Bøger af James V. Wertsch

This book investigates the needs, conditions for, and qualities of dialogical communication from three perspectives, each of which make demands on dialogical skills: the political/cultural dimension, the technological dimension, and the educational dimension. Ultimately, this book sheds light on the crucial communication challenges of the present, revealing the circumstances by which the dialogue contributes to increased intersubjectivity.

How Nations Remember draws on multiple disciplines in the humanities and social sciences to examine how a nation''s account of the past shapes its actions in the present. National memory can underwrite noble aspirations, but the volume focuses largely on how it contributes to the negative tendencies of nationalism that give rise to confrontation. Narratives are taken as units of analysis for examining the psychological and cultural dimensions of rememberingparticular events and also for understanding the schematic codes and mental habits that underlie national memory more generally. In this account, narratives are approached as tools that shape the views of members of national communities to such an extent that they serve as co-authors of what people say andthink. Drawing on illustrations from Russia, China, Georgia, the United States, and elsewhere, the book examines how "narrative templates," "narrative dialogism," and "privileged event narratives" shape nations'' views of themselves and their relations with others. The volume concludes with a list of ways to manage the disputes that pit one national community against another.

In this book, Wertsch outlines an approach to mental functioning that stresses its inherent cultural, historical, and institutional context. A critical aspect of this approach is the cultural tools or "mediational means" that shape both social and individual processes.

In a book of intellectual breadth, James Wertsch not only offers a synthesis and critique of all Vygotsky's major ideas, but also presents a program for using Vygotskian theory as a guide to contemporary research in the social sciences and humanities.