rhizomatic

sorry for the lack of posts, but lately i've been working on my thesis.

in fact, i'm making some impressive progress in gathering my resources. though no actual research has commenced yet (i haven't read a lot of the information i've found due to the sheer volume of it), i have some very interesting plans for the future, once the motivation strikes me.

allow yrself a small peek into my world, if you dare...

my recent research, as bookmarked on del.icio.us, includes some interesting theoretical discussion of Situationist, anarchist, and Marxist applications in daily life and practice.

-> has inspired much fevered and passionate writing, the makings of the beginning of a chapter of my thesis! sample below:


"Students for Staff [has] created an educational grassroots movement from the ground up, cemented with bonds of friendship and respect. We learn by doing together. Students for Staff (re)writes its text every day, and preserves/sustains itself through the passing down of histories of experience through individual relationships. The content of these experiences are found in the web of interactions extant among the members of this community. Because of the lack of a hierarchical power structure (as in the capitalist model), every individual has responsibilities and potentialities, multiplied by their roles in the community, and their commitments to its individual members. The potential for growth within such a community is thus exponential; as each member interacts and forms relationships with every other member, the strength of the connecting fibers mushrooms. The power in grassroots organizing is its rhizomatic potential: lateral roots whose blossoms continually reappear, never able to be stomped out."

--> this inspired by the philosophy of the rhizomatic:

[from Wikipedia:] The term rhizome has been used by Carl Jung as a metaphor, and by Gilles Deleuze as a concept, and refers to the botanical rhizome.

Carl Jung used the word "rhizome", also calling it a "myzel", to emphasize the invisible and underground nature of life:

Life has always seemed to me like a plant that lives on its rhizome. Its true life is invisible, hidden in the rhizome. The part that appears above the ground lasts only a single summer. Then it withers away—an ephemeral apparition. When we think of the unending growth and decay of life and civilizations, we cannot escape the impression of absolute nullity. Yet I have never lost the sense of something that lives and endures beneath the eternal flux. What we see is blossom, which passes. The rhizome remains. (Prologue from "Memories, Dreams, Reflections")

Furthermore:


Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari used the term "rhizome" to describe theory and research that allows for multiple, non-hierarchical entry and exit points in data representation and interpretation. In A Thousand Plateaus, they opposed it to an arborescent conception of knowledge, which worked with dualist categories and binary choices. A rhizome works with horizontal and trans-species connections, while an arborescent model works with vertical and linear connections.

so, as you can see, i'm keeping busy.

back to the grindstone,
stephan!e