Rough Theory

Theory In The Rough

Monthly Archives: October 2006

Understanding Participation in Blogging Communities

Leave a Comment Posted by on October 31, 2006

Scott Eric Kaufman over at Acephalous is gearing up for his MLA panel on blogging and, having asked his regular readers to email or post on their academic or professional backgrounds, has learned some surprising things: specifically, he was startled at how many people were committed enough to the site to email, even though they [...]

Blogging, Conversations

Chomsky’s “Language and Mind”

3 Comments Posted by on October 30, 2006

Being an inaugural guest’s post, I hope that, while not up to the usual standards of this blog, the following content is not too far short either. By way of introduction: I am involved in the same reading group as N Pepperell, and have been invited to write some notes on several of the texts [...]

Cognitive Science, Linguistics, Reading Group

The Ruins of Progress

Leave a Comment Posted by on October 29, 2006

“A Klee painting named ‘Angelus Novus’ shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive [...]

City Planning, Links

Upcoming Events

Leave a Comment Posted by on October 28, 2006

Just a quick note for local readers that I’ll be presenting at two events in late November. First, at the semi-annual HDR conference on Wednesday, 22 November, I’ll be presenting a talk on “The Formal and Informal Ethics of Ethnographic Research” – which is intended as a low-key, interactive discussion of some of some of [...]

Events, Methodology

And… Er… Their Space Too…

Leave a Comment Posted by on October 27, 2006

Just a quick note that we’ve decided to engage in a miniature group blogging experiment during the reading group’s diaspora. Different members of the group will alternate introducing specific texts, so that I don’t monopolise the “framing” of our discussions, and so that the workload of preparing introductory posts (which, at least for me, are [...]

Admin, Reading Group

My Space

8 Comments Posted by on October 26, 2006

It’s always interesting watching people who aren’t familiar with academic blogging try to come to terms for the first time with what an academic might do with such an online space. One of my first-year students heard about the blog for the first time yesterday, and blurted out: “Oooh, cool – so it’s, like, your [...]

Blogging, Teaching

Reading Group: Globalised and Hypertexted

Leave a Comment Posted by on October 26, 2006

I had mentioned previously that the reading group intended to take a break for a month, while two of our members tour the US. At yesterday’s meeting, though, we decided that a month was simply too long to go without a substantive (or, depending on your point of view, insubstantial) discussion of linguistics. We’ve therefore [...]

Cognitive Science, Linguistics, Reading Group

Open Time

Leave a Comment Posted by on October 25, 2006

It’s suddenly hit me that this will be my final day of teaching for four months. While my schedule is not exactly empty – there’s a grant to begin to manage, a conference panel to organise, a couple of papers to write, and that small matter of finishing my fieldwork and doing some very intensive [...]

Professional Life, Writing

Research Strategies Postmortem

2 Comments Posted by on October 24, 2006

I just wanted to open the “postmortem” thread for the Research Strategies course for this term. To any visiting students, just a quick note that I’ve really, truly enjoying working with all of you this term. I’ve said frequently on the blog that this is my favourite course to teach (no slight on other courses [...]

Courses, Methodology

The Poverty of the Stimulus: Preliminary Questions

4 Comments Posted by on October 24, 2006

Rather than doing something rational like reading the works the reading group will actually discuss this week, I’ve been drawn off onto a tangent, looking at works on what is called the “poverty of the stimulus” argument. Unfortunately, most of the key pieces I want to read are temporarily unavailable – needing to be recalled [...]

Cognitive Science, Linguistics, Reading Group

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