How to Do Things With Words

Truth and method

Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence — from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror, Judith Lewis Herman. New York: Basic Books, 1992. 276 pp. $27.00. ISBN 0-465-08765–5.Shattered Assumptions: Toward A New Psychology of Trauma, Ronnie Janoff-Bulman. New York: The Free Press, 1992, 256 pp. $24.95. ISBN 0-02-916015–4.

Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence — from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age. Clay Shirky. New York, NY: Penguin, 2010. 242 pages, $25.95 pbk. It sometimes seems that the hardest thing to do in the Information Age is to communicate. In the rush of easily accessible data and the maelstrom of conflicting viewpoints, two otherwise intelligent people can talk past one another as they stake out territory with the tenacity of computer viruses. NYU professor Clay Shirky and media critic Nicholas Carr have been squaring off now for two years over what impact the Internet is having on our society. Shirky takes the more optimistic viewpoint, Carr the more pessimistic. Carr threw down the gauntlet with his 2008 Atlantic cover article "Is Google Making Us Stoopid?" and has continued the debate with his recent book The Shallows. Shirky provides a response in Cognitive Surplus, but criticizes skeptics like Carr only obliquely. Shirky says their main frustration is with the profusion of choice: "Scarcity," he says, "is easier to deal with than abundance." But this book doesn't dwell much on the naysayers. Instead, it frames the subject of the Internet with a bold and startling vision about its potential. "Imagine," he says, "treating the free time of the world's educated citizenry as an aggregate, a kind of cognitive surplus." We've not always used that surplus wisely. Shirky's case in point is television, and how it has come to dominate our culture. Over much of the planet, Shirky writes, "the three most common activities are . . . work, sleep, and watching TV." Like gin in early-eighteenth-century London, twentieth-century television is one of those social habits that critics have denounced and tried hard to minimize, but without success. There are signs now, however, that TV viewing - still thoroughly popular - isn't quite the juggernaut it used to be. Young people are increasingly turning to the Internet; and the Web, it turns out, allows humans to do things they can't do with other media - namely, create, produce, and connect. Instead of devoting twenty passive hours a week to the tube (the international average), people now use a medium that lets them make and share things. That may seem trivial, considering the amount of silly, offensive, or deceptive fare on the Web, but think of it this way: Which do you think contains more enduring cultural, intellectual, and societal value - posting comments on a blog or watching Gitligan's Island! The Internet is no utopia, but neither are older media. In fact, some of them may be a good deal less salutary. Take, for example, the online fantasy game World of Warcraft. As Shirky puts it in a tart retort: "However pathetic you may think it is to sit in your basement pretending to be an elf, I can tell you from personal experience: it's worse to sit in your basement trying to decide whether Ginger or Mary Ann is cuter." There's a wide variety of content on the Internet, of course - the widest in any medium - and the largest number of producers of content: a colossal and revolutionary force. The "hundred million hours of cumulative thought" it took to produce Wikipedia is one example of Shirky's "cognitive surplus," and while it still pales before the "two hundred billion hours of TV every year," you can readily see the potential. …

Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age

Thank you very much for downloading is there a text in this class the authority of interpretive communities. Maybe you have knowledge that, people have search hundreds times for their favorite novels like this is there a text in this class the authority of interpretive communities, but end up in infectious downloads. Rather than enjoying a good book with a cup of tea in the afternoon, instead they juggled with some malicious bugs inside their laptop.

Is There A Text In This Class The Authority Of Interpretive Communities

In this article, I focus on four particular benefits I have seen as I have encouraged communities to explore and perform biblical text. As a Bible-translator, I have found that performing a text is a very helpful way of determining where there are ambiguities (or gaps) in the written text, as indicated by the responses of audience members to questions at particular points in the story. It is important to verify which ambiguities are intentional and which are not in order that, in the latter case, some additional help can be provided (perhaps in a footnote) to prevent readers of a written translation from interpreting incorrectly. This attention to detail is also, of course, helpful to serious Bible students.

/pdf/the-power-of-performing-biblical-text-today-for-trauma-1yy03ugnl7.pdf

The power of performing biblical text today: For trauma-healing, evangelism, discipleship and for supporting careful biblical study/translation

Written text often has ambiguities or “gaps,” requiring readers to bring their own experience into making sense of the story (in line with reception theory) Translators need to be able to identify

Using Performance (with Audience Participation) to Help Translators Discern Ambiguity in Texts: An Empirical Study Based on the Book of Ruth:

The underlying complaint in the psalms of lament is God’s apparent silence or lack of intervention in a difficult situation. However, performing a psalm of lament suggests that this might not be the case. Performing any psalm requires one to identify the various speakers and addressees at different points. In the case of psalms of lament, the possibility arises of a representative of God’s voice entering the dialogue. There are several clues within the text that suggest this interpretation, the main one being the dramatic change in mood evident in many lament psalms. Another one is comparison with lament psalms where the voice of God is cited. Also, the nature of poetry allows hearers to draw on their own experience to make sense of “gaps” in the text, and for different voices in literary text to speak without the use of speech introducers. Further clues emerge from a study of speech-act theory and the way that conversation-partners use language in relating to one another. If one discerns that the voice of God is represented in some form in lament psalms, this has important theological, hermeneutical, liturgical, and pastoral implications. A performance or liturgical reading of a lament psalm (sensitive to the different voices and indicating the possibility of a conversation taking place) can help hearers discern that a voice representing God does respond to the complainant’s cry. This encourages contemporary sufferers as they identify with the lamenter and hear some response to help them in their situations.

/pdf/performing-psalms-of-lament-does-god-off-stage-respond-to-3mvzomqzeo.pdf

Performing psalms of lament: does god (off-stage) respond to the complainant’s cry?

In many churches, a group of people with a particular identity may often feel like “outsiders” and battle to fit into the community; yet “insiders” rarely recognise their difficulties One such group in South Africa are refugees, particularly those coming from francophone Africa This empirical study attempts to waken South African members of a local church to the heavy concerns carried by fellow Christians who have had to flee their homelands The study intends to not only highlight refugees, but also any group within a church that may feel “excluded” The aim is to show that a more supportive community can be fostered through an application of principles from many disciplines (studies relating to community-building, lament, empathy, and rituals) It is hoped that other churches can benefit from this example, thus promoting unity and incorporating the “excluded”, and enabling the establishment of healthier communities

/pdf/building-community-in-the-church-between-insiders-and-7op2ew0axt.pdf

Building community in the church between insiders and outsiders

A study of biblical lament psalms can help present-day sufferers express their own pain to God, and this can result in personal, social, and biological healing. In this empirical study, Zulu “pain-bearers” first studied Psalms 3 and 13 and then wrote and performed their own laments, using the biblical laments as a model. The use of poetic form is shown to have advantages over narrative therapy approaches.
The empirical compositions and performances fit with the insights gained from cognitive psychotherapy approaches as well as the therapeutic steps proposed by Judith Herman. Moreover, apart from facilitating healing of the soul and interpersonal relations, the research insights of Cozolino and others suggest that lament can stimulate the biological healing of the brain, allowing for the healthy processing of the trauma memories.
https://doi.org/10.17159/2312-3621/2019/v32n3a7

/pdf/the-intersection-of-biblical-lament-and-psychotherapy-in-the-3pwwp4fva8.pdf

June F. Dickie

Papers

The power of performing biblical text today: For trauma-healing, evangelism, discipleship and for supporting careful biblical study/translation

Using Performance (with Audience Participation) to Help Translators Discern Ambiguity in Texts: An Empirical Study Based on the Book of Ruth:

Performing psalms of lament: does god (off-stage) respond to the complainant’s cry?

Building community in the church between insiders and outsiders

The Intersection of Biblical Lament and Psychotherapy in the Healing of Trauma Memories