Independent Scholarship

 I’ve asked my friend whether she thinks I’m insane or stupid or both for even considering going back to graduate school, and working on a doctorate in Anthropology. She reassures me I’m not any of these things, and is now encouraging me to explore the role of Independent Scholar.

I came to her to ask for help in writing an abstract for an upcoming conference in Denmark called Space/Interaction/Discourse. Recently, I’ve become increasingly interested/obsessed with Rock Band for XBOX 360, and in general the use of avatars in virtual spaces. What is most fascinating to me is the real body affect on the virtual body that’s possible while playing drums, “playing” guitar and singing within the XBOX game.

Where I am with the call for abstracts right now is: reading and re-reading critical theory that I think might inform my thinking on the paper, visiting RockBand.com and reading forums, and playing the game (this last one, not as much as I would like.)

The next step will be to free write all the funky ideas I’m having about this game and the potential of whole body interactive, online games in general.  Here are the calls for papers I want to use as prompts for the the free writing:

• Interacting bodies in material-semiotic places. For example, the study of body movements, interacting bodies and objects-in-interaction in the situated configuration of material-semiotic space and virtual places. An example can be found in the interactions of citizens and visitors in public places and aesthetic environments, such as museums. More precise ways of analysing affordances and mediational means need to be investigated. Findings will be applicable to the design of innovative, democratic, habitable places and to the crafting of mobility practices in spatial planning, design and policy.
• Discourses on the move. The relationship between mobility and other resources (talk, embodiment, text, signs, etc.) by which interlocutors interact in mobile spaces or environments.
• Shaping democratic places. Contributions may support the development of approaches for studying everyday life practices in ways that can inform the design of places which promote discourses of hope; for example, rich discursive spaces that afford opportunities for people to engage in activities such as conflict resolution and reconciliation.
• Inquiry and place-making. The importance of emotions and meanings which can develop around places relates to the call for a return to the everyday lifeworld of lived experience. If we want to explore the lived experience of ‘feeling at home’ - which is unnoticed and taken-for-granted most of the time - then which concept of inquiry can be more useful? Pragmatist notions of inquiry are suited to understanding how humans make sense of where they are. In particular, they may help us understand how aspects that are not immediately task-related (nor seen as discursive) and which are less apparent and more imprecise (such as sensory and affective) equally regulate place-making.