Our 59th Anniversary
Verbal Level
October/November/December, 2005
A THREE-PART G S LEARNING PROGRAM !
COMMUNICATION AND CONTROVERSY:
PATHWAYS AND PITFALLS
IN CHALLENGING COMMUNICATION
ROBEN TOROSYAN, PhD
Assistant Director, Center for Academic Excellence;
Adjunct Assistant Professor of Education, Fairfield University
Thursday, October 6, 7 PM
Albert Ellis Institute, 45 East 65th Street
NYSGS Members Free, Non-members $5
In our culture of sensational sound bytes and polarized arguments in the popular media, too few actions and behaviors aim at open-minded communication. Given this, I was pleasantly surprised in the weeks after 9/11 when I and fellow New Yorkers shoved each other less in the subway and buses. People gen-erally treated each other more gent-ly than usual. Eventually, however, there was a change, captured by a New Yorker cartoon that Novem ber: one woman says to another, “It’s hard, but slowly I’m getting back to hating everyone” (Kaplan). Such a return to the tyranny of the normal reflects at core a lack of concrete practice in empathy generally.
This workshop provides a way of dealing with disagreement in personal, professional or civic life – a method to practice what we preach by moving beyond mere “telling” of positions, to truly negotiating mean-ing together. Emphasis will be on application to participants’ individ-ual contexts.
Learning objectives include:
· Assume misunderstanding: Rather than assume what someone means, find out.
· Withhold judgment and evalua-tion for now, in order to fully hear the other.
· Assume there is probably more to what the other may mean.
· Rather than assume a purely logical exchange, expect an interaction of feelings.
· Notice “meta-messages” about yourself, the other, and the relation-ship between you.
· Try to understand the other’s real-ity as the other feels, perceives and assumes it to be.
· While a common ideology says, “for every discourse a contrary and transgressive counter discourse,: an alternative says instead, “for every discourse, a complementary and inclusive counter-discourse” (Hutch-eon, Common Knowledge 9,1,2003; 42-49).
Roben Torosyan, PhD, supports Fairfield University faculty in their teaching through workshops, consultations and leadership initiatives. His PhD is in Cultural Studies and Education, from Teachers College, Columbia University. His scholar-in communication and learning has appeared in journals such as ETC. and the peer-reviewed Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspec-tives on Learning and has been cited in scholarly and lay texts. He is currently at work on two book manuscripts, Making a Life After College: Relationships, Callings and Spirituality (with Jackson Kytle), and Teaching for Transformation: Fostering Integrative Learning and Consciousness Development.
A GROUP DIALOGUE WORKSHOP
INTERACTIVE
GROUP PARTICIPATION
IN GROUP COMMUNICATION
Thursday, November 3, 7 PM
Albert Ellis Institute, 45 East 65th Street
NYSGS Members Free, Non-members $5
Here’s our opportunity to further put into practice the G S insights we developed in Roben Torosyan’s October workshop.
We’ll form small groups to share events and happenings in which we increased our abilities to use G S to improve communication, lessen potential antagonisms, search for increased information in making decisions. After a first round of dialogue we’ll form new groups to evaluate and exchange ideas on what we’ve learned.
Plan to bring and share your experiences, and use your listening abilities to learn from others
Come and enjoy a G S learning experience!
Neil Postman’s Advice on How to Live
the Rest of Your Life
JANET STERNBERG, PhD
Assistant Professor and Associate Chair,
Department of Communication
and Media Studies, Fordham University
Thursday, December 8, 7 PM
Albert Ellis Institute, 45 East 65th Street
NYSGS Members Free, Non-members $5
A prolific writer, Neil Postman authored numerous books, essays, articles, and speeches. Yet Postman never formalized in writing certain material he presented in classes he taught at New York University in the Media Ecology Program. Postman ritually delivered several lectures almost every year, among them an enduring favorite which became known as his lecture on “How to Live the Rest of Your Life.” In his own personal notes, Postman called this material simply his “Final Lecture,” describing it as “a lecture based on the supposition that American culture is in the process of decomposition. Technology has attacked all social institutions and although we may yet revive the culture, the problem to be solved is, how to survive until that happens.”
Postman’s lecture about what to do until things improve included 22 rules, laws, maxims, and sayings plus an additional five nuggets of wisdom. Based on his own personal notes, complemented by notes she took while studying with him, Janet Sternberg offers a re-construction of Postman’s original advice.
While earning her doctorate with Neil Postman in the Media Ecology Program at New York University, Janet Sternberg also worked as Postman’s assistant. As his first electronic scribe, Sternberg introduced Postman to personal computing and word processing, producing two of his book manuscripts and dozens of his speeches in the early 1990s. Born in New York, Sternberg grew up in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, becoming bilingual in English and Portuguese at an early age. After completing a B.A. in French and Spanish at Kirkland College (now Hamilton College), Sternberg received a Fulbright grant for research in Brazil, while pur-suing an M.A. in linguistics at Cornell University. In addition to her work with Postman at NYU, Sternberg has pub-lished articles and given presentations on subjects as diverse as Portuguese gram-mar, linguistic theory, the history of tec-nology, and communications and media studies. Sternberg counts herself among the Media Ecology Association’s most ac-tive members, serving as one of its Directors as well as its Executive Secretary. Currently, Sternberg enjoys teaching and advising in her position as assistant professor and associate chair of the Department of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University.
© 2005 Janet Sternberg
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v e r b a l l e v e l
published by
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for general semantics
144 East 36th Street, #6C
New York, NY 10016-3517
212-532-1467
FAX 212-683-9784
VERBAL LEVEL 10,11,12/05