing for happiness and am ready to haggle for my daily portion of happiness with all the stubbornness of a mule," in a letter designated to Jogiches, her cursed husband, which shows her natural force of a temperament, according to Arendt. Luxemburg, non-orthodox Marxist, was not so dogmatic to see the world based upon the dialectic theory and saw torture of negros in South Africa, the author argues. Arendt differentiates Luxemburg from Bolsheviks in that she preferred an unsuccessful revolution to a deformed one, where the people hold neither power nor voice. Arendt brings Sartre's shockingly precise description of after-WW II into the context where Bretolt Brecht (1898-1956), "gifted with a

There are six chairs in the dining table. Whom I will invite? Make up a list. Stay awakened at night and link about it.

When I know what I do and em expected to do, I am in charge. I think of the Video-Telling workshop, where I gathered all the resources I could possibly reach. Some succeeded and some didn't. When being in charge has a counterpart or anti-thesis that intends to empower others, one get empowered. It is a mutual process that two parts grow symbiotically. The beginning of the workshop was a meager attempt without envisioning its consequences, but once embarked, I simply could not let it happen. As philosophical journey brings about questions that researchers need to ask and leads to methodology to undertake, the outline of the workshop just came to the bottom of my mind and I simply answered without being tired.

by Bertold Brecht(translated from German by H. R. Hays) (Retrived from http://www.eecg.toronto.edu/~flouris/docs/brecht1.html) 1. Indeed I live in the dark ages! A guileless word is an absurdity. A smooth forehead betokens A hard heart. He who laughs Has not yet heard The terrible tidings. Ah, what an age it is When to speak of trees is almost a crime For it is a kind of silence about injustice! And he who walks calmly across the street, Is he not out of reach of his friends In trouble? It is true: I earn my living But, believe me, it is only an accident. Nothing that I do entitles me to eat my fill. By chance I was spared. (If my luck leaves me I am lost.) They tell me: eat and drink. Be glad you have it! But how can I eat and drink When my food is snatched from the hungry And my glass of water belongs to the thirsty? And yet I eat and drink. I would gladly be wise. The old books tell us what wisdom is: Avoid the strife of the world Live out your little time Fearing no on

German Jewish political theorist (1906-1975). I just read the preface of Men in Dark Times (1968). It is condense and deep. She mentions that persons throughout the history have one common thing: they hardly knew each other. The realities of the dark times, which she calls the first twentieth century, were covered up by 'efficient talk' and 'double-talk' by official representatives who hid certain facts and justified certain actions, she argues. She introduces the realities by borrowing the poem, "To Posteristy," by Brecht. She develops the idea of talk by tapping into Heidegger's notion of 'mere talk.' She paraphrases his description of human existence and existential condition: the power of 'mere talk' annihilates authenticity of every day life and meaningful sense for the future and all this obfuscation is performed in public realm. Finally she propses her idea on this dark times. She believes the power of ordinary people's resisten

Hello Kay, Here is my response to your 3rd journal. In your time here, you will hear many things about what to do or how to be, especially in the pro-seminar since it is in part devoted to the subject of doctoral being and becoming, but the question of "when" as well as what you feel comfortable with is in your hands. A forced or preempted learning process is a contradiction in terms. Not only will you not enjoy it but it just won't bear the same fruit. I mean, it's possible to look at the doctorate+ as a career--and in a very pragmatic sense, it is, as signaled by the tenure dossier in an academic timeline, mandatory within 5 years of being hired as tenure-track--but it is much more than that; much, much more. Don't worry. Keep a good relationship with your supervisor; talk to her about substantive subjects; write about what you talk about and develop your own thinking (what you agree with/don't agree with); write; read; talk with your colleagues in/out of c

I strongly believe that knowledge gained through informal encounters will constitute my perspectives and groundwork for my research. Mr. Choudry's 'Meet the Neighbors' is good because I get to gain not only informal knowledge but also some information about this new country. Last week, the meeting was about national security that works as counter-terrorism and threatens immigrants' right in this nation. Today the meeting was held by a Canadian post office union educator. He talked about different ways of educating the workers. One thing he mentioned was the language use of 'employees', which is directly translated as 'used' in French. In the 70s, even in the parlement, 'workers' were prevalent, but now, 'employees', 'associates' or 'colleagues' are predominent and kindeness disgues underlying conflicts and tensions.

This is part of what was discussed at the panel discussion. Alyssa Kuzmarov, founder and director of Productions Oracle (Montreal-based youth media organization) Giuliana Cucinelli, leader of mProject and incorporating "remix": technical skills of the youth are so natural--" born with the knowledge "--as they are "saturated" by new technology and this adaptability makes mProject, which is run at a high school as an extracurriculum, so fun for the youth. (Expression: shed lights on it ) Janice Dayle, journalist and arts professional: used social constructive method--dialectic discussion without giving instruction--to bring out topics from participants. The youth she had did not know how to email , so these skills were taught throughout the workshop. This was a federal government-funded community-based workshop, so the participants might have been from different socioeconomic background. Maureen Marovitch, founder and co-owner of Picture This Productions: ru

Mary Foster & Rémy Huberdeau. http://www.peoplescommission.org Foster talked about the enhanced national security measure, which is under review in the supreme court. According to her, permanent residents and even citizens become vulnerable under this measure and face deportation and detention overseas. Many cases, allegedly as a connection to terrorism, are likely to be made up based on 'outsourcing' information uttered during some one's torture or suspicion originating from their race and ethnicity. Hearing individual cases, People's Commission set up 9 commissioners in order to gather collective data in light of individual cases, publicize it and 'break silence'. Through a public conference the People's Commission organized, individual stories were told and the content was recorded in video. The outcome is distributed as comic books, videos and teachers' manual. Huberdeau mentions the quality of video was a factor to select certain stories out of

This is something I will remember from the panel discussion in Pro Seminar class today. Turn every moment to an opportunity for my growing along the way. Things come and go but the only thing that stays with me is my thesis. Take a full charge of it through ownership. Thesis is a foundation of my career and further development and Ph.D is a license for conducting independent research. For academic career, try to publish rather than attend conferences. Be specific about career from the beginning and watch out what's available out there. Read widely and take courses even in other departments to build theoretical groundwork--try reverse citation to see how a theory is used in other work--but more important is writing everyday no matter how small, as writing is a process of shaping my knowledge and ideas.

Written as preface for the conference (globalization and transfer of knowledge), but excluded from the text. But I spelled out my standpoints here. Globalization is commonly discussed in the context of worldwide economic integration and borderless free markets and free movements. While this discourse is mainly driven by a strong globalization thesis in that globalization is an inevitable worldwide phenomenon, Keck and Sikkink (1998) conversely argue that the current globalization is only the composite of decisions purposefully made and suggest that a different globalization could be possible. Whether favors or not the current trend of globalization, however, it seems generally agreed that technology advance and distributed networks have made the globalization possible and changed the way we live and act upon it. In particular, Hardt and Negri (2004) asserts that a global network power, which consists of dominant nation-states as its primary node along with supranational institutions an

Chambers, Cynthia. (2004). Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies. Vol.2(1). (pp. 1-19). "When the researcher/writer's life is the site of the inquiry, not the topic of inquiry, the research makes visible and audible the complicated interconnections between the topic of the writer's gaze and her ideas, values and beliefs." " Try is as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself, and yourself alone, one question: does this path have a heart? " "What matters hides in improbable places such as dreams, just beneath the surface of a story or a lie or memory and what matters springs up in the middle of the contradiction between what I say and what I do." "...as a form of inquiry...write regularly...even for 10 minutes a day." " Have you said or written everything you want to say about this topic? " "In turning points, we rise above our every-day world and come to see, hear and understand life and bein

King, Roger. (2004). In King. (Ed.), The University in the Global Age. pp.45-66. NY: Palgrave MacMillan Globalization, as a process destined to move toward global age or global society, is being adapted to local cultures and structures rather than bringing standards. While internationalism generally emphasizes cross-border exchange of knowledge and people for public goods, the recent notion of borderless education tints the internationalism with a commercial force. However, university system remains the least globalized sector nowadays . The globalization practically refers to increasing worldwide integration of economies driven by liberal capitalism and is deployed in a complicated way in the higher education system. Globalization is best considered as a compression of time and space (Harvey, 1989; Scholte, 2000; p.50) and rationalism in knowlede production system facilitates globalization because both intrinsically proclaim to produce universally objective truth. " Rationalist,

Altbach, Philip. (1998). Greenwich, CT: Ablex Publishing. The university has been always a global institution since the medieval period (all the modern universities stem from the European model in the medieval epoch and the universities in the medieval were more international and taught in Latin students all around Europe until nationalism swept around the continent in the 19th century. p. xviii), and now with the global economy and communication technology advance, increasing internationalism among universities has become a main operating engine of knowledge based society and created an international knowledge system. (However, access to knowledge is limited by the availability of resources, such as books and the Internet.) Market forces--ideas are as important as products--of the institutions of industrialized nations and local demands--academic degrees from the 'center' is useful at the 'periphery'-- of developing nations have pushed greater internationalism in high

Liberal analyses on education emphasize equal opportunity to every one to help develop full potential such that a working class student can become a millionaire. But critical analysis looks at different unequal background/condition that students bring in and their disadvantages. Contemporary critical analysis looks at white advantage; Canadian education has strong public schooling system throughout the country with exceptions in some provinces, which include QC and private schooling practically does not exist. The strong government interception has brought bureaucracy while private schools always have a strong impetus for profits; contemporary education issues in Canada originate from diversity and technology.

Keck, M. & Sikkink, K. (1998). Cornell University Press. The authors focused on networks in order to conceive transformative and mobilizing actions to the international political system and named networks of activists formed on the basis of common values and discourse--notably human rights, women right, and enviromental issues--'transnational advocacy networks'. The core of the relations among actors in the network is information exchange. The quickness and accuracy of generaing information and the effectiveness of the deployment are the most important factor for the network. The network works such that boundaries between domestic social/political struggles and those at the international level are blurred through colletive pressure applied at a domestic level. This mechanism is called boomerang effect, "which curves around local state indifference and repression to put foreign pressure on local policy elites"(p.200). In other words, when state repression is too st

Linda Tuhiwai Smith. (2001). 4th ed. New York: Palgrave. Historically research about indigenous culture benefited those who "wielded it as an instrument" and the knowledge was not shared with the indigenous peoples. [ This reminds me of the privatization of indigenous knowledge through the patent system (Hardt & Negri, 2004) ] Under the influence of imperialism, research became institutionalized through scholary networks such as university transplantations, not through academic disciplines. The majority of researchers were rather like travelers who had curiosity toward the indigenous and spread the tales to the Western society, and moreover, knowledge gained through research was constructed around the Western bias. (pp.1-18). As one of the discourses of imperialism, the author categorizes post-colonialism or globalization as a discursive field of knowledge such that colonialism is not a finished business yet, which brings with new ways of exploration about the subject. He

Hardt, M. & Negri, A. (2004). NY: The Penguin Press. Empire is referred to as a new global sovereignty ruled by a network power, which consists of dominant nation-states as its primary nodes along with supranational institutions, major capital corporations and other smaller powers, just like the Internet, a distributed network. The combination of these elements constitutes a global order, which is characterized with unequal participation at all levels and a global state of war. Multitude, an alternative concept to this, preserves differences while seeking to communicate and act in common. Here the authors suggest two faces to globalization. One is the spread of hierarchy and conflicts spread by Empire and the other is the creation of networks for cooperation that preserves both difference and commonality (Preface). [Thus, globalization is a contemporary Janus , which has two faces looking at two different directions.] WAR By the global state of war, the authors mean that war is be

Those who do not have power over the stories that dominate their lives, power to retell them, rethink them, deconstruct them, joke about them, and change them as times change, truly are powerless because they cannot think new thoughts. --salman rushdie

Giroux, H. (2008). Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers Neoliberalism is "an ideology that subordinates the art of democratic politics to the rapacious laws of a market economy"(p.10) and corporates deploy its power freed from political constraints through the educational force of the dominant culture to the extent that democracy is hardly conceived as a public good (p.9). Against the corporate-centered globalization which stemmed from the neolibralism, global public sphere should be acknowledged to extend local resistance to a global scale, as solving global problems need global approaches (p.13).

Wotherspoon, Terry. (2004). 2nd Ed. Don Mills, ON: Oxford University Press. Sociology, which was first used by the French writer Compte in the nineteenth century to read the rapidly changing society after the Industrial revolution, is foremost a study of society and is divided into diverse fields which are determined by the perspective each study takes. Three major perspectives are structural functionalism--focusing on the orderly social structure, like a living organism, thus fundamentally aiming to stablize the structure by identifying and removing harmful elements in the social structure--interpretative analysis--emphasizing a micro level human interactions and social symbols on the basis that the world is socially constructed and the reality exists only through the member's relationship with other members, language, knowledge, etc--and critical sociology--as seen in Marxism and feminism, analyzes fundamental structural inequality of the society and aims to subvert the underlyin

The original purpose of mass education was to train people to be able to do their job after the Industrial Revolution and this impetus obtained the public consensus in that the education gave people the equal opportunity, which still holds true in theories of education. However, critical approaches attest that the acclaimed equal opportunity only keeps the existing social structure and perpetuates class divisions because students bring different social/cultural/symbolic capitals to class (Pierre Bourdieu), which makes the starting points different, thus they argue that fairness in education has to be emphasized. In a similar context, critical education/pedagogy comes into play in the fields of education by questioning Euro-centric knowledge and education system and attempts to teach different perspectives in the main education system.

Gail Jardine. (2005). Peter Lang Publishing My main concern [is] to locate the forms of power, the channels it takes, and the discourses it permeates in order to reach the most tenuous individual modes of behavior (Foucaut, M. The History of Sexuality: An Introduction, Vol. 1. 1976/1990). Jardine summarizes Foucault's work from pedagogical perspectives with an emphasis on "disciplinary knowledge" acted on individual, that is, knowledge is not outside of power and disciplinary knowledge especially trains individuals in a particulary society to comply to the system of power (p.10). Another emphasis is given on Foucault's contribution to empowerment of individuals, "care of the self", in his own word. [This is quite new to me and triggers my curiosity. The author quotes Foucault from various sources and, in particular, The Archeology of Knowledge (1969), in which, according to Jardine, a framework useful to analyze systems of knowledge is given, and Power/Kno

Kincheloe, J., & Berry, K. (2004). Open University Press. This book describes the concept of bricolage as research methodology. In the introduction (pp. 1-22), it is understood as interdisciplinary methodology, which combines cross-disciplinary approaches in order to avoid monological reductionism. Kincheloe admits that this method is quite challenging to beginning scholars (p.4). [then, what should I take from this book?] He continues the periscope of bricolage which should understand social construction of knowledge and subjectivity. Importantly, researchers who employ this method understand that different points of view bring out different interpretation because of the complexity of knowledge, "ever shifting boundries between the social world and the narrative representation of it" (p.7). He continues to emphasize the complexity of knowledge and everyday life in the second chapter (pp. 23-49). Among the notions that indicates this complexity are there intertextuality,

Henry Giroux. (1999). Fastback series. Phi Delta Kappa International. Giroux affirms that the commercial power suffocates higher/public education by measuring the knowledge produced in the process of education as a commodity to sell. According to him, corporations, which have the fundamental standpoint that knowledge is capital to invest, instrumentalize knowledge by selecting higher education research projects/models based on the profits they would bring, and this practice reflects the ever-creeping perspective that education is a process of "vocationalization" and "subordination of learning to the dictates of the market" (p.16). He finds further evidence of the corporatization of knowledge in higher education in the way that government and educational institutions build their relationship with corporations: for example, corporate leaders often represent government or educational institutions in the media and persuade the purpose of higher/public education to the p