It takes (at least) two to Tango!

It was an interesting and varied conversation last night about how we communicate ideas.

For me the process is always an open process. In the hermeneutics of play, communication involves openly bringing your ideas and preconceptions 'into play' with another (be that a text, a person or an artwork). We are active in the process; the play happens as the ideas are shared and new understandings emerge. (Gadamer, 1960)

Roland Barthes claimed 'The Author is Dead' back in 1967. He didn't mean that we are no longer responsible for the ideas we are communicating, but to impose a single interpretation of a text based on the author 'is to impose a limit on that text'. (Barthes, 1977)

Our pre understandings; through culture, education, class and gender will bring a different mix to any shared communication. Our interpretation of the meaning of the text will differ. In play all understandings are reached by coming openly and willing to hear another's position and in so doing risk our own. It is through the process of openness, and willingness to risk do we gain understanding.

Lucian eloquently described how he incorporated other 'languages' in his communication to allow the other person a way in. This is a very generous tool and starts from the premise of finding a mutual ground to 'play in'

On a course like this we can't hope to already understand everyone's line of inquiry; our backgrounds and interests are all so varied. What we can do is listen openly and attempt to find a 'mutual playing-field'.

Sometimes a position may seem a long way outside our own understanding. We may feel we have nothing in common. In these moments, just by listening and staying open to the ideas means we offer support to the speaker. Everyone on this course has reached a stage in their own professional practice, when they felt research at MA level would help their understanding and development. That to me is a really exciting place to start a conversation, imagine if you could bottle all that knowledge!

And to the Tango... It is my new plan come January and I have no more words to write - Argentine Tango lessons - I can't wait to experience a whole new world of communication.

• Barthes, R., & Heath, S. (1977). Image, music, text. New York: Hill and Wang.

Gadamer, H.-G. (1960), Weinsheimer, J, & Marshall, D. G. (2004). Truth and method. London, Continuum. London

Playing with our Expectation!

I find myself again at the point in the module where everything becomes topsy-turvy! For me each module is a roller-coaster of learning, and emotions, at the centre of the roller-coaster is a perpetual loop-the-loop. When I find myself here, my first reaction is mild confusion, building through queasiness to wild panic. However, I have learnt through the last two modules, when I begin this cycle to return to reading... Holistically it guides me, not out of the loop, but instead lets me experience the highs and lows of the cycle with my eyes open. Each new loop helping me to discover and reassess what I am experiencing and understanding.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to attend last Sunday's Skype discussion, so I have spent the week reading, with interest, all your posts and ideas about expectations. My research centres around the experience of 'play'. Through Heidegger and Gadamer I have come to understand that knowledge is gained through the play of our 'prejudgements' (expectations) and our new experiences (texts). 

As we encounter new ideas and experiences, we anticipate our future understanding of that experience. This anticipation is based on what we already know and understand, generated through the experiences we have already had. The new experience (text) will either substantiate or challenge our expected understanding. The former will help us to develop our original understanding and the latter will initiate a process of adaptation leading to new understanding and perspectives. Without our expectations or 'prejudices' we would be like a white-board wiped clean after each experience.

When we choose to engage with a text (experience) we bring our prejudgments/expectations/prejudices into 'play' with the new experience. We willingly decide to risk what we understand by opening it up and exposing it to 'otherness'. It is the play between the new and our anticipated understanding, that creates an in-between experience, which guides the process of understanding.

Each module asks us to engage with our 'prejudgements' and bring them into play with new ideas introduced to us on this MA - Ideas from philosophy, from our tutors, from our peers and from our lived experiences. By choosing to be here, we have put ourselves 'in the game.'

As with all play it is important to take the game seriously, in so doing, we can fully immerse ourselves in play - Gadamer states only through complete immersion in play can we create a state 'of being outside oneself' a state which creates 'the positive possibility of being wholly with someone else'. For me the key word in this quote is 'with' - play allows us to participate in a shared experience 'with' others. Understanding develops from new experience/text 'with' our original prejudgment/expectations. The knowledge is created between these two states, one does not limit or surpass the other.

My research inquiry has been built out of my expectations - I am now at the in-between stage, my job is to analyse the experience of my inquiry and the data collected 'with' my expectations. I must be open to the play between all the ideas emerging. Some will substantiate the concepts that led me to be interested in my line of inquiry, and others will challenge what I anticipated to understand. Being open to both is the most important rule to 'the game'

Gadamer H G: Truth and Method. Translated by Weinsheimer & Marshall. 2nd revised edition. New York: Continuum 2000

Heidegger M Being an Time. Translated by Macquarrie & Robinson. New York, Harper & Row Publishers, 1962