Fletcher+DuBois+Critical+Media+Literacy+and+ritual

Typ Fletcher Ranney DuBois research interests Critical Media Literacy and Ritual dynamics (academic and the) Presenting at the NLU Imagination Conference (November 14th 2009) Todd Price and I talked this morning about critical media literacy using aspects of our current research. My part centered in on an image- 10th .12th century bronze sculptures showing Shiva Nataraja. These were created with the lost wax technique in the Chola dynasty (in theTamil Nadu region of India/ I asked how images of that sculpture as well as reproductions made now are presented digitally on the web and how have they been commented upon in blog form at certain sites. How does the presentation of ritual objects become aestheticized and commercialized. A wonderful resource using a biographical method is the comparative religion and Indologist Richard H. Davis’ work //The Lives of Indian Images// . Richard was present in the summer school on “Objects on the Move”. A week of intensive work done by visiting international scholars (including doctoral students) held by the Excellence Cluster on Europe and Asia at Heidelberg University. I was engaged in this week of events presenting aspects of the autobiographical method. What I spoke of, and showed internet images of, today also connects with a presentation Patrick Roberts and I did a week ago titled “ Ritual Aspects and Democratic Dimensions of Museum Pedagogy” given at the Society for Studying Education Philosophically Conference (Chicago November 8- 9). Here I concentrated on one statue on display at the Chicago Art Institute’s Altsdorf Gallery of south Asian Art. Here I contrasted how it is perceived by various viewers- guards, docents, individual museum goers and groups as well as art education staff at the Institute. Over against this I spoke of how the statue would have had rituals performed so as to invite the god to be present in it particularly during processions during festivals where it and not the immovable sacred linga stone object in the temple, would become for a brief time the center of veneration and ritual action. The statues’ presence on the side in the temple would shift at these times to being the object available to be seen by all receiving its blessing as it is carried trough the village or town in a ritual processions. (this is the norm but in the famous temple Cidabaram in South East India the Shiva Nataraja is placed centrally and is considered of prime importance in the temple year round). The issue of democratic practices and new media will be central to the presentation I will be giving today (subbing for Todd Price and reading some of what he has prepared as well) including my own take on democratic possibilities and the positive aspects of, as well as real and potential dangers involved in, the new social networking on FaceBook and blogging in various forms s as well as the use of youtube- by the bye I just read in the February 2009 issue of ASCD’s Educational Leadership Magazine has an article about the use of blogging connected to teachers’ Professional Development ).  … This is a start in my sharing some of my research with you all.    Thanks to all who brought this site into being and of course it too is an example of new media and the creation of community  e in the content of your page here.