FYI --
Marcy
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Date: Fri, 28 Feb 1997 16:09:32 -0600
From: David R. Russell <[log in to unmask]>
To: Multiple recipients of list WAC-L <[log in to unmask]>
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Yrjo Engestrom will be a featured speaker at the 1997 Conference of College
Composition and Communication, on Friday, March 14, at 4:30-5:45, in
Phoenix (Tucson Room, 37/Main Level, Civic Plaza).
Those of you on this list who are attending the conference (or who will be
in the Phoenix area then), may want to attend his talk, and the
Bakhtin/Vygotsky SIG meeting right after his talk.
Many of us interested in writing and learning have increasingly found his
work on collaboration and "learning by expanding" useful in our research
and theorizing.
The "official" announcement is below:
Thanks
Yrjo Engestrom is Professor of Communication at the University of
California, San Diego, where he directed the Laboratory of Camparative
Human Cognition from 1989 to 1995. He also directs the Center for Activity
Theory and Developmental Work Research at the Universi ty of Helsinki. His
research is based on cultural-historial activity theory proposed by
Vygotsky and Leont'ev. His books include --Learning by Expanding; Learning,
Working, and Imagining--; and most recently, --Cognition and Communication
at Work--, edited jointly with David Middleton. Engestrom is editor of the
journal Mind, Culture, and Activity.
Engestrom's presentation is entitled "Talk, Text, and Instrummentality in
Collaborative Work: An Activity Theoretical Perspective." He will suggest
that "in practical activity the demarcation line between linguistic and
material tools is fluid and th ese tools are continuously intertwined or
merged. Medical and court records are good examples of this merger of talk
and material artifacts, which takes multiple forms where the records play
different roles depending on the internal dynamics of the activi ty."
Engestrom will illuminate the different roles and different mergers,
analyzing the tranformation of the work activity of a primary school
teacher team over a period of two years. According to Engestrom, "This
transformation of activity can be de picted as a process of remediation, or
as a contruction of a new instrumentality by the practitioners." In his
presentation, Engestrom will disuss the potential of key conceptual tools
of activity theory for the analysis and reshaping of collaborativ e
professional practices.
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PLEASE POST TO OTHER APPROPRIATE LISTS
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David R. Russell
English Department
Iowa State University
Ames, IA 50011
USA (515) 294-4724
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