You read the bulletin board...
Here, I am trying to imagine different conversations with different theorists, rather like the old PBS Steve Allen show, Meeting of Minds. I suppose my propensity for this type of learning technique divulges my passion for Burke's "dramatistic" approach to rhetoric. This section should also foreground my stance that MOO is a learning environment which enables one to act out, dramatistically apply, theory. MOO itself, per se, is not a utopian dream world, an escape from our quotidian problems. MOO will not, by itself, allow us to leave our political, theoretical, and pedagogical baggage at the airport unclaimed. We still have to heave those bags into the back seat and drive them home. They still have to be unpacked. The contents of the baggage still have to be sorted: some things needing laundering, some things are stained, ready to be discarded; some things simply no longer fit. MOO is an environment that is already challenging us to rise to our theoretical occasions in ways that were not physically possible heretofore, yet I do not want to simply extol the virtues of MOO, but examine the capacities in light of possibilities and limitations.

To this end, I imagine walking into a Burkean parlor, actually various digital Burkean parlors, virtual MOOparlors, virtual, in that this hypetext can only approximate, (re)present what a MOO conversation might look like. It cannot come close to the experience itself. Yet this "reflection in tranquility," may prove helpful to those who have yet to MOO, offering quieter waters of a cove, rather than the storm at sea. I hope new intersections become apparent as I mixmaster these theorists into the thick of things. Each conversation below is an interpretive stance on my part, a way of juxtaposing similar, different, or related theories, in order to take a look at how they mesh or clash. They are, for me, Bakhtin's polyglossia, and only come alive for me when "dramatically" enacted in a given situation. I have attempted to keep each quote as close to its originating context as possible, yet concede that in some cases, I may have tweaked some situations or words for my own ends. Such is the bread and butter of interpretation, ever contextual, ever contending, ever changing. However, I will provide an opportunity for others to add their voices well. At the end of each conversation, you will find a space for your comments, a place to "put in your oar." In fact, you can grab an oar and dip here if you like. I must also admit that I am looking for areas of "consubstantiality" at this point, knowing full well the "inevitable, yeah but" will arise. I imagine KB walking into a virtual parlor...

I think he would have had a grand time.

You see a sign with room listings.

Reserved Rooms

Not Necessarily the Beginning

Not Necessarily the Middle

Not Necessarily the End

Tavern OnGoingLogue