This paper is a response to the commentaries on my article, “Leisure and Culture: Issues for an Anthropology of Leisure,”; that appeared in the previous issue of Leisure Sciences (Vol. 20, No. 2). The commentators addressed two topics, in the main. The first of these is my epistemological stance, cultural materialism, and its utility in the study of leisure. Though most of the commentators agreed that a materialist approach has value in the study of leisure, several suggested that other ways of looking at the phenomenon are useful and can extend the materialist perspective. Second, each of the commentators addressed one or more substantive issues. Most suggested that I failed to mention some important theorists, that I should have examined other data or cases, and that I should have cited additional books or articles. These criticisms are largely correct and my only defense is that a book‐length treatment of the topic of leisure and culture would be required to address these concerns.

Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science

Science, materialism, and the quest for an anthropology of leisure: A rejoinder

WHEN MARGARET ATWOOD PUBLISHED CAT'S EYE, readers intuited that Atwood was portraying a delicate negotiation between science and art. "The scientific imagination balances the mythic imagination" wrote Eleanor Cook in a review, "as in the two epigraphs, one from Hawking and one from a mythical Genesis" But when critical interpretations of science in the novel began to appear, that readerly intuition was challenged as some critics concluded that science was a negative force in the novel--an extension of an empiricist and racist patriarchy. Molly Hire, for example, calls the physicist character Stephen "a representative of the white, Western, male oppressor class" who suffers simultaneously from an "unawareness of the disciplinary system and of his own visibility within that system" (133, 147). June Deery writes, 'Atwood concludes that what links science, imperialism, and patriarchy is control of the body.... Western scientists ... have traditionally been depicted as subduing nature as female.... They share some of the same attitude as colonists: conquer, map, know, and sell" (235). Susan Strehle suggests that the patriarchy is active in Cat's Eye in the strictest sense, attributing all forms of Elaine's suffering to "the fathers" in the novel who enact "hierarchies of value that place women at the bottom and girls below them." She identifies the "paternal authorities" as "home, church, school, and state" (170). She associates science with these paternal authorities, constructing "classical science" as the "scientific method of detached objectivity that denies women subjectivity" (162). As a feminist and a teacher of this text in women's literature and science and literature courses for over ten years, I have both felt myself, and noted in other readers, an emotional disconnect between readings that view science as oppressive and the portrayal of science and scientists in the novel. The three scientist characters in Cat's Eye--Stephen, Elaine's father Dr Risley, and his student-colleague Dr Banerji--all appear to be "classical scientists" who subscribe to the principles of empiricism, objectivity, and the scientific method. Yet they are not negative characters. In fact, these three scientists are muses for the artist-protagonist Elaine (Dr Banerji is called so explicitly), and science itself is a source of inspiration, for her as for them. The scientists are aesthetically driven in their work, and the scientific objects and ideas in the text (insects, stars, light, mirrors, and dimensions) become aesthetic objects in Elaine's paintings. Critics who read science and scientists as patriarchal and racist reference cultural critics like Michel Foucault, Sandra Harding, and Donna Haraway, who demonstrate how sexist and racist beliefs can be embedded in the scientific intellectual and methodological traditions, reinforcing Eurocentric and patriarchal agendas. These theories are immensely complex constructions of the interplay between science and culture, but they are vulnerable to oversimplification. When such ideas are reduced to interpretations that leave the reader thinking that (in the words of Deery's editor, Harold Bloom) "scientific notions ... are masks for a supposedly male ideology" (vii), the subtlety of the critiques from social constructionists is lost. Leaving aside the question of what is a "male ideology;' these interpretations make the mistake of failing to distinguish between "professional science" and "cultural science" as defined by literary critic Daniel Cordle. (1) He defines professional science as "the set of practices and expertise that mal(e up the life of the working scientist" and cultural science as "the relationship between science and the public" (51). Atwood herself has repeatedly denied attributing social oppression to science qua science. She is careful to distinguish between science and what society does with or to science: "Science is a way of knowing, and a tool. Like all ways of knowing and tools, it can be turned to bad uses . …

Secret Allies: Reconsidering Science and Gender in Cat's Eye

Publisher Summary Philosophical issues serve as the foundation for everything done in education. All changes in schools are predicated on some philosophical cornerstone. Hence, the primary thesis of this chapter is that philosophy and educational reform are inextricably linked. It is difficult to define education without implying an educational philosophy. Philosophy is theoretical and speculative while education is practical. Philosophy asks questions, examining factors of reality and experience many of which are involved in the educative process; whereas the actual process of educating is a matter of actively dealing with these factors, that is, teaching, organizing programs, administering organizations, and building curricula. The chapter provides a historical background of philosophical issues related to teaching and learning. This background includes some unavoidable definitions—many of which end with the suffix ism. It examines the current prominent philosophical viewpoint in education—constructivism. The implications of constructivism for curriculum and classroom instruction are delineated, and the role of philosophy in the recent wave of academic standards is examined. The chapter offers suggestions on how educators can approach this critical subject. In addition numerous scientific examples are presented, most of which are applicable to all the core disciplines.

The Role of Philosophy in Educational Reforms: Never the Twain Shall Meet?

Since the end of the Cold War and rise of the USA to de facto preeminence, “framing” or contextualizing democratization has become exceedingly important to global politics and culture as governments seek to adjust strategies to reshape and stabilize new relations. Practitioners of politics, political scientists, and political philosophers, however, continue to speak past one another, not substantively engaging each other in dialogs connecting the theory, historical data, and normative or cultural contexts through which democratic development is presented. I suggest three interrelated reasons for this conundrum: (1) there are three major and three minor paradigms operative in this global “multilog," each of which serves different functions in society, (2) the three major paradigms (political science, political practice, and political philosophy) each implicitly assume and are grounded in information

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Reframing the Meaning of Democracy: The Globalization of Democratic Development, Viewed through the Paradigms of Political Science, Political Practice and Political

The techno-economic grid of the Internet looks set to fulfil its autopoietic potentials as a global and multi-dimensionally immersive knowledge and memory archival network This research project moves through a series of Digital Sociology case studies that mimic the changes in paradigms of the WWW from 2005-2010 in the forms of Web 10 to 20 and beyond to augmented reality and the cloud Netmodern social theory is an emergent and speculative product of the research findings of this thesis and the subjective experiences of the researcher in experiencing and explaining digital realities in the research All of the case studies employ practice-based approaches of original investigation through digital interventions completely immersed in particular waves of innovation and change The role of the researcher shifts from administrator to mediator and observer as the very fabric of the social web transforms and evolves The suggestion of the research findings is that you need to actually look at everything differently in order to study the research objects of emergent social agency and forms in digital media Existing forms of critical analysis and methodological frameworks, particularly those concerned with conceptual models of media literacy or collective intelligence are insufficient as explanatory methods Studying media literacy is most concerned with ‘how’ we create and interact in online social life beyond issues of simple accessibility The focus of collective intelligence research is ‘what’ knowledge is available for interaction and a canvas for relationships between agency and knowledge forms All of the case studies in this research project speak to and critique the intersections and relationships of emergent social agency and forms prevalent in Digital Sociology The collective case studies explore online academic communities (BlogScholar), agency and popularity in the Twitter social network (Twae) and a variety of representations of collective intelligence in action (Web 20 cases studies) The research results suggest that the Internet is not so much intersecting with as it is being culture, economy, and technology

Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science

Citations

Science, materialism, and the quest for an anthropology of leisure: A rejoinder

Secret Allies: Reconsidering Science and Gender in Cat's Eye

The Role of Philosophy in Educational Reforms: Never the Twain Shall Meet?

Reframing the Meaning of Democracy: The Globalization of Democratic Development, Viewed through the Paradigms of Political Science, Political Practice and Political

Netmodern : interventions in digital sociology

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