TeachorTalkbak

Coming (in)to consciousness is billed as “One Asian American teacher’s journey into activist teaching and research,” and (auto)-biographer\author Gail Okawa does delve deeply into her own–and others’–consciousness. Drawing on Paulo Freire, a respected composition authority whom Okawa cites amply throughout her essay, a loose thesis surfaces early: “coming to critical consciousness” is of paramount importance, especially for teachers–traditionally “oppressors,” but sometimes the oppressed (p. 282). Okawa incorporates extended references to her own situation in terms of stages along her academic\personal life journey, as well as similar inclusions supplied by students and colleagues from her circle of relations, especially those in whom she recognizes something of kindred spirits (Donna and “Miguel”). Profoundly reflective, Coming (in)to consciousness is less a rigorously academic, research-based exercise as it is an ongoing memoir written for anyone who seeks “a means of resistance to the isolation and objectification typical of the academy” (p. 282) by gaining “a sense of greater complexity in the process [and] relationships of writer to task…[and] teacher, of teacher and student to learning” (p. 284).

Yet this bird’s-eye view of the study is facile. Under a topos of In/Ex-clusive, Okawa’s essay contains numerous questionable ingredients. She conspicuously avoids any mention of the struggles, searches, voices, etc. of the many composition students (and professionals) who do not happen to be “of color”: she simply ignores them, resulting in the very “objectification”  and “absence…underepresentation” (p. 299) she purportedly wishes to ”resist.” Okawa speaks vaguely of “complicat[ing] political implications” (p. 283), never clarifying what the expression means for herself–much less for her readers. Interestingly, she integrates two anecdotes based on her experiences in Japan, as part of what she hopes will become “a shared journey of many…[and a medium through which] to convey an experience of learning to my students” (p. 283); however, as the author herself is doubtless aware (as is this writer via direct personal experience), Japan is anything but a model of egalitarianism, “challenging” cultural assumptions, or self-criticism within the “dominant group.” Rather, the rigidly predetermined approach to relations between established authority and subordinates in that culture renders the author’s presentation, frankly, pollyannish, to the degree that it calls into question the objectivity and validity of her larger conclusions. Okawa may not exactly be ”writing…in a vacuum” (p. 283), but her exclusive tendencies and narrow focus suggest that this “coming (in)to consciousness” is far from complete.

Ellen Cushman & Terese Guinsatao Monberg’s “Re-centering authority” (Under Construction, pp. 166-180) carries for its subtitle: “Social Reflexivity and re-positioning in composition research.” The authors include what amounts to a thesis for the work in its opening paragraph: “Enact[ing] a more socially responsible scholarship, one that builds bridges to facilitate border crossings….[because] one of the most pressing problems in current composition research [is that] we’re often socially distanced from the cultures we study” (p. 166). The authors make no effort to conceal the pronounced autobiographical thread running through the study, providing fairly extensive personal observations and anecdotes to put “teeth” into terms which surface during the course of their survey: negotiating (ethnographic) authority; reciprocal relationships; even the “social reflexivity” and “re-positioning” featured in the subtitle. One part academic critique (or better, critique of academics) and two parts activist memoir, Recentering summons professionals in English composition and related fields to risk their “comfort zones” for roll-up-your-sleeves’ “contact [italics added] zone” interaction and dialogue (p. 178), with the hope that this will generate “social integration in all directions” (p. 177).

Considering a topos of Consistent/Inconsistent, Cushman & Monberg score high marks for their straightforward adherence to the idea of responsible, community-oriented use of academic authority: these are scholars who clearly consider themselves members of the larger society outside their local university’s walls, and Cushman in particular (as her full-length Composition in the streets demonstrates) “walks the talk” with reference to leading by example, entering the less-comfortable-because-different-and-removed-from-our-immediate-experience sectors of her own city area, initially as the basis for her doctoral dissertation. The authors also challenge themselves and fellow composition “authorities” to take a man-in-the-mirror approach to their work rather than place themselves above research “subjects.” Yet the survey becomes rather inconsistent when viewed from a distinct angle: by virtue of proposing their findings/conclusions in a scholarly setting, Cushman & Monberg are excluding the very marginalized persons they are supposedly speaking up for. Even when one grants that Recentering’s audience is essentially composed of professionals in the field of composition, Cushman & Monberg by definition are claiming authority over these peers, a fact which calls into question the two authors’ apparent mistrust of authority in general. Further, as Cushman notes in her doctoral project, she was in a sense using the marginalized around her as material for her thesis–she notes that she was “no Mother Teresa” and that risks abound in such studies, even with clear and respectable intentions. The allusion to upper-class white people (p. 178) is problematic as well, because it exploits precisely the type of racial difference the authors insist they are trying to be “responsible” about–are there no upper-class blacks, Latinos, or Asians who have similarly “rigid” attitudes towards various individuals outside their own habitus? Finally, the argu[ment] for a more complicated definition of authority” is specious: Who gets to define it? Why? How will it help people who are not involved in academia, people who function best with the kind of straight talk Cushman & Monberg purport to prefer? In contrast to their project’s stated and implied intentions, this last idea stands out as an internal contradiction inasmuch as it perpetuates the intellectualization of the discussion: complicating definitions results in more, not less, “professional” involvement which inevitably keeps the “little people” out of the loop (just look at tax law). And for the authors to undertake this study at all, they must of necessity claim an authority, one which they neither justify nor effectively distance themselves from in the present work.

David Seitz believes in keeping it honest–so much so that he utilizes the phrase as title for chapter 5 in Under Construction. And honest he is, indicting himself and fellow “‘critical teachers’”  for failing to transmit on a wavelength accessible to many of their college composition students: “Our critical positions hold little internally persuasive authority for some of these students in the classroom, or more importantly, in the practice of their everyday lives [italics added]” (p. 65). The author focuses on Chicago area working-class students who have been exposed to theory-based instruction incorporating such elements as “difference…power relations….[and] a postmodern valuing of dissensus” (p. 66); he features three anecdotal cases concerning his own pupils as they relate to this methodology. Seitz’ assay uncovers findings which he intimates struck him as somewhat surprising: working-classers like those in his writing course decry troubling realities such as “the general disempowerment of working people” and the question of “who gets to define ‘identity politics’ in the public sphere” (p. 68). Essentially, Seitz discovers that these individuals feel “on their own….between a rock and a hard place” (pp. 70-71), perhaps even more at times than more obviously marginalized citizens of color or expatriates whose languages and cultures stand out as manifestly distinct from the hegemonic society. Ultimately, the author seems to have a “man-in-the-mirror” moment as he confesses that–at least with reference to many working-class collegians–”these critical (more academic) perspectives may be ineffective at the local level of social change (p. 76).

Viewed through the lens of topos Sincerity, David Seitz appears to pass the bar, in the sense that he is one of few writers I have encountered so far in our class texts who achieves what his contemporaries can only attempt (and that in a disembodied, abstract fashion): he comes down to earth in Keeping it honest long enough to place himself–theoretical underpinnings, methodology, personal attitudes–under the gaze of his students. He makes no bones about his own (and his cohorts’) inability to reach every student, to the degree that he openly reveals reservations over the critical approaches heretofore used in class. On this point Seitz resembles a David Bartholomae or Nancy Sommers much more than the typical UC\ISMLL contributor (see last blog). While I do not necessarily agree with every opinion Seitz shares, he clearly qualifies as sincere. 

Anne Donadey and Francois Linnoet collaborate on the daring Feminisms, Genders, & Sexualities from ISMLL; Feminisms is arguably the broadest and least cohesive essay in the anthology, which itself makes no attempt to pigeonhole its offerings beyond a very loose arrangement by “topic.” After opening (225) with references to everything from “lesbians of color” to “transnational perspectives” and “religion,” the authors stay true to form until their conclusion (p. 239), where they reiterate earlier assertions that–far from cleaning up the “mess” left by previous decades’ attempts to handle the wide array of issues connected with the subjects listed in their title–Donadey & Linnoet essentially hope to keep the conversation going, and challenge\resist such constructs as the “definition” of homo/hetero-sexuality, femin/mascul-inity, even race, culture, and (inter)national pasts. Theirs is an informational piece as opposed to a rigorous polemic: Donadey & Linnoet merely pass on the facts they observe, diverse and (at times) disjointed as those facts are. If there is a common thread running through their article, it seems to be the use of gay\lesbian theory from the 1970s as it has defined itself, sought alliances, and changed–both organically and as a result of dialogue with fields such as feminism–into the present day.

Topos: Pertinence. While their historical survey is both well-organized and interesting, it is in the authors’ putative conclusions/goals that one detects an attempt to pack too much information, from too extensive a base, into Feminisms’ contents. This renders a number of specific comments–and on a certain level their entire essay–questionable in terms of target audience. If feminism is understood in one respect as an effort to reach and empower “everywoman,” why has so little attention been paid the urgently oppressed, such as the third-world mother who simply desires a safe and healthful environment in which to raise her children, or the “lower-class” inner-city teenage girl who feels doomed to a life surrounded by addiction, violence and despair? It may be academically interesting to consider questions of inner sexual identity, yet these are not likely to impact the lives of the many marginalized, impoverished, even desperate individuals–of whatever gender or orientation–whose needs are simply more urgent: getting out of abusive situations; providing materially for those under their care; rehabilitating from substance addiction, etc: the very people an essay like this should be reaching. Unlike, say, an Eileen Cushman (who called for a new practical activism on the part of professional compositionists) or a Randy Shilts (who discussed the difficulty of trying  to convince fellow gays to readress certain practices in order to protect themselves from the then-new AIDS danger), Donadey & Lionnet come across as airy and unconnected. “Transgressive potentialites of nonnormative sexual pleasure” (p. 231) makes for compelling “journalese,” but does not relate to the basic needs and desires of women and the disenfrachised worldwide who possess neither the time nor the resources to linger in the ivory tower.

In her introductory section of Migrations, author Susan Friedman notes that “migrations, diasporas, and borders are nothing new”–only in terms of literary study can they be called “new” since overt, focused research into their significance dates from the 1970s (p. 260). Continuing the trend of grouping a wide assortment of essays by (loose) affinity according to subject, the ISMLL anthology sandwiches Friedman’s offering between articles on “Race & Ethnicity” (K. Warren) and “Translation” (L. Venuti). All three make direct reference to issues such as increasing global interdependence due to more fluid travel, interaction, and community/residency arrangements; however, Friedman essentially dedicates her study to such fluidity as it affects where and how people actually live. The author defines “cultures” as “ways of being…creating…hating…conquering and being conquered [in the world]” (p. 260), then sets out on a sweeping journey of her own to briefly cover everything from physical relocation–whether voluntary, semi-voluntary, or forced–to the impact of technology (especially the internet and satellite communications), to repercussions arising from factors like racial, geographical, and linguistic differences between regions/countries around the world which now find themselves intermixing (see pp. 261-268). Migrations makes selective–and rather effective–use of historical and anecdotal reporting to buttress its call for more attention to be placed on these complex trends. Friedman does not appear to “adopt” any particular theoretical or strategic stance, for she does not see her role as “combatting” so much as understanding or, better, engaging the realities she speaks about: “The displacements produced by migrations, diasporas and borders create a poetics of their own” (p. 283).

Topos: Relation vs. Isolation. Friedman argues that discrete entities (e.g. geography and language)–and even apparent opposites such as the global and the local–actually work together in a sort of “synergistic” sense, contributing to the interconnectedness of contemporary international culture. The Los Angeles Times used to run an extended advertisement before feature presentations in movie cinemas, showing scenes of African citizens drinking American sodas and Europeans implementing Japanese electronics components into their office machinery. The byline ran: “Everything is local news.” This is indisputable in terms of major financial activity; witness the effect a declining US dollar is having not only on the national  but on the international economy worldwide. It is eminently reasonable to consider concomitant effects, to investigate what travels with the currencies: Widespread migrations, from forced (Jewish exiles; Irish potato famine; Vietnamese refugees) to voluntary, as in the case of countless foreign nationals seeking a better life in the US & Europe, bear out the fact that peoples frequently cross borders so en masse and bring long-standing racial, linguistic, and cultural traditions with them. These traditions influence–and are influenced by–their “host” regions, leading to previously unknown “blended” societies that are no longer the one or the other. Without doubt, then, Friedman is on solid statistical and anecdotal grounds in suggesting that seemingly distinct factors interplay whenever Migrations, Diasporas, & Borders are at issue. Regarding the question of whether moving away from one’s homeland necessarily constitutes a better life, the author’s survey does not definitively state. Is the “American Dream,” for example, a sure improvement over what the typical Latino or Asian emigree is leaving behind? Are they departing the lands of their fathers solely for economic reasons? These are details which call out further research.

Yuet-Sim Chiang’s study Insider/Outsider/Other? is subtitled “Confronting the centeredness of race, class, color and ethinicity in composition reserach,” a description which reveals the larger questions–and target audience–of an author who identifies herself as “the Other” (p. 151) early on in her survey. Chiang highlights more specific concerns in her very next paragraph, setting out to address “the particularities and situatedness” of the variables listed in her subtitle as they apply to theory and praxis vis-a-vis the field of English composition. The context of the present work (taken from Under construction) was drawn from Chiang’s earlier ethnographic research experience in a small Nebraska university, where the participants comprised white students and teachers from whom the author could easily distance herself: she was merely “analyzing” them (p. 153). She compares this situation with her stint as a Ph.D. professor on first professional assignment, teaching a class made up entirely of non-native English students in a writing workshop based on the “process” model. Autobiographical, at times in a profoundly personal way, Chiang is not afraid to impart to her readers the depth and range of her emotions, going from someone whose primary language was English, whose entire linguistic world  “was centered on Western-oriented epistemologies,” from the “professor”–to a person who found herself at the last admitting: “I could not merely study these ‘non-native’ English speakers whose linguistic history and lived realities painfully echoed my own literacy journey” (pp. 152-153). Later sections of Insider/Outsider/Other? address subsequent research projects (such as Chiang’s 1994 summer class at UC Berkeley with native-born “ethnic” students), peppered with vignettes concerning the author’s personal reactions at key points along the way.

Turning now to her closing segment, a topos of “the Personal” comes to mind as a suitable construct for addressing\evaluating the present survey. Writing consistently in first person, and not especially intent on sticking to “elevated” discourse, Chiang nonetheless makes effective use of academic lingo without coming across as “compy” or stilted. Yet it is her more direct, situational diction–wherein she openly reveals emotional and moral responses–which seizes the reader’s attention: Chiang succeeds in a difficult feat, that of discussing a topic inherently professional and educational while emphasizing the personal; to wit, sharing her own inner reactions and overall growth as an individual throughout the journey to identify with and reach her participants. Whereas at an earlier point in her career the author saw herself in primarily occupational terms, she finishes her study having somehow become, well, a human being, a fellow traveler with her students on that “road [almost] not taken” to self-discovery and acceptance of her own racial, class, and gender roots.

J. Michael Holquist comes right out of the gate in Comparative Literature with the straight-from-the-shoulder admission that–ultimately–the field so named has no cohesive structure, home, or identity that can be called ”accepted” in any remotely general sense (p. 194). While the same could be said to an extent of nearly every major subfield under the umbrella title of English, Comp Lit takes this “non-reality” status to an exaggerated degree: the absence of identity becomes in effect the discipline’s very identity. Briefly, Holquist lays out something of a timeline for the development of Comp Lit, starting in the early 1800s as an offshoot of the now-defunct field of philology, Europe–in particular via 19th century “Romantic” underpinnings–led the way to establishing CL as a discipline in its own right, eventually splitting into “schools” such as the German, the French, and the American. Emphases on facets within CL, like “close (slow)” readings and higher theory, lead into contemporary circumstances which find CL linked to issues such as cultural studies, and more solid connections with the base languages of the fields specific local expressions. Comparative Literature, then, is–if anything–a study which is intrinsically subject to transition; thus it must “fight” for, beyond identity as such, its very survival.

Topos: Open/Closed. Anyone care to venture a guess? This one’s easy: Open with a capital “O,” since the discipline has so many connections to other fields–linguistics, various living (and classical) languages, literary studies, social sciences, etc.–and therefore, so tenuous an individual identity. It is openness that “defines” CL and has (so far) allowed for its survival. Nice to have a relatively straightforward analysis for a change.

P.S. The fact that Comp Lit is an open and resourceful field doesn’t make it all peaches and cream: it could be called “closed” if–in contradistinction to the approach take here–one is referring to the ease with which it can be entered into (multiple language fluencies, knowledge of\transitional capabilities into fields at times only obliquely related, etc).

Library of Congress reference librarian and erstwhile gumshoe Thomas Mann is not particularly concerned with being “sexy” or novel in his Oxford Guide; rather, his purpose is to convince readers in need of research methodology that libraries are superior to individual Internet access: “Libraries today routinely encompass the entire Internet…but the Internet does not, and cannot, contain more than a small fraction of everything discoverable within library walls” (p.xiii). The author arranges his material systematically, handling more general topics like “Subject Headings” and “Keyword Searches” in earlier sections, then moving on to specific concepts such as “Boolean Combinations” and “Searching by Types of Literature” in later chapters (pp. viii-xi). Mann is eminently qualified to comment on academic research, both web searching and “old school,” library-based, roll-up-your-sleeves investigation. Mann’s preface indicates an inclination toward the latter, which as already noted subsumes Internet techniques; indeed, commandingly supersedes them (especially with references to databases–comparatively few are available via “regular” services, such as in-home computer searching.

How might one evaluate the Guide with respect to a topos of Useful/obsolete? Let us begin with the latter. Published in 2005, Mann’s book should be destined to become out-of-date in fairly short shrift, given the sweeping changes and exponential growth of technology–Internet, software, databases, computers themselves. However, institutions like the Library of Congress do not advance so swiftly, and their tremendous influence upon such pivotal aspects of Internet searching as standardized keywords (a la “Red” books) and academic database standards demonstrates a certain longevity for existing constructs: the Red books, for example, are not published monthly, nor are even newer databases eager to steer too far from protocols already in place. The contents of the Guide, therefore, can hardly be called obsolete–and it appears they will retain their usefulness for at least a few more years; some concepts (such as longstanding “hard-copy” research methods) are unlikely to change much at all for time to come. Mann’s general advice on matters like how to avoid common research mistakes, furthermore, will always be “in style.” The text anticipates upcoming technological improvements as well, so it certainly qualifies as “useful”–very much so for the present, and only gradually becoming less in coming years.

In his ”Translation Studies,” author Lawrence Venuti begins by zeroing in on American translation studies, which he differentiates from the same in other countries (most notably Spanish, Portuguese and French-speaking nations) by noting that, in our own United States, the trade “remains very much a fledgling discipline…[which] occurs predominantly in isolated courses…scattered across various institutional sites [and]…fragmented among diverse and conflicting methodologies” (294). Noting that American programs operate with a “greater value assigned to literary criticism and linguistic research than to translation practice,” Venuti sets out to solicit various authorities and historical realities which, leading into the present day, help generate a functional ‘definition’ of translation studies: what it intends, how it is limited, why and in which fashion it must be revisited. Providing a tripartite assay under the subheadings equivalence & shifts (focus on changes in denotation\connotation regarding texts), cultural systems & norms (with an eye to the cultures involved in every translation—to and from), and ethics & politics (concerning issues of “shift” vis-à-vis ‘target’ cultures’ receptiveness), Venuti cites Nida, Derrida, Lewis & others almost as guideposts or markers along a ‘road’ to outlining the contemporary status of the field, now diverse enough to allow for competing (complementary?) schools of thought in the form of decontextualization, polysystems, and cultural analysis\interpretation, among others.

Consider a topos of Possible\Impossible as pertinent to the question, “Is meaningful translation possible?” Here one must distinguish between “rewriting or rewording in the same language” (intra-lingual) and “rewriting in a different language” (inter-lingual): Venuti, I propose, would allow for the former with fewer restrictions\caveats than the latter. He suggests directions for further (collaborative) research—especially ‘joint ventures’ between experts in linguistics and cultural studies—which intimate hope for the future of the field (308-9). Ever fraught with a certain tension arising out of the interplay of cultures, languages and ethics, translation may yet develop and diversify. And provided we observe its limitations and proper scope, it may even serve to generate useful interpretative dialogue between entities in our increasingly interconnected—and complex—world of nations.

Professor Pilinovsky of our own CSUSB English department presented a guest lecture in class today, with the loose working title of “Translation Issues, Research, and Cultural Themes in Composition” (my own putative offering, not to be confused with any trademarked label or formal designation). In no particular order, Pilinovsky eloquently and amusingly remarked on her personal experiences in terms of research–most interestingly, primary source research related to a doctoral dissertation (which itself arose out of an extended ‘affair’ with fairy tales; another story). Literate in a wide range of media, from Russian folklore to modern Western cinema, Pilinovsky was open to questions from the class, the majority of which bore connections to aspects of translation; however, elements of rhetoric, culture and pedagogy entered the mix as well. The presentation occured in a fairly informal academic setting, yet produced serious fruit vis-a-vis the research questions and ‘how-tos’ of the class, which seemed to benefit universally from this first-hand account out of the lips of an established authority in the field who has the advantage of having once been where we are now.

Proposed: a topos of relevant\irrelevant as a standard for evaluating Professor Pilinovsky’s participation today. Few would dispute her credentials and “right” to address a class full of future professional ‘compers’: instructors, writers, ESL teachers, who can say what else? Pilinovsky’s wealth of experience, talent (especially linguistic), and acumen regarding the overall state of the field–as well as what one might tentatively entitle ‘thematic intuition’, particularly with regard to her “reading” of fable-type themes from all manner of media–found a welcome ear in the case of this listener. Personal anecdotes related to her graduate research, and her manifest familiarity with methodologies, schools of thought, and various forms of praxis on questions of research and translation must be labeled relevant for present purposes, since those very topics represent something of the ‘theme’ of English 609. True, there were “at-risk” moments during the interaction where the possibility of veering completely off subject materialized, yet the Professor appeared at ease and properly oriented throughout, engaging both individual students and the class at large in dialogue. Acting (understandably) more as host than head instructor, Prof. Rhodes intervened at key moments in the presentation to ask her own questions, both of the class and our guest lecturer. Ultimately, I submit that the larger concerns of English studies emerged in a balanced fashion, with focus on select themes (as mentioned above) that are pertinent in themselves–and received treatment accordingly, albeit in a diversionary format. All library projects and no visiting professors make 609 students dull pupils, or something like that.