As I work on the rewrite of my prospectus, I 1) see how many holes existed in the first draft and 2) struggle to close those holes. In my head, I can make sense of the movement from chapter one to chapter two, but on paper it doesn't connect. I thought maybe using a new medium, clean slate I could quickly move through the "steps":
Chapter 1: Will focus on the material conditions of compositionist labor in the contemporary corporate University.
Okay--so within that concept I want to include
--the "basement"/marginalized status of composition
--argue that we are not "exempt" from--or somehow outside of--what Ohmann describes as English Studies’ place within
“the long, historical crisis of capitalism”
--our marginalized status has caused a lot of focus on gaining disciplinary recognition (including making ourselves into or
out to be a "science")
--this focus on gaining status, recognition as a field, etc. has only served to be a distraction from our classrooms, our
students, and--as I intend to argue it--from the ways in which our potentially counterhegemonic position has been
subsumed by the popularity of cultural studies/critical pedagogy
I guess that, in part, this is where I get stuck. I am not sure whether I even believe that argument. I know that eventually I will argue that CS and crit. ped. have distracted us from the corporatization of the U. and that they haven't been as self-aware of their place within this corp. U as a "un-veiling"-type pedagogy should be, but I am not sure that our quest for disciplinary recognition has anything to do with CS and crit. ped. and their shortcomings within the writing classroom.
So it seems I have solved one problem, but created another. How to get from chapter one to chapter two???
Saturday, June 24, 2006
Monday, June 19, 2006
bike karma?
Today I biked to school, in the extreme heat. I haven't been on my bike that much this summer, and lately...well, my body hasn't exactly been my temple, so it kind of kicked my ass, but it also could have gone a little more smoothly: When I arrived on campus, my chain fell off. I thought I knew this neat trick to put it back on with a sturdy stick, so as to avoid getting completely grease covered. Well, there were no sticks sturdy enough, apparently. I arrived at the humanities building red-faced and grease-stained. After washing up, getting some coffee (!) and teaching, I made the ride back home, only to end up with a flat tire. I was in my own neighborhood at that point, but I had to walk back wearing my bike shoes. Quite frustrating--klomping noisily through the streets, sweating and wearing a much too tiny tank top (or so it suddenly felt). Also, this morning I was trying to open something and ended up stabbing myself with scissors.
Tonight I have a tennis match, but the heat seems to have sucked all my energy. Hopefully it will go well.
Tonight I have a tennis match, but the heat seems to have sucked all my energy. Hopefully it will go well.
Friday, June 16, 2006
my weekend to do list...or Friday afternoon compromise
clean car--thoroughly--inside and out- write letter for Rosemary
- write thank you cards for birthday presents--mom/d and grandma/Grandpa
weed garden...(well, enough for now...in this heat)- help mow the lawn?
laundrywork on prospectus revision and the creation of exam questions (this should REALLY be at the top of the list...)...minimally- create fiction revision assignment sheet
- finish
responding to student exercises
Oh yeah...all this, but I want to spend the rest of my Friday...doing...nothing! Okay, I'll head out for some caffeine and bring the student papers or a book with me. Compromise with self.
Added: Monday, June 19, 2006 2:18pm
But in addition to the things I did AND did NOT get done--I worked out (lifted) and cleaned the house and had a lovely (pizza) dinner w/ D on Burden Lake. And called my D, of course, for Father's Day.
Thursday, June 15, 2006
this week...
Organizational Skills Needed
I am--on the whole--a very organized person; however, I have approached my exams and dissertation project in the most haphazard and unorganized fashion. If only I had been a bit more careful and diligent. But no, my notes are all over the place: some are on the computer, others in notebooks; some are labeled, some aren't; some texts that I read only have marginal notes. It is all very confusing. I need to create a system to somehow organize this mess I've made for myself.
Laws of Physics
On Monday, D and I chaperoned her niece's field trip to The Great Escape. I really love rides and always have, but I've learned that at this age, I have to be careful not to overthink them too much. When I realize that I'm relying upon the laws of physics, I get a little freaked out. Maybe it's the English major in me--I'm sure the laws of physics are quite reliable, but when I was on that Bobsled ride, unattached to any kind of track...that REALLY freaked me out. I think it is something like centripetal force that is holding us on there. The entire time I had this intense visual of a picture from my high school science book of a car going around a sharp curve.
I am--on the whole--a very organized person; however, I have approached my exams and dissertation project in the most haphazard and unorganized fashion. If only I had been a bit more careful and diligent. But no, my notes are all over the place: some are on the computer, others in notebooks; some are labeled, some aren't; some texts that I read only have marginal notes. It is all very confusing. I need to create a system to somehow organize this mess I've made for myself.
Laws of Physics
On Monday, D and I chaperoned her niece's field trip to The Great Escape. I really love rides and always have, but I've learned that at this age, I have to be careful not to overthink them too much. When I realize that I'm relying upon the laws of physics, I get a little freaked out. Maybe it's the English major in me--I'm sure the laws of physics are quite reliable, but when I was on that Bobsled ride, unattached to any kind of track...that REALLY freaked me out. I think it is something like centripetal force that is holding us on there. The entire time I had this intense visual of a picture from my high school science book of a car going around a sharp curve.
Saturday, June 10, 2006
politics vs. economics--are they really that distinct?
I just finished reading Michele Barrett's The Politics of Truth: From Marx to Foucault. I found it to be a helpful mapping of ideology debates and a clear explanation of Foucault's critique of Marxism (or the ways in which Foucault would critique Marxism, if that is what he were directly setting about to do).
Still, I must remind myself to be careful with these types of "secondary" sources. Barrett has clearly aligned herself from the moment of her dedication: For Stuart and Catherine Hall, and so even while she summarizes, paraphrases, elucidates it is all for the sake of making an argument. I am easily seduced.
And yet, I AM seduced by post-structualist critiques of Marxism. They DO make sense to me, and yet by the end of the book I am still missing Barrett's alternative to class interest (as the point around which ideology coalesces). She argues that the point of class interest in Marx's concept of ideology is "simply inadequate, for all the reasons that have been brought forward in this book. Hence the concept of ideology that I would propose applies equally to processes of mystification that arise around other (non-class) social divisions and other forms of social power and domination" (167). I guess the thing that bothers me--granted I have NOT gone back through and reviewed the book...not yet--is that I am left guessing as to what these non-class social divisions and forms of power and domination are. I mean, I can GUESS what they are, but I don't like the fact that they aren't very explicitly named and explored. She alludes to gender...and maybe at some point race. I intend to go back through the book shortly, so who knows...maybe I'll take this back...but Foucault says it is okay...even expected...to do that, so what the heck....
Still, I must remind myself to be careful with these types of "secondary" sources. Barrett has clearly aligned herself from the moment of her dedication: For Stuart and Catherine Hall, and so even while she summarizes, paraphrases, elucidates it is all for the sake of making an argument. I am easily seduced.
And yet, I AM seduced by post-structualist critiques of Marxism. They DO make sense to me, and yet by the end of the book I am still missing Barrett's alternative to class interest (as the point around which ideology coalesces). She argues that the point of class interest in Marx's concept of ideology is "simply inadequate, for all the reasons that have been brought forward in this book. Hence the concept of ideology that I would propose applies equally to processes of mystification that arise around other (non-class) social divisions and other forms of social power and domination" (167). I guess the thing that bothers me--granted I have NOT gone back through and reviewed the book...not yet--is that I am left guessing as to what these non-class social divisions and forms of power and domination are. I mean, I can GUESS what they are, but I don't like the fact that they aren't very explicitly named and explored. She alludes to gender...and maybe at some point race. I intend to go back through the book shortly, so who knows...maybe I'll take this back...but Foucault says it is okay...even expected...to do that, so what the heck....
thinking through some ideology and curriculum Part I
Looking at Michael Apple’s Ideology and Curriculum.
How I’m using Apple in my project: To reiterate (the now, slightly old) argument that the school is an ISA (in Althusser’s words). In Apple’s words (paraphrasing Gramsci):
As Gramsci argued, the control of the knowledge preserving and producing sectors of a society is a critical factor in enhancing the ideological dominance of one group of people or one class over less powerful groups of people or classes. In this regard, the role of the school in selecting, preserving, and passing on conceptions of competence, ideological norms, and values (and often only certain social groups’ ‘knowledge’) – all of which are embedded within both the overt and hidden curricula in schools – is of no small moment. (57-58)
In other words, schools reproduce the economic and social stratification in society. Apples encourages us to question whose interests are served through school curriculum and makes the, by now, generally accepted argument that classrooms are not insulated from the outside world and education is inherently political. Apple goes on to point out that schools have a history and a relationship to “other powerful institutions in ways that are both hidden and complex” (62). The “knowledge that got into schools in the past and gets into schools now is not random. It is selected and organized around sets of principles and values that come from somewhere, that represent particular views of normality and deviance…” (63). While Readings sees Universities as ideologically empty, he does propose that we question “the disciplinary form that can be given to knowledges” (177). And the question should be “what it means to group knowledges in certain ways, and what it has meant that they have been so grouped in the past” (177). Readings’ argument through here is complex and compelling, and I see it possibly intersecting with Apple in interesting ways—pointing to both their similarities and dissimilarities.
Readings suggests a certain “rhythm of disciplinary attachment and detachment” that ultimately requires disciplinary structures (and therefore, in my mind, the grouping of knowledges) to “imagine what kinds of thinking they make possible, and what kinds of thinking they exclude” (176). In this way Readings seems to carry on a version of Apple’s thinking that the formal and informal knowledge that is taught in schools “need to be looked at connectedly…. For these everyday school practices are linked to economic, social, and ideological structures outside of the school buildings” (65). It is here that I see Readings doing something “new” and something critical pedagogy and cultural studies should take into consideration. Much of critical pedagogy seems to work from this idea that Apple (among many others) puts forth and espouses an “unveiling” of this link between education and the “economic, social, and ideological structures outside of the school buildings.” But the point Readings makes is that these forces are not outside the University—the corporatization is the current structure of the University. It is within. It has infiltrated. So the difference lies in seeing school as a part of the socio-economic structures, one that reproduces these structures and seeing it as the site of the economic itself, the site of corporatization both in the way it is beholden to corporate interests and in the way it is becoming (or has become) a University in its own rite. So while Apple focuses on school as the site of producing workers for industrialized society, Readings can look at both that and the way the University is producing consumers.
How I’m using Apple in my project: To reiterate (the now, slightly old) argument that the school is an ISA (in Althusser’s words). In Apple’s words (paraphrasing Gramsci):
As Gramsci argued, the control of the knowledge preserving and producing sectors of a society is a critical factor in enhancing the ideological dominance of one group of people or one class over less powerful groups of people or classes. In this regard, the role of the school in selecting, preserving, and passing on conceptions of competence, ideological norms, and values (and often only certain social groups’ ‘knowledge’) – all of which are embedded within both the overt and hidden curricula in schools – is of no small moment. (57-58)
In other words, schools reproduce the economic and social stratification in society. Apples encourages us to question whose interests are served through school curriculum and makes the, by now, generally accepted argument that classrooms are not insulated from the outside world and education is inherently political. Apple goes on to point out that schools have a history and a relationship to “other powerful institutions in ways that are both hidden and complex” (62). The “knowledge that got into schools in the past and gets into schools now is not random. It is selected and organized around sets of principles and values that come from somewhere, that represent particular views of normality and deviance…” (63). While Readings sees Universities as ideologically empty, he does propose that we question “the disciplinary form that can be given to knowledges” (177). And the question should be “what it means to group knowledges in certain ways, and what it has meant that they have been so grouped in the past” (177). Readings’ argument through here is complex and compelling, and I see it possibly intersecting with Apple in interesting ways—pointing to both their similarities and dissimilarities.
Readings suggests a certain “rhythm of disciplinary attachment and detachment” that ultimately requires disciplinary structures (and therefore, in my mind, the grouping of knowledges) to “imagine what kinds of thinking they make possible, and what kinds of thinking they exclude” (176). In this way Readings seems to carry on a version of Apple’s thinking that the formal and informal knowledge that is taught in schools “need to be looked at connectedly…. For these everyday school practices are linked to economic, social, and ideological structures outside of the school buildings” (65). It is here that I see Readings doing something “new” and something critical pedagogy and cultural studies should take into consideration. Much of critical pedagogy seems to work from this idea that Apple (among many others) puts forth and espouses an “unveiling” of this link between education and the “economic, social, and ideological structures outside of the school buildings.” But the point Readings makes is that these forces are not outside the University—the corporatization is the current structure of the University. It is within. It has infiltrated. So the difference lies in seeing school as a part of the socio-economic structures, one that reproduces these structures and seeing it as the site of the economic itself, the site of corporatization both in the way it is beholden to corporate interests and in the way it is becoming (or has become) a University in its own rite. So while Apple focuses on school as the site of producing workers for industrialized society, Readings can look at both that and the way the University is producing consumers.
Thursday, June 08, 2006
yesterday's very obvious, not terribly insightful thought
Just a thought—probably nothing new—probably not my own, but in ruling out expressivism, we seem to be perpetuating the creative/expository (or academic, essay, etc.) writing split.
---
I thought this yesterday. And it mostly seemed worth noting because of the way it sits, uneasily, with me. I'm sensing a potential expressivist revival, and I need to explore my own discomfort with this. This comes after reading this yesterday.
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I thought this yesterday. And it mostly seemed worth noting because of the way it sits, uneasily, with me. I'm sensing a potential expressivist revival, and I need to explore my own discomfort with this. This comes after reading this yesterday.
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
it's summer, but what does that mean?
I still have not gotten into the rhythm of summer. I've never taught first summer session before, and it is further throwing me off. I feel like I never got my break. I had a week. I spent it in Asheville, sick.
I obsess about having a desk chair where I can sit half-lotus while still comfortably accessing my computer. In fact, I am doing that now...except for maye the comfortably part. And this has little to do with my lack of rhythm, but it is something I often think about when blogging. When I picture myself at my computer, I see myself half-lotus, with a cup of tea by my side. I'm doing this now, but leg just got sleepy/pins 'n needles, so I had to drop it down.
I've been reading "for fun." I feel like it is summer, and that is what people--even academics--do when summer comes. While I traveled, I read two pieces of lesbian fiction: Ann Wadsworth's light, coming back and Michelle Tea's Rose of No Man's Land. I escaped into them wholeheartedly. And was as delighted by Tea's book as I was melancholy over Wadsworth's book. For the flight home I treated myself to a copy of Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves. I've been wanting to delve into this text since Dave introduced me to it, as he's working with it as part of his dissertation. I'm relishing it.
But now I'm not on a plane, and I'm wanting...no NEEDING...to take exams in August, and yet all I want to do is read about this house. All I want to do is read about this house and watch TV and hang out and do nothing. I don't even feel like working out, riding my bike or playing tennis. It's appalling. It's so unlike me. And it's freaking me out.
Oh...at least I've accomplished this:
The garden is in. And I loved every minute of it.
And all I want to do is blog without structure and without academia.
And all I want to do is go house-hunting on the internet. Go to open houses. Dream about what is out of our/my reach.
And eat ice cream.
Sounds like summer.... I guess.
I obsess about having a desk chair where I can sit half-lotus while still comfortably accessing my computer. In fact, I am doing that now...except for maye the comfortably part. And this has little to do with my lack of rhythm, but it is something I often think about when blogging. When I picture myself at my computer, I see myself half-lotus, with a cup of tea by my side. I'm doing this now, but leg just got sleepy/pins 'n needles, so I had to drop it down.
I've been reading "for fun." I feel like it is summer, and that is what people--even academics--do when summer comes. While I traveled, I read two pieces of lesbian fiction: Ann Wadsworth's light, coming back and Michelle Tea's Rose of No Man's Land. I escaped into them wholeheartedly. And was as delighted by Tea's book as I was melancholy over Wadsworth's book. For the flight home I treated myself to a copy of Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves. I've been wanting to delve into this text since Dave introduced me to it, as he's working with it as part of his dissertation. I'm relishing it.
But now I'm not on a plane, and I'm wanting...no NEEDING...to take exams in August, and yet all I want to do is read about this house. All I want to do is read about this house and watch TV and hang out and do nothing. I don't even feel like working out, riding my bike or playing tennis. It's appalling. It's so unlike me. And it's freaking me out.
Oh...at least I've accomplished this:
The garden is in. And I loved every minute of it.
And all I want to do is blog without structure and without academia.
And all I want to do is go house-hunting on the internet. Go to open houses. Dream about what is out of our/my reach.
And eat ice cream.
Sounds like summer.... I guess.
Sunday, June 04, 2006
my trip to Asheville
I recently returned from a trip to Asheville, NC. My friend gave birth to baby girl, Ruby, and I went to assist during her partner's first week back to work. There were many complications. My friend nearly died from complications following a C-section birth. Initially she had a midwife and planned a drug-free, water birth, but because of the baby being posterior this just didn't work out. After twelve days spent in the hospital, with some of that time spent in a coma, my friend needed much more help than we'd originally thought. Problem was--I ended up being very sick for two weeks and couldn't go near the baby. So my trip to Asheville looked like this:
--Thought head would explode on airplane.
--Made some food, did some dishes, did some laundry, cleaned some floors, read aloud.
--Went downtown one day, bought some books, ate a portobello mushroom sandwich and drank a smoothie.
--Went to an interesting cafe called Outspoken. Saw some lesbians. Got very nervous. Worked on my teaching philosophy.
--Drank a beer at a nearby pub. Thought it made me feel better. Played a game of pool.
--Cried over the intensity of love between my friend and her partner. Cooed over the baby that I couldn't really help with. They are a beautiful family, and they look like this:
--Thought head would explode on airplane.
--Made some food, did some dishes, did some laundry, cleaned some floors, read aloud.
--Went downtown one day, bought some books, ate a portobello mushroom sandwich and drank a smoothie.
--Went to an interesting cafe called Outspoken. Saw some lesbians. Got very nervous. Worked on my teaching philosophy.
--Drank a beer at a nearby pub. Thought it made me feel better. Played a game of pool.
--Cried over the intensity of love between my friend and her partner. Cooed over the baby that I couldn't really help with. They are a beautiful family, and they look like this:
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
getting nowhere...slowly
Though the end is in sight--grades are due by Friday, and I'm down to two stacks of final papers--I don't see how I am possibly going to have a revised version of my exam prospectus into my committee. I'm stuck on "ideology." I thought that maybe starting to write through my problem here might help, though I'm not entirely hopeful (many long walks have not solved it).
If I'm using Bill Readings and his concept of the "bureaucratic University of Excellence" as my framework and lens through which to read and critique cultural studies and critical pedagogy within composition/writing classroom, and Readings argues that "excellence" is non-ideological, as it has no content: "It has not external referent or internal content" (23). So, according to Readings, the University of Excellence is a non-ideological space, but I disagree. This is where I'm stuck. While I believe Readings can provide a powerful framework for my particular critique of CS and CP, how do I address a University of Excellence that is in my mind ideological??? Readings idea is based on the notion that corporations are non-ideological. I'm not sure I understand this entirely.
Excellence has no content. It is the thing we all agree upon without knowing what it is. It is not a criterion. It is empty. So it is actually the discourse of "excellence" that is empty? The use of the word is meaningless, but the representation is the University of Excellence, which seems to have content. Corporatized content.
I'm getting nowhere.... Try back later.
If I'm using Bill Readings and his concept of the "bureaucratic University of Excellence" as my framework and lens through which to read and critique cultural studies and critical pedagogy within composition/writing classroom, and Readings argues that "excellence" is non-ideological, as it has no content: "It has not external referent or internal content" (23). So, according to Readings, the University of Excellence is a non-ideological space, but I disagree. This is where I'm stuck. While I believe Readings can provide a powerful framework for my particular critique of CS and CP, how do I address a University of Excellence that is in my mind ideological??? Readings idea is based on the notion that corporations are non-ideological. I'm not sure I understand this entirely.
Excellence has no content. It is the thing we all agree upon without knowing what it is. It is not a criterion. It is empty. So it is actually the discourse of "excellence" that is empty? The use of the word is meaningless, but the representation is the University of Excellence, which seems to have content. Corporatized content.
I'm getting nowhere.... Try back later.
Sunday, May 14, 2006
movie break
According to this blog it would seem I take more breaks than I spend time doing work. That is the thin slice of life that is blogging though.
Dawn and I went to see Friends with Money. It was alright. Definitely a wait-for-the-DVD-and-rent-it type of film. But for me it was kind of nice to be reminded of how great my life really it. I mean, the film had no plot, was completely dialogue driven, which I often like. And, in this case, the dialoge was real. And it was nice to go sit for an hour and a half and listen to everyone else's problems. I thought the movie was a bit heavy-handed in terms of its portrayal of male/female (supposed)differences. But again, sometimes it is just about escaping into the conversations of people whose lives are way more f-ed up than mine.
Okay, avoiding grading, for a bit. Must get to it. Friday looms large.
Dawn and I went to see Friends with Money. It was alright. Definitely a wait-for-the-DVD-and-rent-it type of film. But for me it was kind of nice to be reminded of how great my life really it. I mean, the film had no plot, was completely dialogue driven, which I often like. And, in this case, the dialoge was real. And it was nice to go sit for an hour and a half and listen to everyone else's problems. I thought the movie was a bit heavy-handed in terms of its portrayal of male/female (supposed)differences. But again, sometimes it is just about escaping into the conversations of people whose lives are way more f-ed up than mine.
Okay, avoiding grading, for a bit. Must get to it. Friday looms large.
Thursday, May 11, 2006
grading break
What makes the best break from grading stacks and stacks of papers? I am sure I must ask this question each semester.
Check email and sign a petition against the tracking of phone calls by the NSA.
Have a horribly terrifying experience where a big, scary looking spider is crawling on my mouse just as I'm about to put my hand on it. Have to figure out a way to catch spider; work through my fear so I don't just slam a book down on it; bring the spider outdoors--heart racing and feet moving fast.
Blog, "play" on the computer, but this ususally does not end up feeling like a break, and then I end up needing another break...
Talking on the phone.
Doing dishes, laundry, picking up little household messes, but this is always a HUGE risk. That risk being an entire house cleaning that could take hours...days even.
Walking around, stretching.
Meditating.
TV, but this is never a quickie. I get sucked, zoned, seduced, all of it.
Upload photos to flickr....
read the latest College English
Tonight I'm going to an WNBA game:
Phoenix @ Detroit Preseason
Pepsi Arena - Albany, NY
That should be a fun break.
My legs are still weak from the spider....
Tonight I'm going to an WNBA game:
Phoenix @ Detroit Preseason
Pepsi Arena - Albany, NY
That should be a fun break.
My legs are still weak from the spider....
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
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:)
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:)
Sunday, April 09, 2006
if things weren't bad enough...
So I am going through this really rough patch in my life. *Really rough*
So this morning--on the verge of tears and little sleep--I go to the Dunkin' Donuts to get a coffee and a bagel to force feed myself, as I have a tennis match at noon and need some sustenance but really do NOT feel like eating. As usual it is a mob scene. I'm trying to turn left off of Lark Street and into the parking lot. I let two cars out and then decide it should be my turn to pull in. I get about a quarter of D's car pulled into the opening of the lot (with the other 3/4 hanging out into Lark St.), and this guy in an enormous red truck (I know NOTHING about cars) pulls through the parking lot and cuts me off, blocks my way, and nearly hits the front end of Ds car (if I thought things were bad now...). So I say, "What the f--k? Did you not see me here? F--ker." And then neatly flip him off. As I pull into the parking spot, I see him back up in his big ole red truck...and I'm like uh-oh. When emerge from the car, he says, "Why do you have to go flipping people the bird?" I can't remember what my answer was. He then goes on to explain that it was a big cluster in the parking lot and he was simply trying to "do the right thing" and get out of the way (only--I did not add--he moved directly into MY way). Then he says, "It's Sunday." And for a moment I feel horrible. He's right. I was not raised to flip people off on Sundays. But then I thought, well if it was Thursday would that really be better? I mean, come on, buddy. So then he tells me that he wasn't even getting coffee, and there I go flipping him the bird. And I'm wondering WHY is he in the flipping Dunkin' Donuts' parking lot that is a huge cluster f--k on a Sunday morning, if he doesn't need coffee!?!? THEN he informs me that he's a minister and I just flipped him off on a Sunday. So, I say, "I'm sorry." Then I say, "I guess I'm going to straight to hell now." Then he tells me I just need to calm down. Just calm down he says. I think he is trying to say go in peace and don't be mean to people. I tell him that if he had my life, he would not be calm. Then, I just say, "Sorry." And leave.
But the whole episode is following me around. I have this strange compulsion to drive around town and look for his truck, and ask him a bunch of questions and fight with him some more. Because I *always* have to be right. And that problem is what got my life in such a mess, so I shouldn't drive around town looking for that "minister." But, if he's a minister, why did he have orange cones in the back of his truck? And, just because he's minister, does he get the special privilege of not getting flipped off when he cuts someone off? And, why, am I spending my time wondering these things???
So this morning--on the verge of tears and little sleep--I go to the Dunkin' Donuts to get a coffee and a bagel to force feed myself, as I have a tennis match at noon and need some sustenance but really do NOT feel like eating. As usual it is a mob scene. I'm trying to turn left off of Lark Street and into the parking lot. I let two cars out and then decide it should be my turn to pull in. I get about a quarter of D's car pulled into the opening of the lot (with the other 3/4 hanging out into Lark St.), and this guy in an enormous red truck (I know NOTHING about cars) pulls through the parking lot and cuts me off, blocks my way, and nearly hits the front end of Ds car (if I thought things were bad now...). So I say, "What the f--k? Did you not see me here? F--ker." And then neatly flip him off. As I pull into the parking spot, I see him back up in his big ole red truck...and I'm like uh-oh. When emerge from the car, he says, "Why do you have to go flipping people the bird?" I can't remember what my answer was. He then goes on to explain that it was a big cluster in the parking lot and he was simply trying to "do the right thing" and get out of the way (only--I did not add--he moved directly into MY way). Then he says, "It's Sunday." And for a moment I feel horrible. He's right. I was not raised to flip people off on Sundays. But then I thought, well if it was Thursday would that really be better? I mean, come on, buddy. So then he tells me that he wasn't even getting coffee, and there I go flipping him the bird. And I'm wondering WHY is he in the flipping Dunkin' Donuts' parking lot that is a huge cluster f--k on a Sunday morning, if he doesn't need coffee!?!? THEN he informs me that he's a minister and I just flipped him off on a Sunday. So, I say, "I'm sorry." Then I say, "I guess I'm going to straight to hell now." Then he tells me I just need to calm down. Just calm down he says. I think he is trying to say go in peace and don't be mean to people. I tell him that if he had my life, he would not be calm. Then, I just say, "Sorry." And leave.
But the whole episode is following me around. I have this strange compulsion to drive around town and look for his truck, and ask him a bunch of questions and fight with him some more. Because I *always* have to be right. And that problem is what got my life in such a mess, so I shouldn't drive around town looking for that "minister." But, if he's a minister, why did he have orange cones in the back of his truck? And, just because he's minister, does he get the special privilege of not getting flipped off when he cuts someone off? And, why, am I spending my time wondering these things???
Friday, April 07, 2006
getting on a blogging-roll?
What?? I cannot have had this blog since 2004. It's embarrassing. What little and ill use I've made of it. But I'm scared of commitment. So to sit here and say I'm going to start blogging voraciously and with great consistency is an impossibility.
Goals for "Spring" Break:
1. Write my paper for the UAlbany Graduate Student Conference
2. Grade three stacks of papers.
3. Revise my prospectus.
4. Take care of my summer textbook order.
Can this really be my life???
Goals for "Spring" Break:
1. Write my paper for the UAlbany Graduate Student Conference
2. Grade three stacks of papers.
3. Revise my prospectus.
4. Take care of my summer textbook order.
Can this really be my life???
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
the political as expressivism
It is interesting that on the day I left Laura’s office reconsidering the use of personal writing (in the classroom) as political, I opened up the latest College English to find Timothy Barnett’s article ” “Politicizing the Personal: Frederick Douglass, Richard Wright, and Some Thoughts on the Limits of Critical Literacy”. Although I must admit that it did not renew my hope in personal writing in the way I was hoping for. It is funny because I keep thinking to write “expressivism” in all the places where I’ve written personal writing. And it’s funny that Barnett rarely, if ever, uses the word expressivism in his piece. Instead he equates personal writing (as political) with the tenets of critical pedagogy. I don’t understand this as one of the goals of critical pedagogy per se.
He begins the article: “The idea that ‘the personal is political’ is both a commonplace in composition studies and something we have not yet fully theorized” (356). I am all for fully—or even partially--theorizing the idea of personal/political writing in composition, but I don’t see Barnett as having achieved this goal by the end of this essay. Instead, it seems to be a standard, overused defense of personal writing as valuable in a political way. Granted, he does suggest that both critiques of and arguments for the personal seem to miss “the deep links between personal writing and social critique” (356). And he acknowledges the critique of the personal as being too focused on the individual. Barnett responds to these arguments by saying they undermine “some basic tenets of critical pedagogy” (356). And then writes, “From the viewpoint of critical pedagogy then, personal writing can help students understand personal lives as linked to and reflective of social and political norms.” He accuses critical pedagogues as not fully exploring “a critical pedagogy tied to personal experience.” I guess that this then accounts for my confusion over whether or not this is part of a critical pedagogy, but to me it seems as though Barnett is forcing critical pedagogy to merge with expressivism in order to create an argument in favor of expressivism that somehow fits into “today’s” composition theory after a number of years of critique of expressivism.
Barnett does seem to make a critical pedagogy “move” when he compares/equates his students to Richard Wright and Frederick Douglass (instead of Brazilian peasants—let’s say).
The center of Barnett’s argument is that we need to understand the personal “as necessarily linked to the political” (357), and I tend to agree that it is. But, in my mind, the goal of critical pedagogy would be to have students make that move—that connection to the political within or maybe in response to (analysis of) their own/personal writing. With Barnett’s student, “Heather,” we never see this move. It begins and ends on “Heather” in a seeming celebration of the therapeutic effects of writing, which only further fuels the critiques of the personal as focused on the individual with a romanticized notion of individuality/subjectivity—the autonomous subject. I get that all of Heather’s writing, as a part of Heather herself, is socially constructed. But without the “unveiling” of that construction, I’m not sure I see how this fits into the framework of critical pedagogy.
I am left thinking that maybe Barnett is right—maybe critical pedagogues haven’t given enough thought to personal writing—but maybe that isn’t their goal.
He begins the article: “The idea that ‘the personal is political’ is both a commonplace in composition studies and something we have not yet fully theorized” (356). I am all for fully—or even partially--theorizing the idea of personal/political writing in composition, but I don’t see Barnett as having achieved this goal by the end of this essay. Instead, it seems to be a standard, overused defense of personal writing as valuable in a political way. Granted, he does suggest that both critiques of and arguments for the personal seem to miss “the deep links between personal writing and social critique” (356). And he acknowledges the critique of the personal as being too focused on the individual. Barnett responds to these arguments by saying they undermine “some basic tenets of critical pedagogy” (356). And then writes, “From the viewpoint of critical pedagogy then, personal writing can help students understand personal lives as linked to and reflective of social and political norms.” He accuses critical pedagogues as not fully exploring “a critical pedagogy tied to personal experience.” I guess that this then accounts for my confusion over whether or not this is part of a critical pedagogy, but to me it seems as though Barnett is forcing critical pedagogy to merge with expressivism in order to create an argument in favor of expressivism that somehow fits into “today’s” composition theory after a number of years of critique of expressivism.
Barnett does seem to make a critical pedagogy “move” when he compares/equates his students to Richard Wright and Frederick Douglass (instead of Brazilian peasants—let’s say).
The center of Barnett’s argument is that we need to understand the personal “as necessarily linked to the political” (357), and I tend to agree that it is. But, in my mind, the goal of critical pedagogy would be to have students make that move—that connection to the political within or maybe in response to (analysis of) their own/personal writing. With Barnett’s student, “Heather,” we never see this move. It begins and ends on “Heather” in a seeming celebration of the therapeutic effects of writing, which only further fuels the critiques of the personal as focused on the individual with a romanticized notion of individuality/subjectivity—the autonomous subject. I get that all of Heather’s writing, as a part of Heather herself, is socially constructed. But without the “unveiling” of that construction, I’m not sure I see how this fits into the framework of critical pedagogy.
I am left thinking that maybe Barnett is right—maybe critical pedagogues haven’t given enough thought to personal writing—but maybe that isn’t their goal.
Thursday, March 23, 2006
Readings' critique of critical pedagogy
Although Readings only mentions critical pedagogy once in the entirety of University in Ruins, I believe his various critiques of what he describes as “the scene of teaching” can be applied to critical pedagogy and much of rhet/comp pedagogy as well. So while Readings doesn’t offer up the following critique in direct reference to critical pedagogy, I am using his arguments as my “lens.”
Readings’ critique of critical pedagogy, though brief, shares similarities with other charges lodged against this particular classroom method—that critical pedagogy is simply a replacement of the professor with the student—an “inversion of the hierarchy so that the students embody the real University” (163). But while the argument may seem redundant, the how and why of how he got to this critique is important, and it is especially important for (the future of) critical pedagogy to take into account.
Readings is of course addressing a specifically bureaucratic university—one he deems as a potentially transnational corporation. He is residing in this “ruined” university as he searches for a “resistance to the discourse of excellence,” and he finds this potential for resistance “in the scene of teaching” (150). As critical pedagogy and much of composition theory dedicate themselves to this scene he describes, I find it especially important that we take into account his arguments. He goes on to argue that this potential can be realized through the decentering of teaching: “By the decentering of the pedagogic situation I mean to insist that teaching is not best understood from the point of view of a sovereign subject that takes itself to be the sole guarantor of the meaning of that process…” (153). Based on this definition, it would seem that critical pedagogy would have this decentering potential—that it is in fact based on this potential (the decentering of teacher as authority), but Readings doesn’t stop there: “Neither the administrator taking the system in hand, nor the professor taking the student in hand, nor the student taking him- or herself in hand will do the trick” (emphasis mine 153). With much of critical pedagogy devoted to the idea of students taking themselves in hand, it would seem, that if we buy Readings’ arguments, critical pedagogy can be problematic and not entirely effective when it comes to resisting “the discourse of excellence.” So that pedagogy is not about creating a resisting or “oppositional subject;” but rather it is about thinking “beside each other and beside ourselves, is to explore an open network of obligations that keeps the question of meaning open as locus of debate” (165).
Readings addresses three pedagogic pitfalls—the second of which can to attributed to critical pedagogy: “the demagogic mode”—“the students’ autonomy is assumed as an a priori given, is asserted from the beginning as the unrecognized condition of possibility of education. Students have the autonomy to decide what it is they know, what it is they should or should not learn…” (157). So while the movement away from expressivism within rhet/comp has often been based on the critique of expressivism’s promotion of the autonomous self, I argue that the self-reproduction of that autonomy is problematically ever present within critical pedagogy as well. This privileging of the autonomous self did not meet its end with the movements away from expressivism; the 1980s social turn in composition also allowed/s for this belief in self-autonomy.
“In place of the lure of autonomy…I want to insist that pedagogy is a relation, a network of obligation…” (Readings 158); so while critical pedagogy seeks potential liberation and freedom from the exploitative structures of society, Readings puts pressure on the necessity of obligation within a specifically bureaucratic University. He sees this freedom/liberation—the myth of the truth setting us free—as a freedom from responsibility to each other. The next step that Readings tackles is to situate this responsibility and network obligations not in a community of consensus, but one of dissensus. In other words, in a community that avoids appeals to nostalgia and a romanticized version of community—“where thinking is a shared process without identity or unity”(192). Certainly this seems to be another idea relevant to composition pedagogy in its own appeals to classroom community through workshop groups, collaborative projects, and peer review. I believe that various composition pedagogies/theories can make better use of Readings’ argument for “dialogism rather than dialogue” (192). In what ways does critical pedagogy in its constant working out of teacher/student relationship with an eye toward egalitarianism turn a blind eye toward the possible use of difference and dissensus? How can we “think beside each other” without simply inverting the classroom hierarchy (teacher/student to student/teacher) as critical pedagogy might be prone to do?
Readings’ critique of critical pedagogy, though brief, shares similarities with other charges lodged against this particular classroom method—that critical pedagogy is simply a replacement of the professor with the student—an “inversion of the hierarchy so that the students embody the real University” (163). But while the argument may seem redundant, the how and why of how he got to this critique is important, and it is especially important for (the future of) critical pedagogy to take into account.
Readings is of course addressing a specifically bureaucratic university—one he deems as a potentially transnational corporation. He is residing in this “ruined” university as he searches for a “resistance to the discourse of excellence,” and he finds this potential for resistance “in the scene of teaching” (150). As critical pedagogy and much of composition theory dedicate themselves to this scene he describes, I find it especially important that we take into account his arguments. He goes on to argue that this potential can be realized through the decentering of teaching: “By the decentering of the pedagogic situation I mean to insist that teaching is not best understood from the point of view of a sovereign subject that takes itself to be the sole guarantor of the meaning of that process…” (153). Based on this definition, it would seem that critical pedagogy would have this decentering potential—that it is in fact based on this potential (the decentering of teacher as authority), but Readings doesn’t stop there: “Neither the administrator taking the system in hand, nor the professor taking the student in hand, nor the student taking him- or herself in hand will do the trick” (emphasis mine 153). With much of critical pedagogy devoted to the idea of students taking themselves in hand, it would seem, that if we buy Readings’ arguments, critical pedagogy can be problematic and not entirely effective when it comes to resisting “the discourse of excellence.” So that pedagogy is not about creating a resisting or “oppositional subject;” but rather it is about thinking “beside each other and beside ourselves, is to explore an open network of obligations that keeps the question of meaning open as locus of debate” (165).
Readings addresses three pedagogic pitfalls—the second of which can to attributed to critical pedagogy: “the demagogic mode”—“the students’ autonomy is assumed as an a priori given, is asserted from the beginning as the unrecognized condition of possibility of education. Students have the autonomy to decide what it is they know, what it is they should or should not learn…” (157). So while the movement away from expressivism within rhet/comp has often been based on the critique of expressivism’s promotion of the autonomous self, I argue that the self-reproduction of that autonomy is problematically ever present within critical pedagogy as well. This privileging of the autonomous self did not meet its end with the movements away from expressivism; the 1980s social turn in composition also allowed/s for this belief in self-autonomy.
“In place of the lure of autonomy…I want to insist that pedagogy is a relation, a network of obligation…” (Readings 158); so while critical pedagogy seeks potential liberation and freedom from the exploitative structures of society, Readings puts pressure on the necessity of obligation within a specifically bureaucratic University. He sees this freedom/liberation—the myth of the truth setting us free—as a freedom from responsibility to each other. The next step that Readings tackles is to situate this responsibility and network obligations not in a community of consensus, but one of dissensus. In other words, in a community that avoids appeals to nostalgia and a romanticized version of community—“where thinking is a shared process without identity or unity”(192). Certainly this seems to be another idea relevant to composition pedagogy in its own appeals to classroom community through workshop groups, collaborative projects, and peer review. I believe that various composition pedagogies/theories can make better use of Readings’ argument for “dialogism rather than dialogue” (192). In what ways does critical pedagogy in its constant working out of teacher/student relationship with an eye toward egalitarianism turn a blind eye toward the possible use of difference and dissensus? How can we “think beside each other” without simply inverting the classroom hierarchy (teacher/student to student/teacher) as critical pedagogy might be prone to do?
Thursday, February 16, 2006
CFP: "Changing the Subject: Poeisis, Praxis, and Theoria in the Humanities"
> Call for Panels and Papers: Deadline 3/1/06
>
> The English Graduate Student Organization (EGSO) of the University
> at Albany, SUNY announces its annual graduate student conference
> Saturday April 22 and Sunday 23, 2006:
>
> Changing the Subject: Poeisis, Praxis, and Theoria in the Humanities
>
> Robert Scholes is the Keynote Speaker, presenting a paper titled
> "Changing the Subject: Periodical Studies"
>
> Call for Papers and Panels: Praxis
> The Praxis and Pedagogy division of UAlbany’s Graduate Conference
> invites proposals for papers and panels that consider the
> intersections of theory and practice in our pedagogical approaches and
> in our roles as intellectuals.
>
> Karl Marx defined PRAXIS as "revolutionary, critical-practical
> activity," asserting, "The philosophers have only interpreted the
> world…the point is to change it." A substantial line of
> thought—including Freire, Giroux, hooks—has argued that teaching is an
> act and the classroom a space where social change can take place
> through a politics of resistance and social critique. The word has
> become so affiliated with the teaching profession that the national
> system of standardized tests for individuals becoming school teachers
> is called PRAXIS.
>
> Why is pedagogy almost exclusively linked with the field of rhetoric
> and composition? Why is pedagogy, and therefore the field of rhetoric
> and composition, so commonly affiliated with the concept of PRAXIS?
> What other forms of PRAXIS are alive and well in and around the
> academy? Is the classroom still, or perhaps more than ever, a site for
> "revolutionary, critical-practical activity?" As one of the few
> locales where strangers gather together regularly, is it necessary to
> rethink the classroom in terms of presence and embodiment, as a place
> where the "public" comes "inside" the university? What is the
> reciprocal, then, of the teacher leaving the university? How does she
> find or shape her public there?
>
> We welcome panels as well as individual papers/presentations. Topics
> can include:
> the status and role(s) of the public intellectual
> the division between the teaching of reading literature and writing
> development of an academic discourse quite separate from "everyday"
> writing and speech
> forms of action valued and/or overlooked in the academy
> curriculum and course design as practice
> classroom as a public space
> effects of corporatization on pedagogical practices
> effects of theory on the teaching of literature
> status of speech in the classroom
> online classes and universities
> theory out of practice
> effects of the poststructural turn toward writing/language on
> concepts of public speaking and teaching
> exploration of institutionalized boundaries between
> artist/academic/activist
> Please submit a 250-400 word proposal for papers and/panels by
> March 1, 2006 to Jennifer Marlow and Tara Needham at
> egsoalbany@yahoo.com.
> For more information visit:
> http://www.albany.edu/english/grad_conference_06/
>
>
> The English Graduate Student Organization (EGSO) of the University
> at Albany, SUNY announces its annual graduate student conference
> Saturday April 22 and Sunday 23, 2006:
>
> Changing the Subject: Poeisis, Praxis, and Theoria in the Humanities
>
> Robert Scholes is the Keynote Speaker, presenting a paper titled
> "Changing the Subject: Periodical Studies"
>
> Call for Papers and Panels: Praxis
> The Praxis and Pedagogy division of UAlbany’s Graduate Conference
> invites proposals for papers and panels that consider the
> intersections of theory and practice in our pedagogical approaches and
> in our roles as intellectuals.
>
> Karl Marx defined PRAXIS as "revolutionary, critical-practical
> activity," asserting, "The philosophers have only interpreted the
> world…the point is to change it." A substantial line of
> thought—including Freire, Giroux, hooks—has argued that teaching is an
> act and the classroom a space where social change can take place
> through a politics of resistance and social critique. The word has
> become so affiliated with the teaching profession that the national
> system of standardized tests for individuals becoming school teachers
> is called PRAXIS.
>
> Why is pedagogy almost exclusively linked with the field of rhetoric
> and composition? Why is pedagogy, and therefore the field of rhetoric
> and composition, so commonly affiliated with the concept of PRAXIS?
> What other forms of PRAXIS are alive and well in and around the
> academy? Is the classroom still, or perhaps more than ever, a site for
> "revolutionary, critical-practical activity?" As one of the few
> locales where strangers gather together regularly, is it necessary to
> rethink the classroom in terms of presence and embodiment, as a place
> where the "public" comes "inside" the university? What is the
> reciprocal, then, of the teacher leaving the university? How does she
> find or shape her public there?
>
> We welcome panels as well as individual papers/presentations. Topics
> can include:
> the status and role(s) of the public intellectual
> the division between the teaching of reading literature and writing
> development of an academic discourse quite separate from "everyday"
> writing and speech
> forms of action valued and/or overlooked in the academy
> curriculum and course design as practice
> classroom as a public space
> effects of corporatization on pedagogical practices
> effects of theory on the teaching of literature
> status of speech in the classroom
> online classes and universities
> theory out of practice
> effects of the poststructural turn toward writing/language on
> concepts of public speaking and teaching
> exploration of institutionalized boundaries between
> artist/academic/activist
> Please submit a 250-400 word proposal for papers and/panels by
> March 1, 2006 to Jennifer Marlow and Tara Needham at
> egsoalbany@yahoo.com.
> For more information visit:
> http://www.albany.edu/english/grad_conference_06/
>
Saturday, October 22, 2005
Sidonie Smith lecture
On Thursday night I attended a Sidonie Smith lecture at the College of St. Rose. She called the presentation, "Victims, Perpetrators, Beneficiaries: Storytelling Stances in Human Rights Campaigns." Throughout the lecture she constantly complicated the proximity of (and roles of) victim, perpetrator, and beneficiary. She used three South African "narratives" as examples: the Winnie Mandela trials, A Human Being Died that Night, and Country of my Skull by Antjie Krog.
During the Q&A the conversation turned to prison narratives. John Edgar Wideman's introduction to Mumia Abu Jamal's Live from Death Row was discussed because it addresses the idea of prison narratives so often becoming neo-slave narratives. Wideman attributes both Abu Jamal's success, as well the the controversey and fear surrounding him, to the fact that his writing doesn't do this.
During the Q&A the conversation turned to prison narratives. John Edgar Wideman's introduction to Mumia Abu Jamal's Live from Death Row was discussed because it addresses the idea of prison narratives so often becoming neo-slave narratives. Wideman attributes both Abu Jamal's success, as well the the controversey and fear surrounding him, to the fact that his writing doesn't do this.
Monday, August 15, 2005
Zarvarzadeh on Pleasure and Crisis 1
Mas’ud Zavarzadeh’s 1994 “article,” “The Pedagogy of Pleasure 2: The Me-In-Crisis” is both a rant against the idea of the personal and an urgent plea for students (and scholars) to engage in a “rigorous critique of their situational in history” through ideology critique (and rigorous intellectual work, producing scientific knowledge). Zavarzadeh is vehemently opposed to the idea of the individual and strongly in favor of collective; he’s against experience and for science/knowledge; he’s against “talk” and for “reading.” In other words, Zarvarzadeh defines subjectivity as historical and class-founded, as opposed to subjectivity as individualism. At this point, I am with Zavarzadeh. We are on the same page. But Zavarzadeh takes this difference in subject formation and uses is as a jumping off point to rail against experience--seeing experience as used only to illustrate difference and thereby perpetuate the myth of the individual as distinct from others (as the “me’s” experience is not the same as the next “me’s” experience). Here he argues that experience’s “main political outcome is to mystify the historicity and class-founded nature of subjectivity.” This is because experience focuses on effects (according to Zarvarzadeh) and obscures causes: “causes have to be KNOWN through CONCEPTS.” In other words, we can’t KNOW anything through experience. Power must be theorized, not “talked” about.
This stance leads him to critique feminism and feminist pedagogy, which he describes as anti-intellectual. His goal of course here (and he as much as admits this at the end of his “article”) is to antagonize, and he does it well, but while Zavarzadeh is busy critiquing students, scholars, feminists, etc. for ignoring and/or obscuring and/or failing to recognize causes and their own situational, he fails to acknowledge the ways in which the types of knowledge and idea of CONCEPTS/CONCEPTUALITY that he calls upon are training in patriarchal modes of thinking, learning, speaking, and writing. He fails to question the ways in which the formal paper that he assigned also protects the privileges of the bourgeois subject (something he accuses his student of doing)--the ways in which a formal paper (presumably written in formal academic discourse) fails to “confront the historical and socio-economic structures of the subject in history.”
This stance leads him to critique feminism and feminist pedagogy, which he describes as anti-intellectual. His goal of course here (and he as much as admits this at the end of his “article”) is to antagonize, and he does it well, but while Zavarzadeh is busy critiquing students, scholars, feminists, etc. for ignoring and/or obscuring and/or failing to recognize causes and their own situational, he fails to acknowledge the ways in which the types of knowledge and idea of CONCEPTS/CONCEPTUALITY that he calls upon are training in patriarchal modes of thinking, learning, speaking, and writing. He fails to question the ways in which the formal paper that he assigned also protects the privileges of the bourgeois subject (something he accuses his student of doing)--the ways in which a formal paper (presumably written in formal academic discourse) fails to “confront the historical and socio-economic structures of the subject in history.”
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