DIGITAL ALCHEMY

284 Pages·2013·1.3 MB·English

by  Thor Gibbins

ABSTRACT

Title of Document: DIGITAL ALCHEMY: A HERMENEUTIC
PHENOMENOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION OF
DIGITAL STORYTELLING FOR PEACE AND
JUSTICE

Thor Gibbins, Doctor of Philosophy, 2013

Dr. Francine Hultgren, Department of Teaching
Directed by: and Learning, Policy and Leadership

This study explores the experiences of undergraduate students enrolled in an
education I-Series (University of Maryland undergraduate courses designed to inspire
innovation, imagination, and intellect) course, Good Stories: Teaching Stories for Peace
and Justice. In this course students are asked to produce digital stories that project themes
of peace and justice. The locus of this study focuses on the essential question: In what
ways do participants world their experiences producing digital stories for peace and
justice?
The methodology of hermeneutic phenomenology is employed in order to
elucidate interpretive understandings about digital storytelling for peace and justice in the
experiences of nine undergraduates over the course of one semester. The metaphor of
alchemy is used since the practice of alchemy entailed amalgamating base metals in the
hopes of transmuting them into gold. Jung (1968) likens this process to our experience of
becoming individuated, whole, and healthy human beings. Digital media amalgamates
image sound and written text in order to enhance narrative, making it an apt metaphor
since it captures the synergism inherent in both the metaphor of alchemy and the
multimodality inherent in digital stories. The methodological practices for this inquiry
employ van Manen’s (1997) human science research.
This inquiry elucidates the participants’ experiences on being students of digital
media in addition becoming agentive knowers capable of projecting digital stories for the
purposes of peace and justice. The conspicuousness of developing the technological
know-how of producing digital media also takes particular precedent in this study.
Themes of the ways in which students are concerned by being students, producing digital
stories the “right” way, and developing particular stances on their understandings of
peace and justice are disclosed.
Additionally, the pedagogical implications for designing teaching and learning of digital
media are discussed. These implications focus on ways educators may develop
pedagogical tact in engaging and apprenticing students in digital media. These
pedagogical understandings may open possible opportunities for classrooms to be
transformed into digital media studios where students develop critical stances through the
practice of digitally designing narratives for the purposes of extending care, caring, and
caring for others to possible global audiences.
Digital Alchemy: A Hermeneutic Phenomenological Investigation of Digital Storytelling
for Peace and Justice

by

Thor Gibbins

Dissertation submitted to the faculty of the Graduate School of the
University of Maryland, College Park in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
2013

Advisory Committee:
Dr. Francine Hultgren, Chair
Dr. Joseph McCaleb, Advisor
Dr. Jennifer D. Turner
Dr. Wayne Slater
Dr. Andrew Wolvin, Dean’s Rep
© Copyright by
Thor Gibbins

2013
Dedication

I dedicate this study to Junghyun, my beautiful, loving wife. Without you, I would
not have been able to succeed in accomplishing this enormous project. I only hope I can
repay in kind by supporting your own hopes, dreams, and aspirations.
To my beautiful newborn daughter, Jisu, you were the muse that sat smilingly by
my side while I wrote the final pages. I look forward to the many years we have ahead to
discover what your own dreams may become.

ii
Acknowledgments

I am forever in the debt of my two mentors, Dr. Joseph McCaleb and Dr. Francine
Hultgren. Joseph, you helped me rediscover my love of story and have opened up vast
worlds of digital places for me to explore while I continue feeling my way for Good
Stories. Dr. Hultgren your kindness and patience for dealing with my developing writing
knows no bounds. I admire your grace and pedagogical tact. I hope I can become attuned
to my place in the world as both of you have done.
To my committee, I am especially grateful. Dr. Wayne Slater, I will always hold
dear our hour long conversations on literacy and our debates that helped develop my
acute awareness of ideas, thoughts, and rhetoric that I had overlooked. Dr. Jennifer
Turner, I am at awe at your kindness and understanding of teaching. Thank you for
always being happy to see me. Your smile is contagious and for that, I am forever
thankful. Dr. Wolvin, I appreciate you for taking your time and always being thoughtful
in any questions about arrangements of time and place. Thank you for allowing me to
present my study to you.
I am also especially thankful to my cohort of English doctoral students, Sarah,
Maggie, Beth, Jessica, and Megan. Thank you all for smiling and making my studies an
actual play place. Cole building will forever be quieter in our absence!
I am forever in debt to my wonderful participants. Without their wonderful
narratives and their acute wisdom, this inquiry does not get off the ground. Once again, I
have learned so much more from students than anything I had ever taught them.
Finally, I would like to thank Harper Collins Publishers’ Children’s Division for
allowing the use of Jamake Highwater’s sublime Anpao: An American Indian Odyssey. I
iii
hope I have captured a small portion of the deep meanings involved in this wonderful
tale.

iv
Table of Contents

Dedication ii
Acknowledgments iii
Table of Contents v

CHAPTER ONE:
THE PHILOSOPHER’S STONE: TURNING TO PEACE AND JUSTICE
THROUGH DIGITAL STORYTELLING 1

Embarking on the Quest for the Elixir of Life 1
Orientation 2
Transmuting the Philosopher’s Stone 4

Alchemy and Narrative: Transmuting the “Golden” Story 8
Nigredo: Decomposing Narcissus 12
Narrating Entropy: Experiential Coherence in a Vessel of Chaos 13
Building the Tinder Nest: Kindling the Narratives of Being 19
Albedo: (Re)Dis-covering the World 20
The Silver Moon Narrative: Reflecting Light upon the World 20
The Purified Self: Being-in-the-World as A-Being-Caring-For-Others 23
Rubedo: The Philosopher’s Stone as the Transmuted Teaching-Story 24
Un-Covering Gold: The Illumination of Self as Agent for Peace and
Justice 24
Projected Imaginations and the Spectrum of Story 26

Digital Places: The Alchemical Vessels for Narratives of Peace and Justice 27
Digital Implacement/Displacement 30
Being-Here-Now: Globalized Nearness of Digital Places 34

Alchemical Projection: Toward a Phenomenology of Digital Storytelling 37

CHAPTER TWO:
THE ALCHEMICAL PURPOSE AND DESIGN OF DIGITAL STORIES:
AN ONTICAL INVESTIGATION OF DIGITAL STORIES 41

Orientation: Storying Digital Narratives 41
Alchemical Maxims: The Distributive, Associative, and
Commutative Properties of Digital Stories 44
The Distributive Properties of Digital Stories 45
The Associative Properties of Digital Stories 47
The Commutative Properties of Digital Stories 48
Constructing Digital Presence 49
v
Constructing Digital Effervescence 51
The “New” Storytellers 53

Digital Projects: Design, Purpose and Dissemination of Digital Stories 56
The Ways of Knowing and Being through Digital Discourse 59
Stretching the Horizons of Design with Multimodal Digital
Narratives 64
Image(s) & Imagination: Having-Been-There and
Being-There 65
Talking Pictures: Voicing the World and Speaking Our Past 66

The Alchemy of Practice, Play, and Adaptability 69
The Return of Play 70
Hearing Our Selves: Adapting to our Disembodied Voice 71
Alchemy and Agency: The Be-Coming of Agentive Knowers through
Collaboration and Cooperation 73

Beyond “Reading the World:” Students Mediating their Lived Worlds
through Digital Multimedia Productions 76
Relativity, Perspectivity and Textuality in the Digital Classroom:
Rethinking and Reshaping the Space/Time/Relationship in Education 86
Alchemy and Existentialism: The Possibilities of Being an Author
in Digital Worlds 88

CHAPTER THREE:
ALCHEMICAL WORLDS: TOWARDS A PHENOMENOLOGY OF
DIGITAL STORYING FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE 91

Orientation: Grounding Experience in Story 91

Hermeneutic Transmutations: Storying Worlds and Multistabilities 94
Worlding Multistabilities 95
Re-Visioning Digitally Mediated Worlds 96

Setting Our-Being-in-the-World 98
Existence and the Self-Interpretation of Being 99
The Lifeworld and the Essence of the Everyday 103
Authorship and Agency 106

A Critical Examination of Care: Self-Care and the Caring for
Others through Story 109

Interpreting the Narratives of Our Lived Experiences:
Hermeneutics and the Play of Story 112
The Retentional Horizon of Time: Our-Being-Thrown 114
The Intentional Horizon: Our-Falling-in-Time 115
vi
The Protentional Horizon of Time: Projecting Our-Being-in-the-World 115
Taking Action: The (Re)Telling of Our Lived-Stories 116
Reconstructing Narrative for a Digital Life-world:
Moving from an “I” tell Stories to “We” tell Stories Digitally 118
Alchemic Altruism: Digital Story as a Representation of Truth 121

Methodological Elixirs: Stirring the Language of the Universe 122
Turning and Orienting Lived Experience: A (Re)Turn to
Digital Storying Peace and Justice 122
Alchemy and Existentialism in Digital Storytelling:
Convection and Sublimation of Experience as We Live It 124
The Art of Distillation: Thematizing the Ephemeral 125
Alchemy as Praxis: Writing. Rewriting, and Re-Visioning Possibilities 126
Alchemy and Pedagogy: The Worlding of Ethical Pedagogical
Practice and Digital Storytelling for Peace and Justice 128
The Magic Circle: The Manifold and Dynamics of Hermeneutics 129

Alchemical Exposition: The Project for Studying Digital Stories 129
Alchemy and Apprenticeship 130
Distillation and Convection: Methods of Inquiry 131

CHAPTER FOUR: DISTILLING AND ILLUMINATING THE ESSENCES
OF WORLDING DIGITAL STORIES FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE 136

Orientation: Worlding Lived Experience 136
The Worlding of the Class: My Participants and Their Carrying Forth 138
Hannah: An Earnest and Caring Future Teacher 139
Diana: A Woman of Strong Conviction and a Kind Heart 140
Karina: Comporting Benevolence to the World 141
Vincent: The Caring Entrepreneur 142
Evelyn: The Whimsical Quidditch Star 144
Sarah: A Passionate Voice for People with Special Needs 145
Christy (AKA Chachi): A Charismatic Future Storyteller
for Special Education 146
Alice: Overcoming Digital Discomfort in Finding Her Story 147
Maura: Digital Musical Master and Role Model 149
Stories In-Translation: Disclosing a Three-Fold Practice 150

The Fermentation of Memory: Re-Membering Lived Experiences
In-Order-To Make Sense in Digital Worlds 152
Mixing Solutions: The Conspicuousness of Digital Presence 154
Alchemical Stills: Exploring Digital Technique and
the Poetics of Involvement 158
Awkward Dealings and the Embodied Relationship with Technology:
The (I-Technology)-World 164
Developing Digital Familiarity 166
vii