<x-flowed>
Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 17, No. 619.
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/
www.princeton.edu/humanist/
Submit to: humanist@princeton.edu
[1] From: "Charles Ess" <cmess@drury.edu> (199)
Subject: Re: 17.618 linguistic and cultural provincialism
[2] From: lachance@chass.utoronto.ca (Francois Lachance) (46)
Subject: translating translatability Re: 17.618 linguistic and
cultural provincialism
--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2004 13:27:34 +0000
From: "Charles Ess" <cmess@drury.edu>
Subject: Re: 17.618 linguistic and cultural provincialism
Dear Willard and sister/fellow Humanists:
Having been engaged recently with two projects on ethical guidelines for
interdisciplinary and international research, including research on online
phenomena - i.e., projects that
a) challenged not only the researchers from social sciences and humanities
but also our colleagues in the various versions of computer science and
information systems as each discipline and its affiliated methodologies
entail specific and sometimes contrary ethical assumptions and demands, and
b) challenged us all as our disciplinary ethics are shaded and shaped in
their origins and application by the national / cultural traditions of
ethical-decision making characteristic of the various nations and cultures
of the colleagues involved,
- I very much appreciate the importance of both the issue raised here and
have reason to emphasize, from the basis of this praxis, Willard's point.
The quick point, from this perspective, is - yes, of course, anyone who
wants to explore the hybridities and syntheses of humanities computing /
computer science will be all the better served the more s/he understands the
humanistic traditions that intersect these technologies and their
applications. Which means, so far as I can tell, just about all of them -
not the least of which is ethics.
In my mind, this means in turn that these efforts require a new sort of
Renaissance humanism, however much what we've learned over the past few
centuries will require us to qualify and refine such humanism. [Important
meta-theoretical comment: as a generalist, I hesitate to characterize this
too much, lest my appalling ignorance be revealed yet once again - but of
course, that is part of the game we must play, however glumly: contra the
drive towards specialization, the ways in which these technologies foster
interdisciplinary and international collaborations require us to be
generalists who will always need correction by the specialists among us -
and hence require a kind of epistemological humility as a necessary
condition of such collaborations. (Not an easy thing to accomplish,
especially given the way academic culture rather fosters pride, if not
arrogance, regarding our hard-won specialised knowledges.)]
Such a humanism seeks if not mastery, at least proficiency in as many of the
human sciences (the German Wissenschaften that are only subsequently divided
into the humanistic and (natural) scientific) as possible. This further
includes proficiency, if not mastery of more than one language - precisely
in order to comprehend the sorts of untranslateable differences that are
critical to understanding specific frameworks, traditions, etc.
>From this perspective, I take a somewhat different view on the problem of a
lingua franca. I don't recall just now who made this point - it might have
been Stephen Toulmin in his marvelous book _Cosmopolis_ (an account of
modernity that is consistent with the theme I'm attempting to draw here) -
but the "language of the franks" emerged as a phrase with the connotation of
"the language of the free."
The sort of freedom such a lingua franca provides should not be
underestimated. I do not mean here an ethnocentric 'freedom' to remain
ignorant of other languages and traditions. Just to the contrary. As the
so-called Scandinavian model has it - even though participants may
understand the native languageof colleagues from Norway, Sweden, even
Denmark - no one can learn enough languages with
sufficient mastery to take up the complexities in which we delight, in order
to engage in a fluent conversation with the many peoples we _must_ now
converse. Hence, even here some sort of lingua franca remains necessary, no
matter how well a given individual may know two or more languages.
Hence, the facile use of a lingua franca does not excuse one from the labor
and difficulty of learning asmuch as possible about the languages and
traditions of those with whom s/he
works. On the contrary, the lingua franca is often limited for both
dialogical partners at critical points - and at these points, proficiency or
at least familiarity with the languages in play can often help break through
otherwise stubborn stalemates.
(It was also one of the "aha's" of my recent sabbatical in (delightful)
Copenhagen to discover that, at least for the Scandinavian colleagues with
whom I was privileged to work, the lingua franca did _not_ necessarily
entail for them what it entailed for me - i.e., a concern that my native
language, as the working lingua franca, was steamrolling over the multiple
languages (and thus traditions and thus insights and practices) they
represented and worked from. Rather to the contrary, the lingua franca as a
second language only expanded their already acute abilities in ways both
serious and playful. While there is certainly a vital discussion in Denmark
as to what constitutes "Danishness" and how far English, especially as the
language of advertising and commerce, may be eroded or diluted by this
lingua franca - my Danish colleagues seemed not too concerned that our
working in English together would somehow take away something essential from
their identity. And they certainly - and very understandably - much
preferred working with their excellent English than attempting to move past
my very elementary Danish!)
My notion of this contemporary (and in good measure, computer-mediated)
Renaissance humanism would then emphasize that especially those of us whose
native language is the current lingua franca are doubly obliged to learn
other languages and cultures in order to participate in these sorts of
dialogues. But with that effort firmly in place, it seems to me that we can
move forward fairly well - precisely towards more inclusive, pluralistic
understandings of the peoples and cultures increasingly interlinked with our
own.
Indeed, with regard to the projects I mentioned at the outset - while the
multiple disciplines and traditions that must be bridged and perhaps
hybridized make the prospects for success seem dim to vanishingly small, the
good news is that these projects seem to enjoy at least a modest success in
developing ethical guidelines recognized as legitimate and important from a
range of disciplines and cultures. Certainly, this sort of work - as a very
small example of the multiple projects included in humanities computing /
science (as including, I would think, Information Ethics and Philosophy of
Information more generally) - is only at the beginning stages. But I think
these sorts of successes show that in practice we can indeed move forward,
avoiding the Scylla and Charybdis of ethnocentrism and provincialism, on the
one hand, and sheer fragmentation, indeed hostility, between diverse
disciplines, ethics, and national / cultural traditions, on the other.
(Such optimism itself, I realize, is characteristically American, but that's
another essay for another day...)
But all of this means, finally, that such studies and work are indeed
life-long projects, not something that can accomplished finally with a
degree program, or even what amounts to an apprenticeship of a decade or
two. (Interestingly enough, such an understanding of our work not only
recovers something of the humanistic spirit of the Renaissance - what we now
like to speak of in terms of life-long learning: it further resonates nicely
with the virtue ethics traditions of multiple cultures, including those
influenced and shaped by Confucian thought.)
In any case, good on ya, Willard - and cheers,
Charles Ess
Distinguished Research Professor, Interdisciplinary Studies
Drury University
900 N. Benton Ave.
Springfield, MO 65802 USA
voice: 417-873-7230
fax: 417-873-7435
homepage: <www.drury.edu/ess/ess.html>
Co-chair, CATaC '04: <it.murdoch.edu.au/catac>
Exemplary persons seek harmony, not sameness - Analects
----- Original Message -----
From: "Humanist Discussion Group
<willard.mccarty@kcl.ac.uk>)" <willard@lists.village.virginia.edu>
To: <humanist@Princeton.EDU>
Sent: Saturday, February 07, 2004 2:52 AM
> Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 17, No. 618.
> Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
> www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/
> www.princeton.edu/humanist/
> Submit to: humanist@princeton.edu
>
>
>
> Date: Sat, 07 Feb 2004 08:36:47 +0000
> From: Willard McCarty <willard.mccarty@kcl.ac.uk>
> Subject: our provincialism
>
> Tito Orlandi, in Humanist 17.611, has rightly complained about a very old
> problem in our new field: that we whose native tongue is the current
lingua
> franca (note that expression, please) remain largely trapped within the
> bounds defined by language. Referring to the ongoing debate about
> humanities computing science vs humanities computing, he asks, does "it
> sound reasonable that an HC(S) scholar should know the humanistic culture
> 'at large', and not only one branch of it"? This is, of course, a
> rhetorical question, but one that needs asking, and asking again and
again.
> But I wonder, in practical terms what can be done about it, given the
> academic resources we have? We can all imagine the alternatives and sort
> through them. What is utterly unacceptable, I would suppose, is a
dismissal
> of the problem.
>
> One of the problems, that is. A more vexing consequence of Babel is the
> untranslatability of linguistic cultural idioms, including the academic.
It
> is a possibility, is it not, that work done in one academic culture may
> simply not be relevant to work on the same topic in another because the
> assumptions, means and terminology are too different -- i.e. that there
are
> really two topics, not one? In philosophy, for example, we know the
> difficulties of bridging Anglo-American and Continental European
traditions
> -- take the case of Heidegger, for example. Yes, this is a special case,
> given Heidegger's intimate play with untranslatable aspects of the German
> language, but they are only the beginning of the problem, for which see
> George Steiner's masterful struggle to come to terms with Heidegger in his
> book of that name. (Note that Steiner is completely fluent in English,
> German and French at minimum.) More controversial, I suppose, are the
> difficulties posed by the many attempts to bridge Anglo-American and
French
> literary critical traditions. The French mathematician and philosopher of
> science Pierre Duhem infamously distinguished between French and English
> ways of thought in La Théorie physique (1914) when he proposed two
> corresponding kinds of scientific mind and so two kinds of theory:
abstract
> and systematic (French, clearly) vs. the sort that relies on mechanical
> models. Even if he was only pointing to the way people think they think,
> their persistence in thinking that way is strong.
>
> Furthermore, quite apart from the worthy question and constant source of
> guilt for a great many of us, how we cure the plague of monolingualism,
the
> idea that knowledge is some sort of permanent stuff that one can
> accumulate, and that therefore topics can be "done" once and for all,
needs
> a sharp look. If they cannot, then what are we doing?
>
> Yours,
> WM
>
>
> Dr Willard McCarty | Senior Lecturer | Centre for Computing in the
> Humanities | King's College London | Strand | London WC2R 2LS || +44 (0)20
> 7848-2784 fax: -2980 || willard.mccarty@kcl.ac.uk
> www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/wlm/
Dr Willard McCarty | Senior Lecturer | Centre for Computing in the
Humanities | King's College London | Strand | London WC2R 2LS || +44 (0)20
7848-2784 fax: -2980 || willard.mccarty@kcl.ac.uk
www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/wlm/
--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2004 13:28:48 +0000
From: lachance@chass.utoronto.ca (Francois Lachance)
Subject: translating translatability Re: 17.618 linguistic and
cultural provincialism
Untranslatability "of" does not translate into untranslatablity "to"
> > Date: Sat, 07 Feb 2004 08:36:47 +0000
> > From: Willard McCarty <willard.mccarty@kcl.ac.uk>
> > > >
<xnip/>
> > One of the problems, that is. A more vexing consequence of Babel is the
> > untranslatability of linguistic cultural idioms, including the
academic. It
> > is a possibility, is it not, that work done in one academic culture may
> > simply not be relevant to work on the same topic in another because the
> > assumptions, means and terminology are too different -- i.e. that
there are
> > really two topics, not one? In philosophy, for example, we know the
> > difficulties of bridging Anglo-American and Continental European
traditions
....
Is this a problem? Can we not imagine a world of collaboration and
discussion between scholars whether they be academics or not?
I am always fond of observing that the "translation" is in some locus
between the "translated" and the "translating".
As such, access to a "translation" is only partial and contingent. [A
"translation" is hypertextual in very much similar ways that hyperspace is
multidimensional.]
What communities of readers can emerge from the sharing of discourse
about the translating and the translated? Note how the nexus of knowledge
can be handled by the mediating instance of the translator. The translator
may fumble with both the translated (source) and the translating (target).
Other readers can provide insight, nuance and clarification. Without the
fumble there is no dialogue.
Just when does "our" provincialism become "hour" provincialism? There is
time for the work to be done if the work to be done is not construed as
the erection of individual monuments. There is a rise and fall is implied
by the image of Babel. Find another foundation myth and the variety of
human languages is not seen as vexing. The image of Babel does not give me
a notion of time zones unless I stretch into the Biblical context some
sense of shift work.. Nimrod on Hong Kong time :)
-- Francois Lachance, Scholar-at-large http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~lachanceWondering if...
mnemonic is to analytic as mimetic is to synthetic
Dr Willard McCarty | Senior Lecturer | Centre for Computing in the Humanities | King's College London | Strand | London WC2R 2LS || +44 (0)20 7848-2784 fax: -2980 || willard.mccarty@kcl.ac.uk www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/wlm/ </x-flowed>
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