Ede, Lisa. Situating Composition: Composition Studies and the Politics of Location. Carbondale:
Southern Illinois University Press, 2004.
Ede's book attempts to situate composition by tracing, briefly, its history and development as an academic discipline. For Ede, the professionalization of composition has had positive effects, of course, but also some negative ones that warrant reexamination. One of these negative consequences is the turn away from practice; we need to theorize practice because theory is a form of practice. She coins the phrase "practice makes practice" and she deploys it to demonstrate the need to use what we do in the classroom as a way to help us think through theoretical issues as well as to become more reflective about our own commitments. She responds to the charge that composition is "post-process" by examining major texts as well as her own experience, and she suggests that, in fact, process is indeed everywhere. Essentially, she wants her book to be a call for being more accountable for our own practices.
Key ideas: "practice makes practice" (16); others
"thinking through practice"-- "Such a thinking entails not only thinking about practice -- about teaching, writing program administration, research, and so on -- but also attempting to use practice as a means of thinking through complex scholarly and professional issues" (16).
"...I will argue that the nature and impact of the writing process movement are anything but obvious, and that there are a multiplicity of meanings that can be attributed to it. Some of these meanings are paradoxical. I will argue, as I noted earlier, that from one perspective nothing so unified and coherent as a writing proces movement ever existed, and that its nature and role in the 1970s and early 1980s were as much tropological as material. But I will also argue that, despite claims that composition is post-process, signs of an ongoing commitment to process are everywhere evident. I will argue, in other words, that depending on where and how you look, there both was and was not a writing process movement" (64).
While I see the value in engaging multiple perspectives, and while I do think that it's quite useful to locate oneself -- i.e. reveal biases, commitments, assumptions, etc -- at the same time I think that Ede does not make this claim well enough for me to buy her argument. She constantly repeats phrases, sentences, and even ideas; her writing is often poorly constructed, and I feel that too often, she does not quite develop ideas in as much depth as is needed. For example, in her discussion of Crowley's Composition in the University, (a work she cites as a major component of her argument), she discusses it for about three pages total. She fails to apply her own charges to Crowley (or Miller, on whom she spends even less time!) I think, overall, that Ede is way too self-centered; even statements that have nothing to do with her begin with "I believe" or "It seems to me..." We all need these from time to time, but not in every sentence or every other one.
For me, though, the biggest problem of this text is that it reads like a collection of unrelated essays that were forced together. I wanted Ede to stop explaining her own teaching practices so heavily (in fact, in almost every example, she returns to her own ideas/experiences/practices), and instead to look at how others are using reflection in their own work. She seems to operate from the assumption that just because beliefs, practices, commitments, etc aren't directly foregrounded, that they haven't been reflected upon or adequately situated. Finally, she also seems to rely on generalizations that don't get explained or really theorized.
A useful component: thinking through practice. I think that the value in this book is that it emphasizes the need to locate ourselves as practitioners, and specify our own locations. However, this seems to stand in direct tension with Ede's statement that she does not value personal narratives. Hmmm...
Monday, May 25, 2009
Goggin
Goggin, Maureen Daly. Authoring a Discipline: Scholarly Journals and the Post-World War II
Emergence of Rhetoric and Composition. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2000.
Goggin uses a historical study of 9 seminal journals in the field of Rhet/Comp to demonstrate how the discipline coalesced, as well as to show how the journals have shaped the field (and its concerns). At stake for Goggin is how we imagine and define ourselves as a field, and she calls for reimagining the field outside of English departments, by which she means an interdisciplinary approach. Goggin's methodology is to emphasize the "dialectical relation with a discipline" (xiv): that a discipline is shaped by its journals/publications, but that those also play a key role in the discipline's development. For rhet/comp, then, this is important because it's not merely a standard historical narrative of the field; instead, it shows the various ways in which constraints, conventions, attitudes about teaching/writing/scholarship, etc have played key roles in the ways our ideas about writing, teaching, and knowing have developed.
Key terms: "discipliniographer" --one who writes/shapes a discipline through writing
"density of publications" -- levels of productivity in journals
"create, preserve, and use knowledge" -- 3 aims of any discipline
Key points of her book:
"With the emergence of disciplines and the rise of departments, rhetoric as a system was dissected. Theory was separated from practice, practice from product, and all 3 from pedagogy" (13).
"In response to mounting pressures, teachers and scholars scrambled for practical methods of teaching a wider range of new, nontraditional students in basic writing. This scramble set up a tension between those who were turning toward more speculative projects to create, preserve, and use knowledge about writing, reading, and teaching, and those who sought more pragmatic and immediate answers to help them face new challenges in their classrooms. Ever at the front were continued efforts to raise the proverbial status of the field and a stronger push toward creating a discipline" (76).
"Rhetoric and composition began to define itself through a search for explanations, including empirical, historical, theoretical, and philosophical, of the ways literate and oral discourse practices were learned and functioned in various settings. A shift of attention away from practical and pedagogical issues in writing instruction toward understanding discursive practices and learning processes more broadly conceived is discernible in the professional literature published during this time" (79). [She's referring here to the period between 1965-1980).
"The conundrum of our field is to figure out how we are to explain and cope with a public who, paradoxically, is so absolutely certain that they know all there is to know about us when it is ceratin that they have absolutely no inkling who we are, what we do, why we do it, and how we do it" (191).
Goggin asks us to employ what she terms "marketing myopia" to reimagine ourselves.
"Whether we draw on Young, Becker, and Pike's definition of rhetoric or some other, we need to find powerfully flexible frames to redefine ourselves in ways that allow us to configure the triad of creating, preserving, and using knowledge" (205).
Goggin responds to Crowley by addressing similar issues; unlike Crowley, she doesn't advocate for the abolition of a particular trope or anything other than a recognition of our history and how it's shaped what we have come to believe and do. I think that Goggin does a bit better job in demonstrating how certain beliefs still remain. Crowley seems to suggest -- though often indirectly -- that certain beliefs have been overcome, though she marshals them against freshman composition for its adherence to humanist subjectivities. Together, Crowley and Goggin allow a fuller picture of the discipline because of their diverse approaches and how they demonstrate the field's commitments.
This is what I find most useful about this book; really, it was useful in seeing the history of publications and the relationship between published work and the field itself. However, there isn't much else that's directly useful in it for now. One major critique I have at this point is that the book isn't well-written. I know that publication is all too often rushed for tenure or other things, so I can't be too critical, but as I was reading (and then again as I wrote this post) I was reminded of this fact.
Later: Goggin's usefulness on invention.
Emergence of Rhetoric and Composition. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2000.
Goggin uses a historical study of 9 seminal journals in the field of Rhet/Comp to demonstrate how the discipline coalesced, as well as to show how the journals have shaped the field (and its concerns). At stake for Goggin is how we imagine and define ourselves as a field, and she calls for reimagining the field outside of English departments, by which she means an interdisciplinary approach. Goggin's methodology is to emphasize the "dialectical relation with a discipline" (xiv): that a discipline is shaped by its journals/publications, but that those also play a key role in the discipline's development. For rhet/comp, then, this is important because it's not merely a standard historical narrative of the field; instead, it shows the various ways in which constraints, conventions, attitudes about teaching/writing/scholarship, etc have played key roles in the ways our ideas about writing, teaching, and knowing have developed.
Key terms: "discipliniographer" --one who writes/shapes a discipline through writing
"density of publications" -- levels of productivity in journals
"create, preserve, and use knowledge" -- 3 aims of any discipline
Key points of her book:
"With the emergence of disciplines and the rise of departments, rhetoric as a system was dissected. Theory was separated from practice, practice from product, and all 3 from pedagogy" (13).
"In response to mounting pressures, teachers and scholars scrambled for practical methods of teaching a wider range of new, nontraditional students in basic writing. This scramble set up a tension between those who were turning toward more speculative projects to create, preserve, and use knowledge about writing, reading, and teaching, and those who sought more pragmatic and immediate answers to help them face new challenges in their classrooms. Ever at the front were continued efforts to raise the proverbial status of the field and a stronger push toward creating a discipline" (76).
"Rhetoric and composition began to define itself through a search for explanations, including empirical, historical, theoretical, and philosophical, of the ways literate and oral discourse practices were learned and functioned in various settings. A shift of attention away from practical and pedagogical issues in writing instruction toward understanding discursive practices and learning processes more broadly conceived is discernible in the professional literature published during this time" (79). [She's referring here to the period between 1965-1980).
"The conundrum of our field is to figure out how we are to explain and cope with a public who, paradoxically, is so absolutely certain that they know all there is to know about us when it is ceratin that they have absolutely no inkling who we are, what we do, why we do it, and how we do it" (191).
Goggin asks us to employ what she terms "marketing myopia" to reimagine ourselves.
"Whether we draw on Young, Becker, and Pike's definition of rhetoric or some other, we need to find powerfully flexible frames to redefine ourselves in ways that allow us to configure the triad of creating, preserving, and using knowledge" (205).
Goggin responds to Crowley by addressing similar issues; unlike Crowley, she doesn't advocate for the abolition of a particular trope or anything other than a recognition of our history and how it's shaped what we have come to believe and do. I think that Goggin does a bit better job in demonstrating how certain beliefs still remain. Crowley seems to suggest -- though often indirectly -- that certain beliefs have been overcome, though she marshals them against freshman composition for its adherence to humanist subjectivities. Together, Crowley and Goggin allow a fuller picture of the discipline because of their diverse approaches and how they demonstrate the field's commitments.
This is what I find most useful about this book; really, it was useful in seeing the history of publications and the relationship between published work and the field itself. However, there isn't much else that's directly useful in it for now. One major critique I have at this point is that the book isn't well-written. I know that publication is all too often rushed for tenure or other things, so I can't be too critical, but as I was reading (and then again as I wrote this post) I was reminded of this fact.
Later: Goggin's usefulness on invention.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Crowley
Crowley, Sharon. Composition in the University: Historical and Polemical Essays. Pittsburgh, PA:
University of Pittsburgh Press, 1998.
Because the history of Freshman Composition reproduces humanist values and subjectivities, stemming from its beginning at Harvard in the 19th century, it ought to be eliminated from the present university requirements.
This is Crowley's basic point in her book; she writes an extensive history of composition that begins with rhetoric (in ancient Greece) and the role that rhetoric played in pedagogy, all the way through to contemporary versions in universities nationwide. After a brief period in which rhetoric flourished in educational programs, it rapidly went out of vogue in favor of literature and grammar courses. One reason for this is the open admissions -- but, as Crowley points out, even at Harvard in 1890, teachers lamented that its "elite" students could not write. Since then, various universities have required a writing course as part of the general education program, and Crowley traces the various iterations of this English course. Freshman English turned from rhetoric to grammar to literature and back again -- now being a site of contention for all involved.
Yet another important thread in Crowley's book is the issue of professionalization and disciplinary status. Crowley shows how rhetoric and composition as a discipline gained strength, but this was only in the last three or four decades. Previously, those who taught composition had high teaching loads and the lowest status of any at the university -- similar to today's circumstances. Crowley points out, too, that throughout the history of Freshman English, the people who teach it have never been awarded the appropriate respect or material conditions.
She marshals all of this history (her narrative of the history, that is) to demonstrate why the Freshman English requirement needs to be abolished. Crowley argues that it has deleterious effects on all involved: students, teachers/faculty, university, admin., etc. That is, by keeping the requirement in place, it constructs students as lacking basic skills; keeps teachers/the course "in service" of the university; removes possibilities for its practitioners (instructors) to publish or participate in the discipline; and, finally, promotes the "universal subjectivity" of students. Though Crowley wants to abolish the requirement of an English/writing course, she stresses that introductory level courses ought to take its place -- but on an elective basis.
For me, the most striking thing about Crowley's book is that it demonstrates just how long debates in the field have been going on; even more striking than that, however, is the fact that even in the 19th century when Harvard instituted its English requirement, the professors lamented that students could not write! This fact made me think, hard, about the things I believe and say about my own students! (One early Harvard professor even remarked, according to Crowley, that his students didn't read!) So I guess the question remains: what do we do?
I'm not sure we need to eliminate the writing requirement; I believe that it should be in place, but reframed drastically. One of the things I didn't like about Crowley's book was that she seemed to generalize the state of composition/English courses. That is, she argued against requiring composition based on its history; however, she does not argue for changing the course or imagine what a "good" required course might look like. I'm not sure if this is her project, but it would seem to me that we might meet her halfway or at least concede that the old models do not work while imagining new possibilities as we rethink how our discipline has upheld certain traditions, standards, values, and subjectivities. I would argue that we do need to reenvision our writing requirement by looking at what "work" it does and the effects that work has, and then drawing from that to rewrite the course. Crowley argues that most colleges/universities do not require other basic courses, and I'm not sure this is true. I know that I, and my students, have certainly had to take a mess of stuff (math, business, science, history/social sciences, psych, language, etc) that had little to no bearing on the rest of our coursework.
So what's useful? Lots. Mostly the history of composition that she writes; with that, the related issues of how composition studies has imagined itself in response to English, the university, and literacy in general. For later work, I think I would just concentrate on the issues she raises across the historical trajectory.
Questions: What does it mean that the same issues (ie students don't read; they can't write) have been driving questions since the beginning of the universal writing/English requirement?
Do we need to shed our ties to this requirement in order to imagine new and better possibilities for the field?
University of Pittsburgh Press, 1998.
Because the history of Freshman Composition reproduces humanist values and subjectivities, stemming from its beginning at Harvard in the 19th century, it ought to be eliminated from the present university requirements.
This is Crowley's basic point in her book; she writes an extensive history of composition that begins with rhetoric (in ancient Greece) and the role that rhetoric played in pedagogy, all the way through to contemporary versions in universities nationwide. After a brief period in which rhetoric flourished in educational programs, it rapidly went out of vogue in favor of literature and grammar courses. One reason for this is the open admissions -- but, as Crowley points out, even at Harvard in 1890, teachers lamented that its "elite" students could not write. Since then, various universities have required a writing course as part of the general education program, and Crowley traces the various iterations of this English course. Freshman English turned from rhetoric to grammar to literature and back again -- now being a site of contention for all involved.
Yet another important thread in Crowley's book is the issue of professionalization and disciplinary status. Crowley shows how rhetoric and composition as a discipline gained strength, but this was only in the last three or four decades. Previously, those who taught composition had high teaching loads and the lowest status of any at the university -- similar to today's circumstances. Crowley points out, too, that throughout the history of Freshman English, the people who teach it have never been awarded the appropriate respect or material conditions.
She marshals all of this history (her narrative of the history, that is) to demonstrate why the Freshman English requirement needs to be abolished. Crowley argues that it has deleterious effects on all involved: students, teachers/faculty, university, admin., etc. That is, by keeping the requirement in place, it constructs students as lacking basic skills; keeps teachers/the course "in service" of the university; removes possibilities for its practitioners (instructors) to publish or participate in the discipline; and, finally, promotes the "universal subjectivity" of students. Though Crowley wants to abolish the requirement of an English/writing course, she stresses that introductory level courses ought to take its place -- but on an elective basis.
For me, the most striking thing about Crowley's book is that it demonstrates just how long debates in the field have been going on; even more striking than that, however, is the fact that even in the 19th century when Harvard instituted its English requirement, the professors lamented that students could not write! This fact made me think, hard, about the things I believe and say about my own students! (One early Harvard professor even remarked, according to Crowley, that his students didn't read!) So I guess the question remains: what do we do?
I'm not sure we need to eliminate the writing requirement; I believe that it should be in place, but reframed drastically. One of the things I didn't like about Crowley's book was that she seemed to generalize the state of composition/English courses. That is, she argued against requiring composition based on its history; however, she does not argue for changing the course or imagine what a "good" required course might look like. I'm not sure if this is her project, but it would seem to me that we might meet her halfway or at least concede that the old models do not work while imagining new possibilities as we rethink how our discipline has upheld certain traditions, standards, values, and subjectivities. I would argue that we do need to reenvision our writing requirement by looking at what "work" it does and the effects that work has, and then drawing from that to rewrite the course. Crowley argues that most colleges/universities do not require other basic courses, and I'm not sure this is true. I know that I, and my students, have certainly had to take a mess of stuff (math, business, science, history/social sciences, psych, language, etc) that had little to no bearing on the rest of our coursework.
So what's useful? Lots. Mostly the history of composition that she writes; with that, the related issues of how composition studies has imagined itself in response to English, the university, and literacy in general. For later work, I think I would just concentrate on the issues she raises across the historical trajectory.
Questions: What does it mean that the same issues (ie students don't read; they can't write) have been driving questions since the beginning of the universal writing/English requirement?
Do we need to shed our ties to this requirement in order to imagine new and better possibilities for the field?
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Munster
Anna Munster's project in Materializing New Media is to reframe the history/reception of digital culture away from Cartesian notions, and to suggest a new way of understanding it. She introduces the term "baroque" to do so; the baroque, as I understand it, orders the chaos of digital spaces. For Munster, the central question is how to make meaning in digital cultures; throughout the chapters, she returns to questions of borders and fluid exchanges across them.
Munster makes fewer assumptions about her audience than Hansen, I'd say, though she does presume that her audience is somewhat familiar with certain concepts and the ways that they have been discussed in the past. She also assumes that her audience has an interest in digital culture, aesthetics, and recognizes the importance of an aesthetic theory in a time of digitality. Finally, I would say that Munster assumes her audience is interested in, and supportive of, a "world without borders"; and understands that as an important part of the future of global relations.
For me, the most intriguing part of the book would be Ch. 2, which we didn't read. As I glanced through it, it might have laid out (for me, at least), some key components or examples of what she was discussing.
While a bit more difficult than Hansen, I somehow found myself understanding Munster better -- though I still was not able to fully articulate what she means by "baroque" and "folding." I felt that these were similar terms to what Ulmer calls 'felt' -- but I'm not sure. So, I'd like to talk about these in more detail, if possible.
I also noticed that at times Munster alludes to (very indirectly) some filmmakers who take up similar questions. In Ch. 3, when she discusses the military technology, I couldn't help but think of Harun Farocki's work and Paul Virilio's scholarship. What, then, do films/visual technologies contribute to her theory? Can film -- rather, certain kinds of film -- be useful in her project?
Munster makes fewer assumptions about her audience than Hansen, I'd say, though she does presume that her audience is somewhat familiar with certain concepts and the ways that they have been discussed in the past. She also assumes that her audience has an interest in digital culture, aesthetics, and recognizes the importance of an aesthetic theory in a time of digitality. Finally, I would say that Munster assumes her audience is interested in, and supportive of, a "world without borders"; and understands that as an important part of the future of global relations.
For me, the most intriguing part of the book would be Ch. 2, which we didn't read. As I glanced through it, it might have laid out (for me, at least), some key components or examples of what she was discussing.
While a bit more difficult than Hansen, I somehow found myself understanding Munster better -- though I still was not able to fully articulate what she means by "baroque" and "folding." I felt that these were similar terms to what Ulmer calls 'felt' -- but I'm not sure. So, I'd like to talk about these in more detail, if possible.
I also noticed that at times Munster alludes to (very indirectly) some filmmakers who take up similar questions. In Ch. 3, when she discusses the military technology, I couldn't help but think of Harun Farocki's work and Paul Virilio's scholarship. What, then, do films/visual technologies contribute to her theory? Can film -- rather, certain kinds of film -- be useful in her project?
Hansen
Mark Hansen's Bodies in Code presents the idea that the body is integral to virtuality and aesthetics. For Hansen, "all reality is mixed reality" -- that is, we relate to the world in "mixed" ways. Hansen defies the mind-body split, and examines several pieces of relational art to demonstrate his point.
Hansen definitely presumes an academic audience; even after reading some very difficult stuff this semester, I found myself struggling to get what he was trying to say. He assumes familiarity with digital theory as well as aesthetics, and I think Hansen also assumes that his readers have read his previous work (or other work that takes up similar issues). For some reason, I felt like this book was having a conversation with others that I wasn't privy to-- I don't know why.
Hansen believes that he is recasting the mind-body split into a reality infused with the bodily. Since we can't exist in the world as just a mind, we must use our bodies to take in the world. (Or something). In the digital age, it makes sense that Hansen tries to figure out a theory of aesthetics and relationality that takes digital technology into account.
I'd really like us to explain some of Hansen's points in finer detail. I read the selected chapters, but still have a very cursory sense of what he's getting at. (It's week 14).
Hansen definitely presumes an academic audience; even after reading some very difficult stuff this semester, I found myself struggling to get what he was trying to say. He assumes familiarity with digital theory as well as aesthetics, and I think Hansen also assumes that his readers have read his previous work (or other work that takes up similar issues). For some reason, I felt like this book was having a conversation with others that I wasn't privy to-- I don't know why.
Hansen believes that he is recasting the mind-body split into a reality infused with the bodily. Since we can't exist in the world as just a mind, we must use our bodies to take in the world. (Or something). In the digital age, it makes sense that Hansen tries to figure out a theory of aesthetics and relationality that takes digital technology into account.
I'd really like us to explain some of Hansen's points in finer detail. I read the selected chapters, but still have a very cursory sense of what he's getting at. (It's week 14).
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