My Dean's Report (II)

My Dean’s Report II

There is, in every course of mine, a span
between the first part of class ...

[I call it "Life of the Mind" because it's a
no-talking zone when the players read,
react & respond in writing to a letter-lecture
handout which displays their thoughts from
the previous meeting (mind sneezed on a
page: kleenex composition encouraged,
a-choo! & now processed type-o-logically)
plus my own commentary & kibitzing.]

...as I was saying: a span exists between
"Life of the Mind" silently at work on the one
hand and then on the other hand, the second
part of class which is called "Life of the Body
Politic," a time for talk-in-air, discussion,
argument, Howard Cosell commentary, what I
call the converse-action essential to emerging
edification, building the “body politic" at any
point.

Second part of class is open mic—unscripted,
agenda-less, un-facilitated, improv: call-&-
response, spontaneous or silent rumination
generating a possibility.

Life of the Mind & Life of the Body Politic.
Radically different, “hostile” realms--but
related!

The time when mind is cultivating its own
garden, say, working out and within it's
idiosyncratic personal, private and unique
not to be replicated local food for thought::
mind minding mindfully with what's at hand.

And then (chronologically) the time when mind
is at-work-with-other-minds, collaborative genius
whether it feels co-operative or not: inter-action,
& relationship with the environmental noetic
atmosphere. Communication Going On when
ever any 2 or 3 or more minds are gathered…

Now:

the SPAN in between these 2 designated
times is, I confess, maybe what's most
interesting to me in my classes.

It is of indeterminate length—
beginning vaguely as "Life of Mind"
time draws officially to a close --sometime,
anytime, around the first half of the total
allotment (officially 80 minutes) & felt as
an expectancy accumulates, anticipating the
ORIGINS of the Universe of Converse for
the day.

An in-the-beginnings-time waiting for the
WORD, any comment, observation, question,
or even gesture that will for moments or more
originate inaugurate, initiate, authorize,
generate the Life of Body Politic time.

We become Cargo Cult-ers—waiting for any
Godot called to break silence into consonants
& vowels, nouns & verbs, digital & analogical
renditions of noise and news, mixed & operating
metaphors carrying & concealing the burden of
underlying assumptions, hidden suppositions,
faux dichotomies, dominant paradigms, contra
addictions & para-doxologies: culturally laden
value-driven non-transparent connotations
passing for mere instruments of description,
unacknowledged re-ification, personification
and deification manifesting and embodying pure
abstractions no one in his left mind would put a
finger on all of which generate our daily Life of
the Body Politic—somewhat polite, somewhat
policed.

AND: so much POTENTIAL prior to that first Word!
II often tell my students (insist: dogmatically, &
always for the sake of argument):

LOOK, THIS CLASS IS LITERALLY THE
MOST POWERFUL OF ALL YOUR COURSES

—potency immanent like the Johnstown reservoir
dammed up prior to any word suddenly spoken
and reducing our constellational possibilities to
a linear agenda: an impotence that accompanies
agenda necessary for discussion, sure, and argument
and momentary task:. Context collapsed into Text and
the difference and relationship (between background
& figure, potency & use/abuse, possibility & determination),
is an experiential part of all my courses and any one
can feel the gut tension and realize the differences &
possibly the relationships.

(to be continued) xxxooo, Sam