tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33273315.post7314905918064283058..comments2023-07-16T04:38:04.407-05:00Comments on Spinuzzi: Reading :: RejoicingClay Spinuzzihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13356273383001825508noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33273315.post-72483413075032405542014-07-11T09:06:44.561-05:002014-07-11T09:06:44.561-05:00I have "contributed" to the site, but I ...I have "contributed" to the site, but I find its protocol far too constraining, and there is no interactivity neither between contributors and the AIME team nor between contributors. So I find the enterprise quite frustrating; I have been blogging about it here, in terms of a deficit of democracy: http://terenceblake.wordpress.com/2014/06/30/aime-project-democratic-diplomacy-or-elitist-business-as-usual/ and http://terenceblake.wordpress.com/2014/07/03/towards-a-democratic-semiotics-of-latours-diplomatic-process/. But there is noone to whom to address such complaints. Latour's latest keynote speech just dismissed such critiques with an amused reference to the "terrible things that happen on blogs", and a hymn to his 4 year experiment in close reading. I translate this as digitally assisted teamwork and I find nothing revolutionary except the scale (thanks to his financement). He limited himself to describing the marvel of this experiment, but gave no concrete example of the discoveries it has led to, which confirms my suspicion that the platform is the message. Latour explicitly declares that he wants neither critique nor commentary, and told one questioner (a woman who complained about the inhumanity of the project in his presentation in contrast to his own very engaging humanity in presenting it): contribute, don't comment. I fear this is a model of digital humanities as an array of mutually exclusive closed societies, juxtaposed without interacting (as interaction would be mere commentary).Terence Blakehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14936707523015565137noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33273315.post-76891195039004421752014-07-11T08:34:41.783-05:002014-07-11T08:34:41.783-05:00I could certainly see that point re AIME—like Rejo...I could certainly see that point re AIME—like Rejoicing, AIME's chapter on religion seems not just Christianity-focused but more specifically Catholicism-focused. <br /><br />But this brings me to a more general frustration with AIME. AIME is difficult to critique decisively because of how it is framed: as the opening of negotiations rather than a completed utterance. So criticisms like these are met with an invitation to enter the negotiations, propose a counter perspective, join the project. This sounds high-minded, but in practice is extremely frustrating. It becomes a slippery way to escape the tough critiques that we get in traditional scholarship, which itself is set up as a dialogue with its own negotiations!Clay Spinuzzihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13356273383001825508noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33273315.post-2469914685705409672014-07-11T02:01:10.633-05:002014-07-11T02:01:10.633-05:00I agree that Latour is presenting his views on rel...I agree that Latour is presenting his views on religion as the result of an inquiry that he never carried out. They are in part disguised autobiography. The idea of religion as transformation not information is quite an old one, and we can see it very clearly enounced in the early Wittgenstein. I like your comparison of Latour's religion with the religions of renewal described in THE GOLDEN BOUGH because I argue that in the terms of Latour's new book AN INQUIRY INTO MODES OF EXISTENCE it is illegitimate for him to include a separate chapter on religion as a distinct mode of existence. He should have included it in the chapter on the beings of metamorphosis along with the other, but unfortunately "pagan" and polytheist, religions.Terence Blakehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14936707523015565137noreply@blogger.com