I study, teach, and write about children's literature and teaching writing. As I have discovered, however, one cannot study children's literature or rhetoric/writing without also embarking on adventures in the Big Ideas of Life: religious and philosophical beliefs, ethical and moral questions, political and economic positions, and all the drama of the human experience.
Over the last few years I also have learned that how we study a topic and with what assumptions is as important as the topic itself.
Over the last few years I also have learned that how we study a topic and with what assumptions is as important as the topic itself.
Theoretical, Methodological, and other writings
'Out of the everywhere into here': rhetoricity and transcendence as common ground for spiritual research
Chapter 2: 'Out of the everywhere into here':
Rhetoricity and transcendence as common ground for spiritual research.
Rhetoricity and transcendence as common ground for spiritual research.
Purpose: My chapter approaches spirituality as something all peoples have in common but which has become a source of division, exacerbated by the use of loaded language -- words that carry many connotations to the point they have lost useful meanings. I argue that the concept and language of rhetoricity -- the state of our whole being operating in a call-and-response mode -- and the concepts of transcendence can provide us with a common paradigm and language in which to conduct spiritual research. I worked with editors of different faiths and from different disciplines to tease out and to articulate my thinking and to imagine what such a paradigm would look like.
In the first part of this chapter, I trace changes in Western philosophy from an eternally-focused to a here-and-now focused worldview then consider how those changes have shaped our approaches to research since the late 19th century. In the second part of this chapter, I discuss contemporary quantitative and qualitative research conducted about spirituality and consider the constraints of current objectivist, constructivist, and interpretivist paradigms on such work. In the final part of the chapter, I propose a new paradigm based on transcendent realism, one that posits the possibility of an objective reality Beyond that transcends our discovered, constructed, interpreted, and/or transformed understandings of this reality; one in which knowledge is as much revealed as it is discovered and/or constructed; one in which the seemingly irrational and mysterious is accepted as indicative of transcendence; one that allows for researcher practices that transcend the cognitive, that allows for a willingness to accept revealed knowledge, and that allows for the work of research to be co-constructed with peers and with a transcendent Beyond; and one that views the researcher as both a tool for immediate and apparent ends as well as for hidden ends that transcend this time and space.
Anderson, A.W. (2016). 'Out of the everywhere into here': Rhetoricity and transcendence as common ground for spiritual research. In J. Lin, R. L. Oxford, and T. E. Culhman (Eds.). Toward a Spiritual Research Paradigm: Exploring New Ways of Knowing, Researching, and Being. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.
In the first part of this chapter, I trace changes in Western philosophy from an eternally-focused to a here-and-now focused worldview then consider how those changes have shaped our approaches to research since the late 19th century. In the second part of this chapter, I discuss contemporary quantitative and qualitative research conducted about spirituality and consider the constraints of current objectivist, constructivist, and interpretivist paradigms on such work. In the final part of the chapter, I propose a new paradigm based on transcendent realism, one that posits the possibility of an objective reality Beyond that transcends our discovered, constructed, interpreted, and/or transformed understandings of this reality; one in which knowledge is as much revealed as it is discovered and/or constructed; one in which the seemingly irrational and mysterious is accepted as indicative of transcendence; one that allows for researcher practices that transcend the cognitive, that allows for a willingness to accept revealed knowledge, and that allows for the work of research to be co-constructed with peers and with a transcendent Beyond; and one that views the researcher as both a tool for immediate and apparent ends as well as for hidden ends that transcend this time and space.
Anderson, A.W. (2016). 'Out of the everywhere into here': Rhetoricity and transcendence as common ground for spiritual research. In J. Lin, R. L. Oxford, and T. E. Culhman (Eds.). Toward a Spiritual Research Paradigm: Exploring New Ways of Knowing, Researching, and Being. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.
Live! From Mount Olympus: Theatricizing Two Analyses of a Multimodal, Multimedia Composition
Live! From Mount Olympus:
Theatricizing Two Analyses of a Multimodal, Multimedia Composition
(with Patriann Smith, Jenifer Jasinski Schneider, and Aimee Frier)
Theatricizing Two Analyses of a Multimodal, Multimedia Composition
(with Patriann Smith, Jenifer Jasinski Schneider, and Aimee Frier)
Purpose: After we each analyzed the same multimodal video produced by sixth-grade students, we (Patriann and I) found it difficult to combine our distinctive voices and approaches into one final product. Nor did we feel readers would be well served by reading one full analysis followed by a second, so eventually, we scripted the analyses as a play. As previous ethno-theater or dramatic research has focused on dramatizing data rather than analysis, and as little has been written about researchers presenting findings by assuming characters other than themselves or anyone else directly involved in the research, we offer our method in the hopes other scholars will find it useful.
Design/Methodology/Approach: Recalling the Apollonian and Dionysian approaches to understanding meaning, we assumed the characters of the half-brothers Apollo and Dionysus and performed the analyses, tinged with sibling rivalry, as a debate moderated by their father, Zeus.
Findings: In scripting, rehearsing, and performing as mythical characters, we gained further insight into the layers contained in the original data (the student-produced video). In attending to the reactions of audience members (academic scholars attending a literacy conference), we also found ‘observed against ourselves’ (Fetteryly, 1979) as we simultaneously identified with our roles as data objects and data creators.
Keywords: Ethno-theater, dramatizing analysis, student-produced video, Apollo and Dionysus
Anderson, A.W., Smith, P., Schneider, J.J., and Frier, A. (2015). Live! From Mount Olympus: Theatricizing two analyses of a multimodal, multimedia composition. Creative Approaches to Research, 8(1), 75-96. Retrieved from
http://aqr.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/CAR8_1_Full.pdf
Design/Methodology/Approach: Recalling the Apollonian and Dionysian approaches to understanding meaning, we assumed the characters of the half-brothers Apollo and Dionysus and performed the analyses, tinged with sibling rivalry, as a debate moderated by their father, Zeus.
Findings: In scripting, rehearsing, and performing as mythical characters, we gained further insight into the layers contained in the original data (the student-produced video). In attending to the reactions of audience members (academic scholars attending a literacy conference), we also found ‘observed against ourselves’ (Fetteryly, 1979) as we simultaneously identified with our roles as data objects and data creators.
Keywords: Ethno-theater, dramatizing analysis, student-produced video, Apollo and Dionysus
Anderson, A.W., Smith, P., Schneider, J.J., and Frier, A. (2015). Live! From Mount Olympus: Theatricizing two analyses of a multimodal, multimedia composition. Creative Approaches to Research, 8(1), 75-96. Retrieved from
http://aqr.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/CAR8_1_Full.pdf