Chandan Reddy's Talk

I would have to agree with Colin that Chandan Reddy's talk last Wednesday brought a lot of clarity to topics we have been talking about. It really made me excited about approaching my research from a humanist perspective. In class, I took in a lot of information, but being able to listen to the discussion again, really allowed me to analyze what he was saying and give me a better understanding of his major points.

As the assignment requested, I have come up with two different questions:

Question that leads to a nonverifiable story
Why is Amsterdam’s progressive culture that is fixated on transformation at the same time so focused on conservation?

Question that leads to a verifiable story
In what ways have the people of Amsterdam striven to conserve the museum like qualities of their city?

The most readily apparent aspect that these two questions have in common is that they are both approaching the same basic topic of Amsterdam's conservation of their historic city. I would venture to guess that if the questions didn't have the verifiable/nonverifiable titles above them, the casual reader wouldn't perceive a difference in what these two questions are asking.

The question that leads to a nonverifiable story approaches the topic from the humanist point of view that is more focused on defamiliarization than finding an actual answer. With this mindset, the significance of the question is in what is meant by asking it. This is in stark contrast with the second question whose significance lies in the answer which comes in the form of a verifiable story.

The stories that are produced by these questions will be read differently depending on the intellectuals who read them. The first story will lend itself to being more of a philosophical discussion, that will be told without the intention of finding an actual answer. Furthermore, the story will contain more questions along the way that further explore why the original question was asked in the first place. A social scientist, such as a historian, would probably not find this to be a very useful discourse. Instead, the social scientist would much prefer the structure of the story produced by the second question. Although not necessarily true, this story can be verified through various means, and is actually answering the question.

The nonverifialbe story will follow the transgression concept metaphor of transformation. The story from the first question will probably be told through the perspective of an object of transgression that represents the relationship that is being explored. Through investigating this object of transgression, I think I can begin exploring the core aspects of my research.