Communication 261- Mediational Theories of Mind

Fridays from 9am-12 noon, MCC 201

Michael Cole

MCC 204/LCHC (MAAC 517 2nd Floor)

mcole@ucsd.edu

Office hours connected to this class: 12-1 Fridays and by appointment

 

The purpose of this course is to provide a broad overview of mediational theories of mental life that are of particular important within the developing discipline of Communication. I take as the starting point the work of early 20th Century Russian cultural-historical psychologists. The course materials extend historically to include the work of their late-20th century followers in Russia and elsewhere and to explore some of the connections between their ideas about the mediated nature of human experience arising from other national traditions.

 

Students will be expected to attend the seminar, prepare summaries of major points that they take from the materials, and to write a term paper that applies these ideas to a topic of personal interest to them in developing their own academic agendas.

 

A discussion on a webboard, that will include scholars who are part of the XMCA network, will be a forum for discussion between class meetings.

 

References

 

INDEX

Week 1. An Overview in Autobiography

Cole, M., Levitin, K & Luria, A. R. 2005: The Autobiography of A.R.

Luria. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc

 

Week 2. Vygotsky & Cultural Historical Psychology

Vygotsky, Lev. S. (1978) Mind in Society. Harvard University press. Ch 4-5

Vygotsky, Lev. S. (1987) Thinking and Speech. The MIT Press, Cambridge Ch 7

Wertsch, J. (1991) Voices of the Mind.  Harvard University Press Ch. 1-2

 

Week 3:  Activity and mediation

A.N. Leontiev (1979). The problem of activity in psychology. In J.V. Wertsch 

(Ed.). The concept of activity in Soviet psychology (pp. 37-71). Armonk, NY: Sharpe.

Engestršm, Y. (1985). The emergence of learning activity as ahistorical form of

human learning. Tidskriff fšr Nordisk Fšrening fšr Pedagogisk forskning, 5:2,12-20.

VV. Davydov (1999) A new approach to the interpretation of activity structure

and content. Ó in (eds) Seth Chaiklin, S., Hedegaard, M. & Jensen U. J. Activity theory and Social Practice: Cultural-Historical Approaches. Aaarhus Univeristy Press

Cole, M (1996) Culture in the middle in Cole, M.: Cultural psychology: A once

and future discipline. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

 

Week 4: Subects/Artifacts/Objects

Latour, B. (1996) On interobjectivity. Mind, Culture, and Activity: An

International Journal, 3(4): 228-245 Available online at

http://www.ensmp.fr/~latour/articles/article/063.html

Engestršm, Y. (1996) ÔInterobjectivity, Ideality, and DialecticsÕ ,

Mind, Culture, and Activity 3 (4): 259-265Ó

Hutchins, E. (1995) How a cockpit remembers its speeds. Cognitive Science. 19,

265-288

 

Week 5:  Links to Pragmatism and Symbolic Interactionism

Hickman, L. (1999) John DeweyÕs Pragmatic Technology, Bloomington: Indiana

University Press. Ch 2

Miettinen, R. (2001). Artifact Mediation in Dewey and in cultural-historical

activity theory. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 8, pp. 297-308

D. Holland &  W. Lachicotte, ÒVygotsky, Mead, and the New Sociocultural

Studies of IdentityÓ (year unkown) available online at http://staff.bath.ac.uk/ssxlw/Holland%20and%20Lachicotte%20chapter%20on%20Vygotsky%20and%20Identity%20(2).doc

Burke, K. (1945) A Grammar of Motives. Prentice-Hall  pp. 3-13.

Overington, M. A. (1977) Kenneth Burke and the Method of Dramatism. Theory

and Society 4 (Spring 1977): 131-56

 

Week 6: Dialogical Approaches to Mediation

M.M. Bakhtin (1982) The Dialogic Imagination, University of Texas Press

Y. Lotman (1989) The Semiosphere, Soviet Psychology 27 (1) 41-61

                  Wertsch, J. (1991) Voices of the Mind. Harvard University Press 3-4

 

Week 7: Dialogic Approaches to Mediation, continued

                  Wertsch, J. (1991) Voices of the Mind Harvard University Press Ch 5-6

                  R.Engestršm (1995) Voice as communicative action. Mind, Culture, Activity 2 (3)

pp. 192-215

 

Week 8: Narrative as mediators

                  Bruner, J. (1986) Actual Minds, Possible Worlds. Harvard University Press. ch 2

Bamberg, M. (2003) Positioning with Davie Hogan: Stories, tellings  & identity.

In (eds) Daiuite, C & Lightfoot, S. Narrative Analysis - Studying the Development of Individuals in Society. Sage publications.

Stanley, S & Billig, M. (2003) Dilemmas of storytelling and identity. In (eds)

Daiuite, C & Lightfoot, S. Narrative Analysis - Studying the Development of Individuals in Society. Sage publications.

 

 

Week 9:  Collective Remembering

Middleton, D & Brown, S. (2005) The Social Psychology of Experience: Studies

in  Remembering and Forgetting. Sage Publications (Chapters 2, 3, 4)

Brockmeir, J. (2002) Remembering and forgetting: Narrative as cultural Memory.

Culture & Psychology, Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 15-43

                 

Cole, J. (1998) The work of memory in Madagascar. American Ethnologist, Vol.

25, No. 4, pp. 610-633