Sunday, December 8, 2013

By Contrast

Just finished attending the Literacy Research Association conference, and while I'm totally disappointed to be stranded in Dallas due to an ice storm, I was nicely impressed with the conference. I learned a ton and saw some good friends.

Of particular note was the final plenary with Carol Lee, David Bloome, Kris Gutierrez, and Rob Tierney. They were so interesting. Carol's title "It is rocket science" referring to literacy research was awesome and framed her talk nicely. David talked about the possible overuse of the term "literacy" especially as it has become linked with conceptions of competence. Kris discussed her amazing work on horizontal and vertical learning and social design experiments. And Rob inspired us to not give up.

Here's a Foucault quote I love that I used to close my discussant comments on a session:
"Brothels and colonies are two extreme types of heterotopia, and if we think, after all, that the boat is a floating piece of space, a place without a place, that exists by itself, that is closed in on itself and at the same time is given over to the infinity of the sea and that, from port to port, from tack to tack, from brothel to brothel, it goes as far as the colonies in search of the most precious treasures they conceal in their gardens, you will understand why the boat has not only been for our civilization, from the sixteen century until the present, the great instrument of economic development...but has been simultaneously the greatest reserve of the imagination. The ship is the heterotopia par excellence. In civilizations without boats, dreams dry up, espionage takes the place of adventure, and the police take the place of pirates." From Of Other Spaces