19.116 Myth, practice, theory

               Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 19, No. 116.
       Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
                   www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/
                        www.princeton.edu/humanist/
                     Submit to: humanist_at_princeton.edu

         Date: Mon, 04 Jul 2005 07:00:00 +0100
         From: lachance_at_origin.chass.utoronto.ca (Francois Lachance)
         Subject: Myth, practice, theory

   Willard,

Here is a little food for thought or a nibble for the conversations
between presentations at the gatherings of academic computing humanists.
Shosana Felman writes in Jacques Lacan and the Adventure of Insight

   <quote>
Myth in Freud is not an accident of theory: it is not external to the
theory, but the very vehicle of theory, a vehicle of _mediation between
practice and theorization_.
   </quote>

Of course, the obvious question is to ask after myths of humanities
computing. But before launching that call I want to point to the terms
"vehicle" and the slight difference between "theory" and "theorization".
And so ask if a theorist is not always already an accidental tourist or it
there is not a theorist in every subscriber native?

-- 
Francois Lachance, Scholar-at-large
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~lachance/jardin
Skill may be the capacity to manipulate perceptions of knowledge.
Magic is.