abstract

The Dialogic Writing Classroom

In University in Ruins, Bill Readings calls for a “teaching scene” based on dialogism as opposed to dialogue. This idea of dialogism, borrowed from Mikail Bakhtin, has potential to open up space for, what I call, a critical critical pedagogy and for responding to Amy Lee’s assertion that “critical pedagogy foregrounds the teacher or educator…. The students’ role is largely ignored” (Composing Critical Pedagogies 7). What if composition studies were to take seriously Readings’ concept of Thought, which is “thinking together” as a “dissensual process”? If critical pedagogy devotes itself to a liberatory classroom space that works to recognize and read critically the social and material conditions out of which its work is produced, it might do well to consider these “ruins” Readings describes as the University in which the critical pedagogue’s writing classroom is situated.


um...now i just have to write the paper. i feel clueless as to how to even begin.


In other news...
I have a job interview at a community college on the 28th. My first interview. I'm nervous as hell, but trying to see it as simply gaining experience, as I'm not even "on the market" yet (officially). It's for a full-time tenure track position. I'd certainly be thrilled to get it, as I wouldn't have to leave the area, and therefore wouldn't have to leave my partner. The thought of a future long-distance relationship is simply scary to me, though I know there is a good chance we'll end up in that predicament. Ah...the life of an academic is simply so glamorous:)