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Keynote & Reception at City Hall
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Another great question was one of scale and the problem of representing "culture" depending on how the details of practice are rendered. There is a way in which ethnographic "thick description" still tells macro-level stories about practices that involve writing...when you "zoom in" to see note-taking, drafting, and formal text-making practices the accounts that result can seem to be acultural. I agree with this comment in part, though I guess this is where I'd suggest that at increasingly micro-levels we haven't (in our field) understood how culture inheres in practice. To take an example from another type of inquiry: can we see "culture" by looking at skin cells instead of skin colors on the faces of people in a crowd? sure we can...how? that's what we need to work out.
I attended some interesting sessions in the afternoon that picked up several threads we've been following at WIDE. One was about task-oriented structures for online help systems and the benefits and drawbacks this creates for searching and maintaining help content.
The conference reception was held at the Aarhus City Hall, a famous example (maybe *the* example) of Danish Modern Functionalist Architecture. I took about a million pictures of this Arne Jacobsen masterwork with the ASB's nice camera. Watch for a revision of this post for some of these when I get them uploaded.
Friday is conference day two. I am looking forward to a stimulating day of talks and conversation. Jeff speaks today, as does Peter. More soon!
we are the barrier
We are dealing with language barriers all the time. Actually, we are the language barrier. English is the one common language, which is often the case, which doesn't mean that people like speaking English all the time.
Interestingly, the sessions will fill up or empty out in the middle of them depdending on the language spoken. So I gave my talk and the next speaker presented in German, at which point a third of the room, including myself, simply left.
Stuff
So, how did your presentation go, Jeff? Hopefully 1/3 of the room didn't get up and leave!
The sun is shining in Indy today--but who knows for how long.
indivudal authors & stuff
Bill you say: “I got some great questions from the audience - one that I am getting used to hearing lately about just how meaningless the notion of an individual author is given the research stance I propose (pretty damn meaningless).” And yet, the “I” is proposing the research stance. The individual author is not, paradoxically, meaningless in your research stance if the individual author is the one proposing that the individual author is meaningless, yes?
martine
I
Well, the "I" speaking in my case is always a "We," to be truthful about it. The problem of one body speaking in the position of the keynoter collects the "We" in an "I" in a way that is uncomfortable for me, but which also demands a certain narration of the event in such a way that I take responsibility for anything crazy I/We might have said. Any of the good stuff, that was We.
A very general comment....
Without spending too much time actually reading your posts Bill, I just want to point out that in pretty much every picture of you in this series of posts, you seem to always have a drink in your hand. Hmmm, that Denmark seems like a fun place. ;-)
Say hi to Jeff, and keep up the good work, too!
I'm wondering if you and Jeff are dealing with any language barriers that impede your participation at this conference. Having had exchange students from Denmark, I'm aware that most--if not all--of the Danish participants are fluent in English, but Jeff said that part of the conference is also in German. So...any language barriers the two of you haven't been able to overcome? Pat