Abstracts
Please post your abstracts (as a comment) to this post. As mentioned in class, the details are as follows:
FIRST ABSTRACT:
- Suggested length: 400-600 words
- Deadline: before midnight, October 29
- Abstract style: more like a conference abstract (description of your topic and your line of inquiry) than like an article abstract (with a fully-formed thesis and conclusion)
- Contents: as specific a description as possible of your project as well as your intended “use” of the project – will you present it a conference? will you send it out for publication? (include names of possible conferences/journals)
- Follow-up: revised abstract with annotated bibliography (8-12 entries) due in two weeks
SECOND ABSTRACT/ANNOTATED BIBS:
- Suggested length: same for abstracts (400-600 words); your 8-10 source annotations should be between a half and a full double-spaced page
- Contents: try to be a bit more specific with the abstracts this time around; the annotations should summarize the item under review and also detail how it useful to your project
- Deadline: please post your revised abstract and annotated bib before midnight, Nov 19
Crystal Starkey
Dr. Pruchnic
Seminar Abstract: Affect of Capitalism and New Media on Disabilities
“What matters is the exterior, collective, social character which belongs to intellectual activity when this activity becomes, according to Marx, the true mainspring of the production of wealth” (Virno 38).
Dissecting disability through a Marxist lens lends itself to better understanding of the complexity of words like oppression and hegemony— the latter owing its initial credentials to Gramsci’s work on ideology. Marxism is defined by the logic and the value of production, and in a capitalistic society humanity becomes synonymous with such values—values which negatively construct the (dis)abled category. Disablement, thus, is a historical product, void of value. Indeed some disability scholars maintain that disability is the social construction of industrial capitalism: “Clearly the process of industrialisation under capitalism is a major factor that has contributed to the prevalence of disability … Central to this approach is what Marx called ‘the industrial reserve army’” (Davis172). Further, Marxism indicates disability requires treatment/cure through the production relations under capitalism. In Marxism, production mode constitutes humanness as all human societies must produce to exist. Humans must produce the commodity to 1) satisfy a human want and 2) to exchange for other commodities. This condition of existence does not include bodies unable to produce, as Marx defines a “useful” labor that which produces an object value.
Since nothing can have value without unity, then the labor to produce it is also not of value—rendered worthless under capitalism. This idea of valued labor producing valued commodities is linked to the idea of the average worker. Here it seems it is the markets and industrialization which are the problem source rather than those who are labeled as disabled: “… the ‘problem’ is not the person with disabilities; the problem is the way that normalcy is constructed to create the ‘problem’ of the disabled person. … the social process of disabling arrived with industrialization”” (Davis 9). This norm construction of a human worker showcases both the negative construct of the person with disabilities as well as the concept of disability as the antithesis to the normal worker. Since it is ‘labor power’ which workers sell as their value under capitalism, it is impaired ‘labor power’ that surmises disablement within capitalism. Indeed, Marxism provides a historical and theoretical foundation for understanding the social oppression of people with disabilities. One might even argue that the idea or what is normal is a burgeois social construction: “… the very term that permeates our contemporary life—the normal—is a configuration that arises in a particular historical moment. It is part of a notion of progress, of industrialisation, and of ideological consolidation of the power of the bourgeoisie” (Davis 28). It remains a difficult task to socially integrate people with disabilities into Marx’s theory—a theory that argues people with disabilities cannot in any society be truly social because the true social integration occurs through the satisfactions from and memberships to the world of work. Within Marxism, there resides an equation of identity with the work one performs. But there is hope.
The transcendence of disablement above (in spite of) capitalism can be achieved through various mediums of new media. Media has brought about the progressive reduction of the value of labor power. This socialist transition is fueled by technological innovation, which equips people with disabilities—allowing them to partake in the production process as well as have assigned value under Marx’s theory. Indeed this is the beginning of the abolition of disablement. Still, new media only enables these workers so far— leaving a restriction in relation to the amount and type of work and (thus) production. This interaction and connectedness results in a decreased production of social value. One could even argue that this implies people with disabilities are deviant (and thus deprived) by biology, as disability limits certain practice (depending on the impairment) and thus alienates the person with disability. Disability scholars would argue that disability is in fact not a biological hindrance but a social one: “Disability is not a biological given; like gender, it is socially constructed from biological reality” Davis 260).There are many contributing communities to the capitalistic society—children as future workers, the elderly as former workers, and those with disabilities as, perhaps different or unorthodox or out-of-the-box, but nonetheless a community of willingly contributing workers with much value.
Works Cited
Amin, Ash. Ed. Post-Fordism: A Reader. Cambridge: Blackwell, 1994.
Davis, Lennard. Enforcing Normalcy: Disability, Deafness, and the Body. New York:
Verson, 1995.
Esser, Josef and Joachim Hirsch. The Crisis of Fordism and the Dimensions of a
‘PostFordist’ Regional and Urban Structure. International Journal of Urban and
Regional Research (1989), vol. 13, no.3, pp 417-36.
Gramsci, Antonio. Selections From the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci. Quintin
Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith. Eds and Trans. New York: International Publishers, 1987.
Marx, Karl. Capitol: A Critique of Political Economy. Vol I. New Yokr: Penguin Books,
2003.
Pietrykowski, Bruce. Fordism at Ford: Spatialization Decentralization and Labor
Segments at the Ford Motor Company, 1920-1950. Economic Geography, Vol. 71, No. 4 (Oct., 1995), pp. 383-401.
Crystal Starkey said this on October 27, 2008 at 3:02 pm
Cindy Mooty-Hoffmann
Seminar Abstract:
CNN’s Rick Sanchez, An Exemplary Example of New Media’s use in Broadcast Journalism
The prevalence of technology and the perennial plugged-in citizenry have changed the way news is being gathered and broadcasted, and CNN’s afternoon anchor Rick Sanchez is at the forefront of using technology during his hour-long afternoon news segment. My paper, to be used as research for a Master’s Essay, will examine the variety of new media being used by Sanchez to show how reporting has had to adapt to the rising demand of citizen’s expertise with technology.
In gathering the news, the culture of television and the Internet have changed to incorporate the citizenry to a greater extent via the technology. Citizens no longer need to draft a formal Letter to the Editor or call the editor and try to get through to the assignment desk. Citizens now can be involved in the journalistic culture by becoming part of the news cycle themselves. This culture involves citizens using personal cell phones to snap and send pictures to the media, using home computers to send e-mails directly to reporters or news outlets, or blogging on the variety of Websites that have been developed in the past few years. This change in the creation of a Citizen Journalist is clearly evident during Sanchez’s daily hour-long broadcasts: he solicits blogs via Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace; and he invites citizens to send text messages and I-Reports (cell phone photos). Sanchez then broadcasts live the rhetoric the citizenry sends in via cameras zooming in on large computer screens in the newsroom. Sanchez also has a running tally showing how many citizens are logged on during the program; this shows that the citizenry is tuned in via the computer and the television. In one recent broadcast, he mentioned there were 17,000 people logged in to his Twitter site during his CNN broadcast. Other methods of gathering the news still include the staples of the medium: interviews in the studio and via satellite and replaying video clips that make the news.
As to broadcasting the news, television anchors used to call themselves “front page” readers; there was no time for any broadcast coverage of news inside the papers. Now 30 years after the invention of the 24-hours news channel, the smallest story is played repeatedly. Friend and Singer argue that this form of coverage now allows for broadcasters to analyze thoroughly the information so that the citizens understand the content. They say this type of coverage, “dramatically alters the journalist’s role from one of gate-keeping to one of sense-making. With information so widely available and audiences so widely fragmented, reporters and editors no longer have as much authority when it comes to filtering or selecting what constitutes the most important news. Instead, their task is to help readers and viewers to make sense of it.” This idea of “sense-making” was clearly evident during a recent broadcast when Sanchez was helping viewers understand the government’s $700 billion bailout program. As he was interviewing a financial expert, he used blogs generated from his viewers to help the audience understand the situation.
By analyzing the technology being used by one afternoon broadcast journalist, one could glimpse a snapshot of changes taking place in this media. It also makes one wonder, what is type of technology is yet to be invented and how will Sanchez incorporate that new media within his broadcast?
Works Cited
Friend, Cecilla and Jane Singer. Online Journalism Ethics: Traditions and Translations. New York: Sharpe, 2007.
Cindy said this on October 29, 2008 at 6:56 pm
In Race, Rhetoric, and Technology, Adam Banks draws on Heidegger and Patricia Sullivan and Jeanie Dauterman to offer a definition of technology that opens up technological systems to critical inquiry. “. . . [M]ore than mere artifacts,” Banks writes, “technologies are the spaces and processes that determine whether any group of people is able to tell its own stories on its own terms, whether people are able to agitate and advocate for policies that advance its interests, and whether that group of people has any hope enjoying equal social, political, and economic relations” (10). This definition is useful precisely for the way it connects systematicity to technicity; all technologies, Banks implies, are political systems.
This is an important realization, for thinking technicity qua systematicity is a powerful critical heuristic that might be used to expose the mechanics of technological power in systems not normally thought of as technology; in Banks’ own work he cites blankets coded with signals to slaves escaping on the Underground Railroad as an example of such technological systems. However, while Banks gives us a way to think technology, his work does not clearly offer a critical heuristic for interrogating technology.
In this essay, then, I want to pair Banks’ definition of technology with Stuart Selber’s work on digital multiliteracies to theorize a heuristic for conducting such critical and post-critical interventions into technology. In each of the forms of literacy that Selber argues for, computing, information, and communication software is understood not as discrete, value-neutral artifacts but as bound inescapably to questions of access and power: “What is lost as well as gained? Who profits? Who is left behind and for what reasons? What is privileged in terms of literacy and learning and cultural capital? What political and cultural values and assumptions are embedded in hardware and software” (81)? Trying to think Banks and Selber together might point to a way of theorizing technology that works to uncover its own systematicity, in a way that prevents the occlusion of political and economic interests by insisting on a multivalent literacy that not just employs technology but employs it in a way that makes it always already available to critique.
As a test case for this theoretical construct, I turn to the university itself as a technological system in the sense argued for by Banks. In particular, I am interested in using the theoretical apparatus generated by the pairing of Selber and Banks to investigate critiques of the so-called “corporate university.” In this, my work bears some relationship to those critiques offered by Frank Donoghue, Jennifer Washburn, and the authors of the collections Steal This University (eds. Benjamin Johnson, Patrick Kavanagh, and Kevin Mattson) and Beyond the Corporate University (eds. Henry A. Giroux and Kostas Myrsiades). At this point, to say I join these critics in their suspicion of the corporate university is premature; rather, I am interested to see how the theoretical heuristic described here could be of use to furthering such scholarship on the social, economic, and political relationships of the modern research university.
This project could be developed with an eye for publication in any number of journals, but the ideal placement for it would be in a journal that addresses the interests of English and humanities programs as a whole; thus, PMLA or College English might be two journals that this piece would be composed with an eye toward. Since it advocates an expanded definition of literacy, one that includes not just texts but also technical systems in the broadest sense, CCC might also make a good home for this work.
mlmcginnis said this on October 29, 2008 at 9:54 pm
Valerie Allen’s Abstract:
Creative Inklings Summer Writing Workshop: Writing Through New Media
There has been a well documented achievement gap between urban and suburban students. The correlation between the amount of reading and writing a student does between the ability a student has. Unfortunately, the achievement gap between urban and suburban children of the children has been growing. Often minority children of lower economic status function at significantly lower reading and writing comprehension levels and are not prolific writers. This, in combination with the existence of the digital divide has in turn causes a significant achievement gap in the abilities of students in educationally impoverished districts.
To combat this issue, it is imperative that educators of urban youth develop pedagogically strong, innovative, technologically savvy, and engaging writing programs that address the problems of this achievement gap. From work begun in the National Writing Project using writer’s notebooks as a tool for engaging young writers in composition, I have developed a grant-funded writer’s workshop program that addresses the needs of the apprentice writer in at-risk communities. The program stands on two philosophies. The first philosophy is that the more prolific a writer, the better the writer becomes. The second is that students who have experience writing in the digital realm are armed with better toolboxes for the types of writing they will encounter in the post-secondary classrooms that teachers of secondary education are preparing them for. The idea attempts to bridge the digital divide by creating digital writing spaces for students explore writing in both collaborative and independent projects in a variety of medias that mimic the use of the writer’s notebook. The students use a combination of a standard print media writer’s notebook and an online writing space for the creation of digital media.
In Lucy Calkins’s text, Living between the Lines, she makes a clear case for the validity of the writer’s notebook as a tool for assisting writers with improving the content of writing. According to Calkins, “When writers carry notebooks everywhere, the notebooks nudge us to pay attention to the little moments that normally flicker into our consciousness” (43). The notebook helps writer’s to draw from experience with a more critical eye. Students in the program begin with a writer’s notebook to collect ideas for writing and begin the process of writing through brainstorming and drafting. The notebook is used both inside and outside of the camp setting as a private writing space for students to grow and seed initial ideas without the critical eye of the outside reader.
The online environment functions as an extension of the camp (un)classroom. The main page of the site is the digital classroom, which houses public rooms for a variety of writing activities and source materials, and models of the writing process. This shared space houses a page for collaborative writing activities, writing lessons, links to writing information, and a place to publish writing. From this main site, online writer’s notebooks branch off where apprentice writers craft writing projects. Digital notebooks house their lists, ideas, works in progress, and finished projects. In this space, apprentice writers can communicate with writing instructors in a safe environment, receiving assistance and feedback on their progress.
The results of this program will be an on/offline published anthology of student writing where students can share their accomplishments with their family, friends, and community. In addition to validating the accomplishments of the writers, the publication gives writing purpose for the writers.
From the experience, student writers will gain new methods and strategies for future compositions. Their experience working with the notebooks will help them to increase writing fluency and quality. The online environment and writing activities will expose students to a space for composition and familiarity with the types of digital media they will be utilizing in their future post-secondary compositions. The program will serve as a model for other educators who wish to implement similar programs in their districts.
Works Cited
Calkins, Lucy. Living between the Lines. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1991.
Val Allen said this on October 30, 2008 at 1:42 am
“‘Ceci tuera cela’ (This will destroy that). The statement is voiced by the archdeacon Frollo and constitutes his assessment of the impact of Gutenberg’s technological innovation: looking up from a printed book on his table to the stone edifice of the gothic cathedral visible through the window of his cell, Frollo laments, ‘alas, this will destroy that’” (Gunkel 278). This same question has been asked in relationship to most technologies that have followed or replaced other technologies; do the new technologies destroy the old? In reference to writing in New Media, this question can be asked in several different ways: Do the ways in which writing has transitioned to a predominantly digital medium destroy the older, non-digital media? Will the transition from the page as the dominant mode of communication to the screen as the dominant mode (Kress) result in the destruction of print culture? Or is that which would be destroyed not the technology itself, but the ability to use the technology? For example, in the case of archdeacon Frollo, the gothic cathedral has not been destroyed, but the artistry behind it has been lost.
If new technology “destroys” the artistry or skill sets required to utilize old technologies in any way other than as interesting artifacts, unique curiosities from a bygone era, or in the case of “old” technologies like the turntable, an appropriation into a new art form like turntablism (Johnson-Eilola; Rice), does it create something new in the vacuum that is created by the destruction of the old? As in the case of the art of turntablism forming out of the ashes of the “destruction” of the turntable as a media playback technology, is a new form of literacy created out of the destruction of the page as the dominant mode of communication?
Following the main question of “what will fill the vacuum created by New Media’s ‘destruction’ of the page as the dominant mode of communication?” I will be conducting research on oral cultures; non-traditional, dialogue-based forms of textual communication (such as instant messaging and texting); and dialogic interaction on community web sites (such as FaceBook and MySpace) to examine if the more dialogic, real-time interfaces of these text-based New Media communication technologies contribute to a culture based more on orality than traditional literacy (Ong). And if so, would an approach to composition and literacy education derived from more performance-based (theatrical) techniques be an effective methodology through which to leverage this shift to orality and incorporate it into composition pedagogy?
This paper will primarily serve as an exploratory exercise in preparation for designing a larger dissertation project in which I will study the intersections between composition/literacy pedagogy and performance art training. However, I intend to submit the completed paper to conferences and journals in order to further workshop this concept and solicit feedback in preparation for expanding the research to the dissertation-length project. As I am not entirely clear what my final thesis for this particular paper will be, I am not sure for which conferences and/or journals the paper would be best suited, but based on my initial ideas, I think the most appropriate venues would be College Composition and Communication, College English, Composition Studies, J.A.C., Journal of Teaching Writing, Writing on the Edge, and Written Communication.
Works Cited
Gunkel, David J. “What’s the Matter with Books?” Configurations 11 (2003): 277–303.
Johnson-Eilola, Johndan. Datacloud: Toward a New Theory of Online Work. New Jersey: Hampton Press, 2005.
Kress, Gunther. Literacy in the New Media Age. London, Routledge, 2003.
Ong, Walter J. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the World. London: Methuen, 1982.
Rice, Jeff. The Rhetoric of Cool: Composition Studies and New Media. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 2007.
Conor Shaw-Draves said this on October 30, 2008 at 2:51 am
I don’t have a title yet, am stumped
Title examines computer and other technology use in writing centers. Its purpose is to examine current discussions regarding technology and writing center theory in an attempt to theorize a need to move toward an implementation of computer technology in writing centers. Additionally, this move needs to theorize and examine technology use in practice, how technology intervenes and produces complex and exciting *** within tutors, tutees, and tutoring sessions. Writing center practitioners and tutors are challenged to explore—even reinvent—their roles as computer technologies transform centers and institutions. The move to implement computer technology within the field of rhetoric and composition, and thus, as a trickle effect, writing centers, has occurred so rapidly that center staff and administration, despite putting forth a strong effort, have not had much opportunity to study how and when to infuse computer technology.
While technology has been rapidly implemented within rhetoric and composition departments, the same cannot be said for writing center departments. And in fact, there is still unease and mistrust surrounding the integration of technology within the tutoring realm. Harris in “What’s Up and What’s In” has indicated that even recently, many writing centers have not adopted computers and t hose who have are not far beyond word processing and invention software. Some scholars directly challenge technological innovations in writing centers: Summerfield warned writing centers to be wary of technology: Watch out for computer terminals. Watch out for all evidence of attempts to break down the gathering of minds” (68).
Recently, scholars have worked to describe not just the possibilities of online tutoring, but also the actual dynamics of online tutoring work and how online tutors might best be trained. Online tutor offers diverse opportunities for tutors and tutees alike. Online tutoring offers ripe opportunities for collaboration and the transference of a tutor’s online psyche to that of face-to-face sessions. In other words, when trained to utilize specific forms of interaction and commenting within synchronous or asynchronous realms (such as open-ended, facilitative modes of comments and conversations that enable an ongoing conversation within the digital realm), tutors tend to internalize the aforementioned skills and apply them to their face-to-face sessions. Therefore, rather than stunting human, face-to-face interaction, online digital tutoring furthers the conversation in a more effective and profound way. Additionally, the collaborative essence of online tutoring encourages the transfer of knowledge and interaction between tutors and tutees alike. It is a gathering of minds rather than a “break down [of] the gathering of minds” (68).
Online mode of delivery necessitates a significant element of independent, individual, reading and reflection as well as collaboration. Additionaly, tutors need to be trained how to engage with tutees within a digital realm. Often, in the early stages of online tutoring, tutors tended to focus not so much on processes of learning but on the implementation of their own role as tutors, their performance within the new context of online tutoring. Yet, after instruction, practice, and collaboration, tutor thinking and discussion tutors were able to start identifying and facilitating tutee conversations and learning. Ultimately, adoption of technology for writing center work continues to be less of a choice and more of a requirement. Online tutoring holds enormous potential, yet it is an area that often focuses upon the shortcomings rather than the positive outcomes. Sound pedagogy is possible within online tutoring, and in fact, enhances the pedagogy of face-to-face tutoring when tutors are prepared for online environments through appropriate training that support online tutoring.
Research question: how do tutors and tutees interact with technology in a way that places agency not only within the human, but the non-human agents as well. In other words, how do humans and technology interact and effect change within human to human interaction; how does the interaction between technologies and tutors enable a richer human to human interaction?
I would like to use this paper for a conference as well as a possible chapter in my dissertation.
Jule said this on October 30, 2008 at 4:04 am
Wendy Duprey
Abstract: Technological Recordings of Mental Illness
Foucault writes in Mental Illness and Psychology that the historical constitution of “mental illness” or “the madman” in the nineteenth century reduced a person to the status of a minor, treated him as a child, and associated madness with guilt and wrongdoing. This external dimension of exclusion and punishment, combined with the internal dimension of moral assignation and guilt, as Foucault describes, links knowledge with forms of cruelty; thus, the power-relations that govern this knowledge creates a system surrounding mental illness that attempts to separate the ‘normal’ from the ‘abnormal.’ Current public images of ‘sanity’ and ‘insanity’ continue to perpetuate a rhetoric of ‘normal’ that systematically stigmatizes people with mental illness as dangerous, blameworthy, responsible for causing their illness, and subhuman. Avoidance and discrimination against people with mental illness are often perpetuated by the mass media through images and messages that misrepresent mental and behavioral conditions categorized as mentally ill. Rather, studies have shown that familiarity with mental illness, or contact with mental illness in some form, reduces fear and stigmatized reactions. Therefore, I would like to examine technological recordings of mental illness and evaluate which technological objects are promoting familiarity with mental illness in an effort to reduce discrimination and negative emotional reactions, and hence, replace the stigmatized depictions with fair and educated representations.
Sherry Turkle’s research and conversations about psychoanalysis and technology has influenced my thinking in relationship to objects and how our thinking is determined and influenced by the technologies we interact with (and thereby think with). Psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott’s theory about “transitional objects,” as Turkle references, “believes that during all stages of life we continue to search for objects we can experience as both within and outside the self” (Evocative Objects, 314). This search for objects can be extended to how we ‘normalize’ mental health and look to objects as concrete spaces for this ‘normalized’ definition, recognition, and verification of what constitutes and ultimately separates the ‘normal’ from the ‘abnormal.’ Ultimately, these objects can be examined, manipulated, and changed to promote and encourage new ways of thinking and meaning-making about ourselves, the mind, and mental illness.
Currently, I envision this paper to serve as a possible Master’s Essay project, or even as an exploratory essay that will be beneficial for potential dissertation research. I plan to use Foucault, Derrida, Lacan, and Turkle as theoretical sources for discussing mental illness discourse. Other sources, including objects of study, have not been finalized, but I’m interested in virtual realities that promote experiential understandings of mental illness for empathic social and therapeutic purposes.
Wendy Duprey said this on October 30, 2008 at 4:36 am
Although Gilles Deleuze is generally considered to be opposed to both dialectic and rhetoric in general, I am interested in drawing similarities between his work and those to whom he seems to be opposed: ancient Greek rhetoricians. While Deleuze tends to disavow the work of ancient Greek sophists, I intend to argue that this reception is based upon the Platonic and Aristotelian receptions of rhetoric as “cookery” and concerned with mere opinion and not transcendent truth. With the help of Peter Hallward, I will begin with a discussion of Deleuze’s conception of the virtual, the plane of immanence, and potentiality and work toward connecting his ideas to kairos and rhetoric as art in the Deleuzian sense: able to make sense out of chaos.
Furthermore, I hope to argue that Deleuze’s apparent disapproval of rhetoric is against only a particular sort of rhetoric: that of Aristotle, Plato, and their followers. By drawing connections between Deleuze’s work and those of Isocrates, Protagoras, and some Stoic philosophers, I hope to show that Deleuze can not only be useful for the study of rhetoric, but also a contemporary take on some key ancient rhetorical tenets, kairos in particular. By supplementing Deleuze’s texts with the work of Debra Hawhee, Kathleen Welch, and others, I hope to show the similarities between his definition of virtuality and the “virtual” of ancient Greece: the canon of invention and the reliance on kairotic time (as opposed to chronological time). Furthermore, by drawing on the work of Alain Badiou and Slavoj Zizek, I intend to show that it is not only Deleuze’s treatment of rhetoric that is misinformed, but also that Deleuze’s critics are similarly misguided in their treatment of his work. Ultimately, I hope that this work will serve to oppose (sophistic) rhetoric with (Platonic) philosophy and (Deleuzian) virtuality with the “new truthism” of Zizek and Badiou, respectively, while simultaneously connecting the two former and two latter terms.
On a practical note, my project will be organized into two sections: one based on an early work of Deleuze’s, The Logic of Sense; the other, What is Philosophy?, a later work co-written with Felix Guattari, with a more supplemental study of A Thousand Plateaus.
By dividing my study into two sections, I hope to show the evolution of Deleuze’s thought over time and to show that while Deleuze’s conception of the virtual may have changed during the course of his career, he can nonetheless be considered a rhetorician, in the best sense of the word.
I hope to use this project as a springboard to my master’s thesis, which will be more in-depth and branch out to include other terms imperative to a study of Deleuze: axiom, doxa, and prescription. Although I will be focusing mainly on Deleuze’s conception of the virtual in this study, I intend to extend my study to include sections on axioms, doxa, and prescription. While I likely will not focus on it explicitly, I intend to keep Deleuze’s arguments on capitalism in mind to connect him further with the practices of ancient Greek sophists.
Andrea Vought said this on October 30, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Sorry for the delay…I really meant to post this earlier. I am just without internet access at home.
The Political Animal and Animal Politics: Interspecies Relations, the Discourse of Human Singularity and Aristotle’s De Anima – By Derek Risse
Paulo Virno’s recent publication, Multitude: between Innovation and Negation reminds the reader that the issue of man’s singularity is at the very core of any serious political discourse. Though such a theory has its uses in divergent fields and contexts, Virno references a specific tradition of theorists concerned with differentiating the human from the non-human species that surround him. Amongst the most notable of such theorists are Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida, Cary Wolfe, Giorgio Agamben, and Mary Midgely. This text will work, following on Virno’s important lead, to engage each author’s importance to an understanding of man’s relation to the animal other, as well as each author’s centrality to a continuing discourse on this matter. Though the insights of such theorists are particularly illuminating, this essay is ultimately interested in specific textual absences and rifts that occur in each text.
Though the aforementioned theorists remain particularly attentive to the work of other academics, as is evidenced by the seemingly endless appendices and bibliographies that are attached to each work, these texts often disregard Aristotle’s distant though incredibly relevant discussions of man and animal. Though one could argue that Heidegger appropriates Aristotle’s emphasis on logos as a point of differentiation, and that Agamben and Derrida approach Aristotle by means of proximity, certain crucial and fundamental tenants of Aristotle’s work are essentially lost to more contemporary readings of man’s singularity. Here, this text will argue that it is necessary that current practices in critical theory enact an important turn back to one of the first real taxonomic approaches to this issue, Aristotle’s De Anima.
The necessity of turning back to Aristotle’s work is demonstrated both by his immediacy to the question of human singularity, as well as his invention (or at least codification) of the critical tools of this inquiry: taxonomy, ethics, and rhetoric. In essence, following on the work of Cary Wolfe, Mary Midgely, and others, this essay works towards an understanding of Aristotle’s process that will hopefully benefit improved human-human as well as human-non-human animal relations. Specifically, this essay works to understand what the method of taxonomy, certain ethical imperatives or directives, and, most importantly, rhetoric, can contribute to a better understanding of how we might improve the relationship between species. Returning to Rhetoric, this response will pay particular attention to the three types of rhetorical moves that Aristotle discusses. Then, demonstrating that current academics are concerned with what Aristotle refers to as deliberative rhetoric, this essay will argue, instead, for the importance of judicial rhetoric to the improvement of inter and extra-species relations.
Ultimately, both the topic of this essay and the argumentative methods that the essay draws upon are geared towards a specific audience. Within the approaching months, this work will be used as a submissions sample for graduate school. Considering that I plan on applying to a rhetoric and composition studies program, this essay must demonstrate an interest in and an understanding of the discipline, the rhetorical tradition, and the major theoretical underpinnings of the field. It is for this very reason that the paper works to address both popular contemporary work relating to the issue of human singularity, as well as many of the foundational texts of the cannon, namely those of Heidegger and Aristotle. Specifically, the audience will consist of members of various review boards at five to seven educational institutions – Penn State, University of Michigan, University of Texas (at Austin), the University of Illinois, and Clemson University. At each of these universities, there is the possibility that a successful writing sample could result in my receiving institutional funding in the form of fellowships or assistantships.
jargoncomputer said this on October 30, 2008 at 9:32 pm
Michael McGinnis
English 7065
Dr. J. Pruchnic
20 November 2008
Abstract
In Race, Rhetoric, and Technology, Adam Banks draws on Heidegger and Patricia Sullivan and Jeanie Dauterman to offer a definition of technology that opens up technological systems to critical inquiry. “. . . [M]ore than mere artifacts,” Banks writes, “technologies are the spaces and processes that determine whether any group of people is able to tell its own stories on its own terms, whether people are able to agitate and advocate for policies that advance its interests, and whether that group of people has any hope enjoying equal social, political, and economic relations” (10). This definition is useful precisely for the way it connects systematicity to technicity; all technologies, Banks implies, are political systems.
This is an important realization, for thinking technicity qua systematicity is a powerful critical heuristic that might be used to expose the mechanics of technological power in systems not normally thought of as technology; in Banks’ own work he cites blankets coded with signals to slaves escaping on the Underground Railroad as an example of such technological systems. However, while Banks gives us a way to think technology, his work does not clearly offer a critical heuristic for interrogating technology.
In this essay, then, I want to pair Banks’ definition of technology with Stuart Selber’s work on digital multiliteracies to theorize a heuristic for conducting such critical and post-critical interventions into technology. In each of the forms of literacy that Selber argues for, computing, information, and communication software is understood not as discrete, value-neutral artifacts but as bound inescapably to questions of access and power: “What is lost as well as gained? Who profits? Who is left behind and for what reasons? What is privileged in terms of literacy and learning and cultural capital? What political and cultural values and assumptions are embedded in hardware and software” (81)? Trying to think Banks and Selber together might point to a way of theorizing technology that works to uncover its own systematicity, in a way that prevents the occlusion of political and economic interests by insisting on a multivalent literacy that not just employs technology but employs it in a way that makes it always already available to critique.
In particular, I am interested in using this critical heuristic to read critiques of the so-called “corporate university.” A series of tropes dominates the literature on the corporate university: productivity, commodification, and instrumentality. Introducing the collection Beyond the Corporate University, Henry Giroux, for example, describes the move toward the corporate university as an attempt to “instrumentalize reason and commodify knowledge” (2). Similarly, Catharine R. Stimpson notes “its defenders see the corporate university as the productive integration of the university and the corporation” (33). “Such rhetoric,” Stimpson contends, “thus attaches the corporate university to one of the university’s historic roles: to be socially useful” (32). Stimpson here provides the cue for my project’s raison d’etre. The tropes of productivity, commodification, and instrumentality are yoked to a master trope of utility; that is, the question of the corporate university is at heart a question of how the university should be used (and here it is worth noting that both Stimpson and Stanley Aronowitz cite Clark Kerr’s The Uses of the University, the 1964 text which established the project of the modern corporate university).
For critics of the corporate university, the question of utility is paramount. And though I share their apprehension about an encroaching corporate mentality in the academy, my interest in this project lies less in joining their argument than it is in reading their argument as way to understand the technological systematicity of the university. Above all, what the critics of the corporate university fear is the subsumption of the humanist project of the university to the technorational project of the corporate university. What this means, then, is that the question of utility itself indicates that the struggle over the meaning and purpose of the university it, at base, a technological struggle.
Thinking the university as technology, I will argue, is dependent upon a critical heuristic that allows us to make sense of the various stakeholders and investments (here metaphoric and literal) involved in funding, administrating, and working within the complex system of the modern university. Together, Banks and Selber provide such a heuristic and in this project it is my intent to use their work to provide a (meta-)critique not of the corporate university itself so much as the critical responses to the perceived technological crisis it embodies.
Annotated Bibliography
Aronowitz, Stanley. The Knowledge Factory: Dismantling the Corporate University and Creating True Higher Learning. Boston: Beacon Press, 2000.
Banks, Adam J. Race, Rhetoric, and Technology: Searching for Higher Ground. NCTE-LEA Research Series in Literacy and Composition. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2005. Banks argues that the trope of the “Digital Divide” must be understood solely as a starting point for African American relationships to technology. For Banks, the Digital Divide focuses the question of Black technology use strictly on questions of access, and in so doing serves to obscure other important questions such as how technology both uses and is used by Blacks to create narratives of Black experience. In this, although Banks does take critical interest in digital technologies, his definition of technology takes up broader concerns of Black rhetorical production, in both old media (slave quilts, jeremiads) and new (the BlackPlanet website), to argue for a rethinking of access that is not limited to the question of how many computers are in a given classroom. Banks’ work here informs my own in a number of ways. First, his definition of technology is intimately tied to questions of utility and production, and as I argue above, these are two tropes that are central to the corporate university debate. Second, his argument for a layered concept of access provides some ways to think about how the corporate university restricts and allows access to higher education.
Giroux, Henry A. “Critical Education or Training: Beyond the Commodification of Higher Education.” Giroux and Myrsiades 1-12. This essay introduces a collection of pieces critical of the corporate university. In it, Giroux works to establish the stakes of the argument. Giroux argues that the influence of capital and commercialism in the academy is more than just a threat to tradition; rather, it is a threat to the university’s historical role in cultivating a critical citizenry and, in that sense, the corporate university is a threat to democratic values themselves. For Giroux, the answer to the corporate university crisis is pedagogy: specifically, a critical, transformative pedagogy that works to interrogate the forms of knowledge production in practice across the university in order to make those practices open to critique and democratic intervention. For my interest, Giroux is useful for the way he describes the stakes of this debate; while his reading is not as extreme as Aronowitz’s, for example, Giroux’s condemnation of the corporate university as an assault on democratic values is nevertheless a dramatic one. Moreover, Giroux ties the crisis to political questions of “ownership, access and governance” on the one hand, and “histories, memories, and narratives” on the other (7). In these two sets of concerns, I read clear overlaps with the work of Selber and Banks, which suggests that the critical heuristic I am interested in theorizing might indeed find purchase here.
Giroux, Henry A. and Kostas Myrsiades, eds. Beyond the Corporate University: Culture and Pedagogy in the New Millenium. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001.
Holbrook, Morris P., and James M. Hulbert. “What Do We Produce in the ‘Knowledge Factory’ and for Whom?” Rev. of The Knowledge Factory: Dismantling the Corporate University and Creating True Higher Learning, by Stanley Aronowitz. Journal of Consumer Affairs 36.1 (2002): 99-114. The authors, marketing professors at Columbia’s Graduate School of Business, survey some dominant tropes of the corporate university debate in their review of Aronowitz. They also note that the influence of careerism and consumerism has been evident even (especially?) in schools of business, in the conduct and performance of both faculty (often over-worked adjuncts and part-timers) and students (who enter business school seeking little more than career credentials). From their reading of Aronowitz and other critics of the corporate ethos in the academy, they extrapolate four metaphors that are indicative of the way different theories of the university understand and interpolate students: as producer, product, customer, or channel. This essay is valuable for a number of reasons. First, it indicates that the corporate university is of concern to scholars and academic beyond the humanities and social sciences (from which many critiques of the corporate university have come, perceiving a threat to the not-easily-commodifiable knowledge they produce). Second, the student-as metaphors they extrapolate could be useful in connection to Bank’ idea of technology’s link to the production of narratives about a people’s or culture’s history and meaning (here I assume that each metaphor encapsulates a narrative about the use of the university). Finally, it points to tropes of the corporate university debate that bear some overlap with those I suggest above.
Miscamble, Wilson D. “The Corporate University: A Catholic Response.” America Magazine 195.3 (31 July-7 Aug 2006): 14-17. Miscamble surveys several major critiques of the corporate university and evaluates the Catholic university’s response to the crisis. Although he notes that the influence of financial benefactors has long been an influnce on the conduct of American universities, Miscamble argues that what makes the current debate unique is the rapidity with which consumerism and commercialism have become operating principles of the contemporary institution. Miscamble sees these effects having a trickle-down function, from the administrators and governors who solicit and pursue corporate monies, to the solipsistic faculty, to the careerist student body. Catholic universities have a unique opportunity to fight against these forces, Miscamble suggests, by working to fulfill their historical commitment to a moral truth greater than vocational or career training. This essay is useful both for its condensed history of the American university’s relationship with financial interests and for Miscamble’s suggestion (similar to that of Giroux above) that the crisis presented by the corporate university is a social justice problem, but one that can be tackled through pedagogical imperatives.
Myrick, Florence. “Pedagogical Integrity in the Knowledge Economy.” Nursing Philosophy 5 (2004): 23-9. Myrick contends that the forces of globalization and corporatism have disrupted education’s traditional program of personal enrichment, instead directing the university to become an agent of economic production. Myrick locates this disruption not only in a shift in institutional organization but also in the changing pedagogical missions of particular disciplines from moral and civic instruction to vocational professionalization. This poses particular problems for faculty in the professional disciplines (like Myrick, a professor of nursing at the University of Alberta), because while professional advancement depends on participation in corporate structures of tenure and promotion, such faculty often of necessity must sacrifice teaching in professional (here clinical) settings (while such posts are then filled by adjunct or part-time faculty). Myrick argues that moral pedagogy can serve as a safeguard, protecting the values of the profession while instructing students in critical awareness of the relationships between humane and corporate philosophies. Like the Holbrook and Hulbert essay above, Myrick’s essay underscores that the corporate university crisis is not one that impacts the humanities alone, and (like Giroux and Miscamble) calls for a pedagogical response to the crisis.
Selber, Stuart A. Multiliteracies for a Digital Age. Studies in Writing and Rhetoric. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois UP, 2004.
Simon, Roger I. “The University: A Place to Think?” Giroux and Myrsiades 45-56. Simon begins by admitting that the social form of the university is in flux (including, in part, the decline of the humanities in favor of fields of study that serve as career preparation), but that the issues raised by these changes cannot be settled in the abstract. Nevertheless, Simon argues for the importance of an idea of the university, not as an absolute, but as “an organizing logic for work in one’s institution.” Drawing on the work of Bill Readings, Simon describes three alibis, or narratives of justification, for the university: one in which the university stands apart from the mundane world, one in which the university open opportunities to access wealth and social capital, and one in which the university works to prepare students for critical citizenship. Simon rejects these alibis in favor of one in which the university is not cast the heroic savior of its students (whether socially or economically) but as a social engagement through which people think together Such a conception, Simon argues, insists on a sense of mutual responsibility and accountability shared throughout the university community. Simon’s use of the “alibi” here, in the sense of a narrative of rationalization and justification, yields some interesting overlap with my understanding of Banks’ argument about technology shaping cultural narratives. In addition, Simon’s trope of an “organizing logic” will be a valuable way to explain, in some sense, what is produced by thinking through the critical heuristic I am arguing for.
Stimpson, Catharine R. “Asserting Our ‘Brand.’” Change 38.4 (July/Aug 2006): 30-5. Stimpson argues that the “corporate university” of contemporary critique differs both from the human resources training academies of corporations (like McDonald’s Hamburger University) and from privately held for-profit institutions. Stimpson calls attention to the fact that whereas critics of the corporate university tend to offer their critiques in rather heated language, defenders of the system are much more commonsensical in their arguments. Stimpson’s point is especially relevant, for she admits some ambivalence about the corporate university; though she is sympathetic to critiques of the corporate university, she is also, as a dean and administrator, keenly aware of the necessity of continued funding. From this perspective, Stimpson acknowledges that corporate and industrial funding has granted research universities some stability to pursue research and education; still, Stimpson ends with a call for several changes to university practice in order to temper the corporate influence, such as changes to graduate pedagogy, a renewed commitment to financial aid, and an enhanced ethic of service in the professoriate and administration. Stimpson’s essay is valuable for my interest for it presents, at least it in part, a counter-narrative to the one of utter debasement present in many corporate university critiques. At the same time, she argues for ways to address the crisis of the corporate university while avoiding the absolutist utopianism of some of the more extreme critics.
Walton, John. “Would the Real Corporate University Please Stand Up?” Journal of European Industrial Training 29.1 (2005): 7-20. Walton proposes to use an empirical study to determine whether traditional universities have become more commercialized and corporate in the way they justify their programs. To do so, he compares the occurrence of key terms in university mission statements to those found in similar statements from actual corporate universities, i.e., institutions established by proprietary corporate interests for the purposes of employee or organizational development. Walton’s study finds that while there exists some overlap between the key terms used by research and corporate universities, the terms do not appear with equal frequency nor are they employed the same in context; for Walton, this suggests that despite the urgency of critics, there is little evidence that the traditional university has been co-opted by corporate interests. This essay presents an interesting counterclaim to the critiques of critics like Aronowitz and Giroux, even if the empirical methodology employed here does not seem to fully answer the grounds of their analyses. For my interests, this essay best serves to clarify what is meant by “corporate university” (even if just to acknowledge the metaphoric and perhaps hyperbolic nature of the description) as it stands in comparison to “official” corporate institutions.
mlmcginnis said this on November 20, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Creative Inklings: Writing Through New Media – Valerie Allen –
Abstract and Annotated Bibliography
Abstract –
There has been a well documented achievement gap between urban and suburban students. The correlation between the amount of reading and writing a student does between the ability a student has. Unfortunately, the achievement gap between urban and suburban children of the children has been growing. Often minority children of lower economic status function at significantly lower reading and writing comprehension levels and are not prolific writers. This, in combination with the existence of the digital divide has in turn causes a significant achievement gap in the abilities of students in educationally impoverished districts.
To combat this issue, it is imperative that educators of urban youth develop pedagogically strong, innovative, technologically savvy, and engaging writing programs that address the problems of this achievement gap. From work begun in the National Writing Project using writer’s notebooks as a tool for engaging young writers in composition, I have developed a grant-funded writer’s workshop program that addresses the needs of the apprentice writer in at-risk communities. The program stands on two philosophies. The first philosophy is that the more prolific a writer, the better the writer becomes. The second is that students who have experience writing in the digital realm are armed with better toolboxes for the types of writing they will encounter in the post-secondary classrooms that teachers of secondary education are preparing them for. The idea attempts to bridge the digital divide by creating digital writing spaces for students explore writing in both collaborative and independent projects in a variety of medias that mimic the use of the writer’s notebook. The students use a combination of a standard print media writer’s notebook and an online writing space for the creation of digital media.
In Lucy Calkins’s text, Living between the Lines, she makes a clear case for the validity of the writer’s notebook as a tool for assisting writers with improving the content of writing. According to Calkins, “When writers carry notebooks everywhere, the notebooks nudge us to pay attention to the little moments that normally flicker into our consciousness” (43). The notebook helps writer’s to draw from experience with a more critical eye. Students in the program begin with a writer’s notebook to collect ideas for writing and begin the process of writing through brainstorming and drafting. The notebook is used both inside and outside of the camp setting as a private writing space for students to grow and seed initial ideas without the critical eye of the outside reader.
The online environment functions as an extension of the camp (un)classroom. The main page of the site is the digital classroom, which houses public rooms for a variety of writing activities and source materials, and models of the writing process. This shared space houses a page for collaborative writing activities, writing lessons, links to writing information, and a place to publish writing. From this main site, online writer’s notebooks branch off where apprentice writers craft writing projects. Digital notebooks house their lists, ideas, works in progress, and finished projects. In this space, apprentice writers can communicate with writing instructors in a safe environment, receiving assistance and feedback on their progress.
The results of this program will be an on/offline published anthology of student writing where students can share their accomplishments with their family, friends, and community. In addition to validating the accomplishments of the writers, the publication gives writing purpose for the writers.
From the experience, student writers will gain new methods and strategies for future compositions. Their experience working with the notebooks will help them to increase writing fluency and quality. The online environment and writing activities will expose students to a space for composition and familiarity with the types of digital media they will be utilizing in their future post-secondary compositions. The program will serve as a model for other educators who wish to implement similar programs in their districts.
Works Cited
Calkins, Lucy. Living between the Lines. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1991.
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Bibliography
Autrey, Ken. “Toward a Rhetoric of Journal Writing.” Rhetoric Review, Vol. 10, No. 1 (Autumn, 1991): 74-90.
The article is an argument for the viability of journal writing in the composition classroom and explores the rhetorical nature of this type of writing. THe article sites the viability of the journal as a form of literatrue and discusses the uses of keeping one as a component of a classroom.
The article begins with a brief history of the journal as a commonplace book and diary, both in ancient days and in the modern era. Autrey spends considerable time reviewing the literary value of these texts and the purposes of their composition. He and his students discuss the public and private nature of these books and examine how authors have used the journal in the past.
After studying the past use of the journal, Autrey moves into the rhetorical analysis of the journal. He and his students, he notes, have arrived at a conclusion that journal writing, and other forms of composition, adhere to four standards. These are that the journal has many genres that are grown from “historical conventions,” the history of the journal has “political implications,” the history of the journal “illuminates the challenge of defining an audience for personal writing,” and history “provides an new way of viewing the relationship between process and product” (80-81). He explores these standards in greater depth.
My interest in this paper is the history and uses of the journal by previous authors. I would like to provide the students with information and examples of various important historical and emerging authors. I also think it is important to model the various uses of the journal and go into some depth about the public and private spaces of the journal. The research about the public and private spaces also will help me support my attempt to provide both a public and private space for the students through the implementation of a digital and nondigital writer’s notebook (journal).
Calkins, Lucy. Living Between the Lines. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1991.
Living between the Lines is one of the more important texts for elementary teachers on the subject of writing. Although targeted for younger writers, the philosophy, anecdotes, experience, advice, and lessons are adaptable to all teachers interested in holding writing workshops and the student writers they serve. Calkins is more interested in fostering writers’ growth than in assessing their writing. Her workshops builds on the Process Pedagogy. In a positive environment that encourages student the flow of ideas, her students compose their stories through narratives, or memoirs. Students weigh each part of the process with equal importance and slide from one to another in nonchronologically in the compositions of their narratives. She encourages spontaneous composition and warns against over revision that could squash originally quality writing that suffered a fate of overanalyzing. Teachers are encouraged to observe their students, while participating in the writing process and honing their own literacy skills. All writers in the workshop share their writing through peer sharing and publishing.
Calkins has a refreshing and positive outlook into the initial exposure that young writers need in composition to foster a lifelong love of writing while aiding students to improve their fluency of literacy. I find that her work echoes the teachings of Peter Elbow, encouraging the positive nature of composition while focusing on improving through quantity. Although I do disagree that assessment ought to take a backburner in composition education, I certainly understand the reason this is utilized with the newest of writers. Like training toddlers to help with chores, it simply cannot be done without introducing the enjoyment factor initially. What I find to be useful to the implementation of my program is her approach to writing. Writing in a Calkins-like writing workshop is as independent and rich as the students’ own lives. Their notebooks are rooted in their own experiences, thoughts, and preference. I would like for the writing my students do in the program to reflect this kind of openness.
Close, Elizabeth, Ed. and Katherine, D., Ed. Ramsey. “A Writer’s Notebook: A Place to Think.” A Middle Mosaic: A Celebration of Reading, Writing, and Relective Practice at the Middle Level. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 2000. 80-84.
The selection is composed of a variety of articles constructing a larger documet of resources. The article of most interst to my project is oe written by Janet Angellio and Anna Danon Reduce entitles “The Writer’s Notebook: A Place to Think” (80-84). The article introduces the tool of the writer’s notebook to educators as a a method of teaching the writing process in the classroom in which assists students in their critical thinking processes. Students examine their writing as a method of drawing connections or expanding origional ideas. The notebook enables the apprentice writer to ponder topics with greater depth while utilizing a variety of perspectives. The authors feel that notebooks enable students to hone their skills in observation as they sort through powerful ideas, making it easier to cope with these ideas as they struggle to understand them. The notebook, while not used as a method of therapy, is encouraged as a tool for research and writing development, a bridge for interconnectedness. The authors pose questions for apprentice writers to consider in hopes of assisting them in their development in order to develop more conscious writing that is more focused and directed.
The tool is one that they hope can be utilized in an educational setting across the disciplines in order to explore material more thoroughly while developing their writing skills in all subject matters. They offer examples of how to use writer’s notebooks in academic subjects other than English.
Although the article is targeted to middle level students, the material helps to clarify the validity of the tool. The uses of the writer’s notebook as a writing methodology can help young writers sort through complex ideas as they expand on them through various writing strategies. As a tool for teaching the writing process, it is invaluable. It helps students to assess their thoughts through reflection and use the prewriting of their notebook as a foundation for future work. The relevance to the emotional and critical thinking elements of the text has particular importance for at risk students who may not have seen writing as a method of sorting ideas in a nontraditional way. It improves writing through the sheer exposure to the ideas explored and the various methods of composition explored.
Culham, Ruth. 6+1 Traits of Writing: The Complete Guide Grades 3 and Up. New York, NY: Scholastic, 1995.
One of the most important texts of the modern teacher’s pedagogical collection, 6 + 1 Traits of Writing, is a powerful model for teaching composition that applies to any proficiency level of writing ability. The 6 + 1 method examines writing through the use of ideas, sentence fluency, organization, word choice, voice, conventions. The +1 component is the addition of presentation.
The method of composition instruction lays out a clear rubric for what components create the best modeled example of each component. Students easily understand the individual components of each of the six steps. Models and lessons are provided for instructional lessons in each area and a large appendix provides reproducible for immediate classroom implementation.
Fletcher, Ralph and JoAnn Portalupi. Writing Workshop: The Essential Guide. Portmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2001.
A foundational text on writing workshop, Ralph Fletcher and JoAnn Portalupi create a sound argument for the implementation of this methodology of composition instruction and a solid structure for program development that includes all of the essentials of writing workshop development. The twelve chapters of the text walk a curriculum program director or educator through the elements of the program.
The text begins with a definition of the writing workshop program. Writing workshop runs differently than a prefabricated topic-driven format. Student writers are given the time, space, and creative freedom to write on topics they wish. Students are taught the essentials of planning through short-term goal setting.
Later chapters walk the instructor through the process of implementing a writing workshop program and running the program. The initial program implementation is the most important step in setting the tone of the program. The method used by the instructor during those first few weeks for setting the program tone is what makes a workshop one that will run efficiently. The text offers tip in how to teach young writers how to confer with one another and how to initiate a cyclical pattern of writing through the use of process oriented writing. Literature is used in the workshop as a model of genre standards for the young writers to attempt to emulate.
The final chapters deal with more standard issues of writing courses. One addresses the skills that ought to be addressed in the writing workshop. There is a chapter on how to assess and evaluate student writing in a workshop setting and another on how to troubleshoot for problems as they arise.
The summer writing camp that I am developing is a writing workshop program. I plan on using the framework provided by the authors of this text for initial program development and program structure.
Fracareta, Pamela and Deborah J. Phillips. “Working with a Writer’s Notebook.” The English Journal, Vol. 89, No. 6 (Jul., 2000): 105-113.
The article, “Working with a Writer’s Notebook,” defines the value of utilizing this tool in the classroom to improve student writing. After providing a succinct definition of what a writer’s notebook is, the authors explain their philosophical and project based draw from Nancy Atwell’s Voices in the Middle, Lucy Calkins’ Living between the Lines, and Ralph Fletcher’s Breathing In, Breathing Out.
Their use of the writer’s notebook as a fledgling program was mapped out from its very beginning. Students’ progress was studied, and the authors provided examples of various student’s progress and models of student work. Highlighted were student’s who initially struggled with the concept and their growth and progressed were shown through examples and anecdotes.
The results at the end of the first year of implementation were positive. The significant growth mapped in children of varying levels was impressive and I am tempted to implement their program in my regular classroom. They had great success with improving the richness of context and liberation of voice in the composition of their students. Writing improved in quality, quantity, and fluency. These are all vital qualities in proficient academic writers and skills I want to develop in my campers.
Hamblin, Lynda. “Voices in the Junior High School Classroom: Lost and Found.” The English Journal, Vol. 90, No. 1, Teaching Writing in the Twenty-First Century (Sep., 2000): 80-87.
The article is a personal journey of an eighth grade English instructor who was trying to find the best method for teaching her students how to write well. After researching scholarly journals and texts to help teachers to become better writing instruction, she developed a sound philosophy that nurtured the young writer through the creation of a positive environment that fostered learning and growth.
She walks the reader through several of the projects that she developed to circulate her instruction around. Her students wrote tribute papers, multigenre papers, read and retell papers, letter writing activities, cross-curricular poetry. Students were given the liberty to select their own topics within the composition framework provided, were given the freedom to formulate their ideas, chose the audience and form, test out writing on their peers, and take ownership of their writing.
The positive results that Hamblin achieved with her students have made me eager to attempt some of these projects she has developed with my writing students. I am looking forward to revaluating my philosophy and composing the philosophy of the program. Hamblin’s philosophy of composition closely matches my own and I may borrow some of it when creating one for the camp.
Johnson-Eiola, Johndan. Datacloud. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, Inc., 2005.
The way that Johnson-Eiola introduces the datacloud idea is to paint a picture of technological waves of information that could potentially drown a person and that man has adapted to this over stimuli by processing information differently. The postmodern man takes bits and pieces of information from multiple locations and mashes it together into a collage of ideas and thoughts. The extra information is discarded to save room for more information that serves a higher value in the hierarchy if what is necessary. Johnson-Eiola attempts in his text, Datacloud, to show how people have adapted to this way of managing information through his examples of people who utilize this type of cutting and pasting of information in their daily work.
The text is useful in my research for the development of my program in how it theorizes how the younger generations process the data of their environment. If the brain of the younger generation has adapted to the overload of information, then it is important to think about how this might change the way in which information is processed. If students do indeed process information differently now then they did in previous generations, it is important to reevaluate the methodology of our pedagogical approach. This text helps me to conceptualize and argue for the viability of a program utilizing new media in the program I am developing.
Kutz, Eleanor. “Authority and Voice in Student Ethnographic Writing.” Anthropology & Education Quarterly, Vol. 21 (Dec., 1990): 340-57.
Kutz ponders in her article the idea of what makes academic ethnographic research a valuable tool in educational data collection and for enriching student composition. She discusses Fredrick Erickson’s original article on the topic from 1972. Ethnographic writing, because of it’s objective nature, enables the writer / researcher to examine an idea through a myriad of perspectives. She finds it to be valuable as a method to “foster conscious learning…and to provide critical perspective on the classroom culture for teachers and students” (343). She uses it to learn more about her students and to help them find their “author’s voice.” It enables the student to be able to compose out of experience and understanding.
Of particular note was her study of academically challenged writers and their use of ethnographic writing. She found that ethnographic research and writing aided her case student, as well as others, to find voice in writing, one that had been previously suppressed. “You can hear the student’s presence” in his writing (354). The narrative nature of ethnographic writing enable the use of individual voice in ways not fostered in previous writing experiences. It gave the inner-city student, challenged by the adversities of his environment, a way of working “within this setting” (350).
The students that will populate the writing program I am developing are like those of the case studies from the article who suffer from adverse environments and have had limited success with composition in the past. The students in the program will be already interested in composition and becoming writers, but may have not had the same background or ability to develop the same skill sets as those in more privileged environments. The sue of ethnographic writing will allow the students the opportunity to study their own environment and think about it in new ways, thus enriching their writing and enabling them to find their voice.
Lane, Barry. After THE END: Teaching and Learning Creative Revision. Portsmouth, NJ: Heinemann, 1993.
After THE END: Teaching and Learning Creative Revision is Barry Lane’s latest text targeted for the secondary educator as a tool for teaching the writing process to composition students. The book is a sourcebook specifically designed to work with the revision process. The text is divided into two parts. The first part focuses on crafting language in writing and the second with the struggle of a writer in the composition process. Each section offers chapters focusing on a certain element of quality writing and revision strategies. The chapters define each element with quality examples and models for the students from examples from the Lane’s own teaching and from published work from known and unknown authors. There are interesting and motivating lessons for teachers to use in the classrooms to assist students with their own composition.
The first part of the book is entitled “Creating a Language of Craft.” There are eight chapters that deal with enriching student text through guided lessons and examples. The first chapter is entitled “Good writing is good question.” This chapter deals with what Lane calls “growing leads.” It uses ideas to foster ideas for creating research queries and offers lessons on how to make writing more informative for a reader through the incorporation of richer details after the initial draft has been written. The lead questions are meant to assist the writer in thinking like the reader may think. The second chapter, “More than Wallpaper,” is about using details to develop meaning and focus. The third chapter, “Snapshots and Thoughtshots,” focuses on creating powerful image “snapshots” that leave lasting impressions on the reader and “thoughtshots” that convey to the audience what the writer or character is actually thinking or feeling. The forth chapter, “Don’t Make a Scene, Build One!,” teaches students how to balance dialogue with description. The fifth chapter, “Explode a Moment and Shrink a Century,” reflects on how time can be utilized effectively in composition and how the writer can manipulate time to make the content of the selection have greater impact. The sixth chapter, “Friction or Nonfriction,” offers strategies for assisting students with the form and organization of their texts. He offers alternative methods of looking at the way a writer can look at the organization. The seventh chapter, “Don’t Fix My Story, Just Listen to Me,” teaches educators how to best approach student conferences and how to teach students how to best utilize peer conferencing sessions. THe final chapter of this section, “Re-Entering a Draft,” discusses the use of space in drafts and how important it is that students give ample room in their document for revision. It also talks about how to best approach long stories while revising and how to include pictures . The chapter concludes with ways to praise writer’s with their writing and how to assess papers without making the page bleed.
The second section of the text, “The Writer’s Struggle,” assists educator’s in moving student writer’s through the challenge of the revision process. The ninth chapter, “But What if I Can’t Freewrite,” talks about approaching revision as a personal process. Every student revises as differently as they writer. It is vital to show students that they can use the tools taught to them through their teachers as parts of their tool kit. The way they use those tools is a personal preference. It also talks about the importance of a composition teacher who writes. In chapter ten, “See Dick Revise. Revise, Dick, Revise,” offers lessons for teaching revision through the use of Basal readers. The texts, although great for teaching new readers, are poorly composed. Students use these texts to practice revising sentences and adding additional details to enrich the text. Lane also takes a moment to address the importance of offering student choice in both reading and writing. The issue of choice leads Lane into his next chapter, Voice and Choice,” that deals with the importance of nurturing the use of voice and tone in student writing. Chapter twelve, “I Probably Shouldn’t Hand This to an English Teacher, ” offers ways to encourage students to understand the risk of writing that all writers take. Chapter thirteen, “Words in Collision,” is a chapter devoted to the revision of poetry. Chapter fourteen, “Befriending the Language,” gives strategies for grammar revision. Chapters fifteen, “When is it Dine?,” and sixteen, “The Writing Doctor,” talk about the creation of editing centers in the classroom and indexes other common writing ailments.
This text has proven to be an invaluable source for the planning of lessons for writing revision for the camp. The models and activities provided can be adapted as is to teach my apprentice writers how to make their writing come alive. I plan on adapting parts of all of the chapters to teach revision to the students. Revision, I have found, is the part of the writing process that students struggle with the most. They often spend all of their time and energy into the creation of the initial draft and know very little about how to make improvements. That is where this text will come in handy in developing my online lessons, peer editing page, and informational pages for students to use.
—. But How Do You Teach Writing?: Simple Guide for All Teachers. New York, NY: Scholastic, 2008.
This second text of Barry Lane was an earlier work that is targeted to all elementary and secondary educators who teach composition in the classroom in any subject matter. The text favors the writing workshop method of approaching writing and offers countless activities and methods of approaching writing with students.
The text begins with a brief introduction into Lane’s history as an educator and his philosophy of teaching. He believes writing ought to be functional, exciting, and engaging for both the writer as well as the reader. He introduces the educator to his “Laws of Literacy” and uses them as a foundation for all of the activities of the text. The rest of the text is divided into three sections, dealing with prewriting, drafting, and refining.
The first section of the text restructures how an educator may approach writing in the classroom and helps them to see the approach that he has found to be the most effective, writing through play. The first five chapters of the text are in this section. They focus on the importance of a writing teacher that enjoys writing; offing time, space and choice to have real writing occur; creating a question culture through writing; the use of a writer’s notebook; and running a writer’s workshop. Many of Lane’s ideas about workshop writing reflects the influences of Ralph Fletch and JoAnn Portalupi’s foundational text Writing Workshop: The Essential Guide.
The second section focuses on giving students reasons to write. This three chapters of this section off lessons in narrative composition, genre, use of gender, and literacy “without boarders.” This section stresses the importance of creating lively and engaging text in any subject matter and offers guided activities for teaching students how to compose a text for any purpose that ensnares a reader’s attention.
The final section of the text deals with the art of revision. A smaller version of his later text, reviewed above, Lane stresses the importance of this part of the writing process. He offers methods of approaching the revision process with students that communicates the importance of finding “ah ha” moments in text and looking at grammar in a context that is enjoyable. This section also offers methods for assessing student work in a manner that works more efficiently for educators and students.
The text is mine of valuable ideas and approaches for teaching writing that vary vastly from the dull, old, and overused standards of composition lessons that have killed the enthusiasm of student writers for generations. What parts are of particular use to me for my project are those sections called “Try This.” These little interludes offer countless exciting and engaging activities that instructors can use in the classroom. I plan on pulling out several of these activities and implementing them into the lessons of the summer camp.
Miron, Louis F. and Mickey Laurin. “Student Voices as Agency: Resistance and Accomidation in Inner-City Schools.” Anthropology & Education Quarterly, Vol. 29, No. 2 (Jun., 1998): 189-213.
The article is a case study of two inner-city educational facilities. The first is an all African-American populated lower-to-middle-class city wide school with rigorous admissions standards. The second school is a racially diverse institution with students from a single lower class neighborhood. The authors use data collected from these institutions to study identity politics and the presence of collective resistance stemming from a silencing of voice.
The text looks closely at the roots of this resistance in everyday life and school work. The perceptions of social relations in the classroom are examined from the student-teacher relations, the gossip of teachers, and student-to-student relations. With this understanding, it becomes easier to interpret student voice in the classroom, while making it possible for student’s to connect to the outside world in a meaningful way. If it is understood where the roots of their animosity for a white majority come from and how it is they have been silences, it is possible to avoid this in the classroom and to encourage the use of once silenced voices.
The text is useful in the argumentation for the validity of the program I am developing. The students who will be participating in this program come from situations similar to the information presented from the case studies of both institutions. The implementation of a writing program that allows students to write in both public and private spheres, that encourages student voice, and publication is what is lacking in this district. The writing camp is designed as a place that empowers them and grants them the right to be heard in the same way that their privileges white suburban counterparts are accustomed.
Ogbu, John U. “Variability in Minority School Performance: A problem in Search of an Explaination.” Anthropology & Education Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 4, Explaining the School Performance of Minority Students (Dec., 1987): 312-334.
The article is an anthological study of minority education, school performance of minority students, and microethnography. It spends time examining previous historical approaches to research in educational anthropology, and the author theorizes about the connections to poor performance , the structure of opportunity made available to the minority student (or lack thereof), and the perception of the community members and their response to their community schools.
The text begins with the historical implications of past studies about the minority student and how he is “culturally” disadvantages due to “discontinuities” and “culture conflicts” (313). Although the author admits that his hypothesis does not exactly follow along these historical lines, his research is connected. He focuses in on the community connection and response to the failure of their minority children and the experiences the community has within the structure. He discusses the social forces that effect minority school performance, such as the job ceiling and failure to provide equitable education to minority students. He defines the minority student in several ways: autonomous minorities (numerical minorities), immigrant minorities, and castelike or involuntary minorities (those brought to this country through slavery) – all of whom I serve in the district and will participate in the writing camp. He then follows these definitions through an in depth study of the specific characteristics of the minority student: cultural differences, social or collective identity, folk theory of “making it” and “survival strategies” common to minorities, and the degree of trusting relations. These definitions help cultural outsiders (members of the oppressive white ruling class) understand the commonalities and status of these particular groups while making clear the oppressive hindrances to equitable levels of education, social status, and economical accessibility. His conclusions offer insight into possible approaches to adjusting education through understanding of the minority student and creation of an educational system that encourages the students while replacing the cultural identity of the “oppressors” through quality learning and attention.
The article supports the thesis logically, clearly, and succinctly with sound data collected during the author’s ethnographic studies of urban minority school children and their communities. The data is particularly useful in my understanding of the plight of the students that I serve. The section covering the societal and school contributions to the problems that minority students have in education are especially thought provoking and eye-opening. With a better understanding of the social implications of a system that oppresses rather than liberates minorities through inadequate education, I can better serve my students by creating an environment free from these pressures while offering a more liberating social structure.
Wysocki, Anne Frances, et al. Writing New Media: Theory and Applications for Expanding the Teaching of Composition. Logan, UT: Utah State University Press, 2004.
Writing New Media is a text written to assist the collegiate writing instructor in understanding the dynamics of the new field of compositions studies in relation to the explosion of new media. Each author argues within the context of his or her essay the vital necessity for an immediate implementation of new media into the composition classroom.
A wealth of materials and lesson ideas are available in the text for composition instructors to adopt and adapt. The authors of the text offer their best practices for teaching composition utilizing new media, offer tips for assessing writing, and discusses his or her approach for covering new media in the curriculum he or she has developed.
Despite the nature of this text being developed for a post-secondary classroom, there are various writing activities utilizing new media that would be exciting exercises for the students of the writing program that I am developing. I am very fond of the incorporation of visual elements into the written text in order to enhance and create new dimensions to the writing’s message and meaning. I am eager to adapt several of the assignments from the text to help my students to achieve this kind of result.
I found the case study student, named David, from the text to be of particular importance to the argument I will be making for the viability of my program. The students of my program are much like the student written about. They, like he, are living under adverse living conditions in an environment hostile to traditional compositional approaches. They are poor, and many of the students come from families with little educational foundation. I need to, as the text suggests, rethink how composition is taught to the nontraditional student. I believe his case will be a vital part of my argument, especially in the implementation of the digital media component of the program. The students that this program will serve have had considerably lower exposure to digital technology than their suburban counterparts. The use of digital writer’s notebooks, lessons, and online collaboration through the site that I am constructing will give them some of the initial foundational exposure to materials, new forms of composition, and alternate methods of collaboration that they had been lacking previously, but will need in their postsecondary educational ventures.
inferentialkid said this on November 20, 2008 at 5:06 pm
Badiou, Alain. Deleuze: The Clamor of Being. Minneapolis; U. Minnesota Press. 1997.
Badiou’s main goal is to redefine Deleuze’s philosophy in the following way; it is both metaphysical and univocal; it requires dispossession from the real; and it is both systematic and abstract. While Badiou seems to think that this is a novel way of reading Deleuze, the linearity present in Deleuze’s work seems to belie Badiou’s claim.
Regardless, Badiou’s text will serve as a nice counterpoint for Muckelbauer’s and Hallward’s works, as Badiou holds to the traditional reception of Deleuze as drawing a line between doxa and the concept. Badiou goes one step further, however, to make the case that doxa is actually removed from Deleuze’s philosophy. This admonition is in stark contrast to John Muckelbauer’s definition of doxa as true belief, and thus, as concept. At the same time, though, the two do have some similarities. Muckelbauer understands the abstract nature of Deleuze’s philosophy and contends that invention must be practiced in order to be fully understood; it cannot be defined or taught without specific examples. Badiou too understands that Deleuze’s definition of the concept is a fluid one, but where the two depart is in their treatment of doxa. I’m interested to see what I can come up with through a detailed juxtaposition of the two works.
Deleuze, Gilles and Felix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 1987.
In the chapter entitled “How Do You Make Yourself a Body Without Organs?”, Deleuze and Guattari argue that there are three strata that bind: the organism, signifiance, and subjectification. The structured and limiting nature of these strata are Deleuze and Guattari’s conception of the rhizome, too, is full of Sophistic vestiges, especially when thinking about kairotic time. I’d like ideally to explore the possibilities of the D/G rhizome as a contemporary manifestation of kairos and the rhizome’s ability to more fully inscribe Muckelbauer’s vision for the future of invention.
Deleuze, Gilles and Felix Guattari. What is Philosophy? New York: Columbia UP. 1994.
D & G also contend that virtuality is NOT abstract, but real. Of course, this is not “real” with a capital R, which they use to describe the material world (including our perceptions, etc.), but real in the sense that the Virtual is all that truly IS. At the same time, though, (and Hallward does a commendable job of driving this point home in his text), all we can “know” is that of the Real unless we take great pains to go beyond that realm and into the Virtual to focus on Concepts and Events, not subjects and opinions. Just as the Sophists, many contemporary composition pedagogues, and Muckelbauer contend, both theory and practice, tradition and innovation, have to work in tandem for the best results. Although Deleuze certainly views the Real as inferior to the Virtual, it is nonetheless a necessity to work through in order to reach the Virtual.
In terms of doxa and Deleuze’s aversion to it, Muckelbauer’s text will help to unravel that misunderstanding. The doxa that Deleuze avers in both this text and in The Logic of Sense is the mystical, persuasive opinion that Plato assigns to the sly and untrustworthy Sophists. However, in some works of Plato, the Theatetus in particular, Plato’s Socrates makes the claim that all belief (doxa) is true belief.
Most importantly, however, D & G’s discussion of potential and being-potential (along with a study of the BwO in A Thousand Plateaus) seems to be a good connection point with kairos. D & G admit that “it is certainly not for ‘rational or reasonable’ reasons that a particular concept is created or a particular component chosen” (78). Indeed—and this is the point at which Hawhee’s treatment of metis in Bodily Arts will further my contention that Deleuze’s philosophy could be considered a neo-Sophistic rhetoric that must incorporate both theory (philosophy/the Virtual) and practice (the Real, doxa).
Guthrie, W.K.C. The Sophists. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. 1971.
Guthrie’s text is a quite comprehensive study of the Sophists. A good portion of his book concerns the debate between nomos (cultural laws) and physis (nature), which I think makes for a great parallel between Deleuze’s Real/Virtual. Guthrie’s text does a great job of explaining the Presocratics’ interest in the nature of reality as well as outlining the key tenets and practices of the Sophists. Guthrie’s section on rhetoric and philosophy will be especially influential to my study; by looking at Deleuze’s philosophy through the lens of, say, Protagoras (and, importantly, the actual Protagoras, not the Protagoras of Plato), I can connect Deleuze to the Sophists.
Although Protagoras is known for his adage, “Man is the measure of all things,” Guthrie makes the case that his ideas behind that statement actually lead to an opposite conclusion: that “there was no reality behind and independent of appearances” (186).
Guthrie’s book also helps to flesh out the ideas presented by Hawhee and Jarratt in their respective texts. While Hawhee and Jarratt tend to focus on Protagoras, Gorgias, and Isocrates (and with good reason, as their writings are more complete than many others), Guthrie’s study includes many of the lesser known Sophists. Antiphon’s treatment of nomos, for example, could figure prominently into my study.
Hallward, Peter. Out of this World: Deleuze and the Philosophy of Creation, London:
Verso. 2006.
Hallward’s book is perhaps the most important for my project (Deleuze’s primary works excepted) because it aims to simplify Deleuze’s most complex concepts: specifically, the separation of the real plane (that which we live in and perceive) and the virtual, which is necessarily disconnected from the actual world and can only be reached by attempting to proceed past the actual and into the virtual—through the practice of philosophy.
Hallward’s treatment of Deleuze’s Real versus Virtual is a perfect partner to John Muckelbauer’s text (below). Both texts are concerned with the nature of time in Deleuze’s work, and how that separation of time relates to the Real and the Virtual. More importantly, however, Hallward’s text will serve as a key component to my dissection of both What is Philosophy? and The Logic of Sense. While the primary texts will be imperative to my study, Hallward’s book makes Deleuze’s work more palatable and easier to connect with classical ideas of creating arguments that, like Deleuze’s work, depart from the Platonic tradition.
Muckelbauer, John. The Future of Invention: Rhetoric, Postmodernism, & the Problem
of Change. Albany: SUNY Press. 2008.
Muckelbauer succeeds in doing precisely what I hope to do with my project: to engage the work of Deleuze in new ways. Throughout the text, Muckelbauer connects the work of Deleuze, Derrida, and Nietzsche with classical imitation and invention practices and, ultimately, argues that invention cannot necessarily be explained abstractly; rather, it can only be actively performed.
While the book as a whole will prove informative and useful, Muckelbauer’s final chapter on doxa seems to be especially fruitful for my project. Muckelbauer charges us to “rethink the nature of futurity itself through invention, rendering an affirmative sense of the future that is operative in an engagement with the past as it is in thinking about the day after tomorrow” (xv). By focusing on this final chapter and the chapter that discusses classical notions of arrangement, I hope to be able to connect Deleuze’s idea of the virtual with Muckelbauer’s assertion for the transformation of invention, via a study that juxtaposes Deleuze’s idea of doxa (versus the concept, and his theory of the virtual in general) with Muckelbauer’s treatment of doxa. Muckelbauer’s exposition of Plato’s treatment of doxa is especially relevant to my study, as I hope it can help me to further distance Deleuze’s ideas from those of Plato, and to instead align his work with those of the Sophists.
Walker, Jeffrey. “What Difference a Definition Makes, or, Walter Dean Howells and the
Sophists’ Shoes.” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 36 (2006), pp. 143-153.
Walker ultimately argues in this piece for a rehistoricizing of the Sophists to allow for an embodied rhetoric, imitation in its best form: not a cheap mimic, but an entirely new creation, one perhaps based in something else, but ultimately an aggregation of the rhetor’s training, ability, and necessity presented at a specific moment (kairos): an interesting combination of Deleuzian shifting plateaus and creative production. In this piece, Walker really makes the case for the importance of understanding how a work is produced, not just what it is and what it means. Thus, rhetoric in the sophistic sense can be appropriated for ALL disciplines, so this makes it especially easy to analyze the rhetoric of digital media, especially those used by students. Practically, though, my use for this essay would likely be in conjunction with Muckelbauer’s treatment of imitation and invention. With the help of Hawhee’s text, too, I hope to connect Walker’s ideas on kairos to Deleuze as well,
Zizek, Slavoj. Organs Without Bodies: On Deleuze & Consequences. New York: Routledge.
2004.
In his introduction, Zizek presents the following statement: “all great ‘dialogues’ in the history of philosophy were so many cases of understanding” (ix). This is precisely where I want to begin with my study of Deleuze; that his aversion to rhetoric is misinterpreted. By doing a study of axioms (via/contra- Badiou) and the plane of immanence (via/contra Zizek), I hope to show that Deleuze’s work can, in fact, be explored as texts for the study of rhetoric.
Although Zizek’s text will not play a large role in my seminar paper for this class, I anticipate that his take on Deleuze’s role in digital capitalism will be a key aspect of my ultimate goal: my master’s thesis. Zizek makes the case that Deleuze’s take on capital is anything but radical; however, he neglects that Deleuze finds capitalism unavoidable. Arthur Kroker’s Will to Technology will be a good text to juxtapose against this one, I think.
Andrea Vought said this on November 20, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Wendy Duprey
November 19, 2008
(Slightly) Revised Abstract
Writing Machines Seminar
For the seminar project, I’m interested in studying how the Mental Health First Aid Program in Australia has significantly and successfully increased the role of mental health literacy in local and national contexts, and more importantly, how this program is being incorporated in the United States. Since October 2008, as cited by The National Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare, nearly 100 instructors have been certified to teach Mental Health First Aid in the United States – and more communities have shown interest to continue working with this program in 2009. This will be the nation’s first certification course that enables the public to help someone experiencing a mental crisis. Essentially, the Mental Health First Aid program teaches the following 5-step process to members of the public: 1) Assess risk of suicide or harm 2) Listen non-judgmentally 3) Give Reassurance and Information 4) Encourage Person to Get Appropriate Professional Help 5) Encourage Self-Help Strategies. While this 5-step process is taught as an acronym (ALGEE) and its method for assisting individuals who are experiencing a mental crisis can be viewed within the context of other first aid help, such as CPR training, the following synopsis illustrates the important skills that one learns during the 12 hour training course: “To assess a situation, select and implement appropriate interventions, and help the individual in crisis connect with appropriate care. Participants learn the risk factors and warning signs of specific illnesses such as anxiety, depression, psychosis, and addiction; engage in experiential activities that build understanding of the impact of illness; and learn information about evidence-supported treatment programs.” Overall, this program’s effectiveness in Australia has been evaluated in four separate studies since 2001. Because of the promising results, the Mental Health First Aid program expanded its certification training to other countries, and the United States is its recent participant.
The discourse communities surrounding mental illness, mental health literacy, psychoanalysis, the mass media and technology, and literacy studies are potential sources for discussing the Mental Health First Aid program. For example, in Media Madness Otto Wahl discusses the public images of mental illness and analyzes what everyday people are learning from everyday sources about mental illness. I’m interested in conceptualizing the significance that a program like Mental Health First Aid would have in the United States, considering current public knowledge tends to align with stigma-reducing rhetoric, as opposed to mental health literacy.
In the United States, “a divide between professional and public knowledge of mental illness remains,” as recently cited in The American Journal of Psychiatry (March 2008). Mental health literacy – as demonstrated by the Mental Health First Aid Program in Australia for the past decade – seeks to provide important knowledge and skills to the public in relation to helping people with mental illness. The definition of mental health literacy, according to Australian psychiatrist Anthony Jorm, includes: “the ability to recognize specific disorders; knowledge of how to seek mental health information; knowledge of risk factors and causes; knowledge of self treatment and/or professional help available; and attitudes that promote recognition and appropriate help-seeking.” Based on this definition, I would like to explore how the Mental Health First Aid Program uses literate practices to raise public awareness about mental health and what promise this social program offers in bridging the gap between professional and public knowledge about mental illness.
Some potential research questions I’m using to think through this project include: What does it mean to witness mental illness? How does public knowledge about mental illness circulate and manifest itself in the mass media? To what extent does technology allow us to reassess conceptions of the mind and reposition our interpretations of mental illness? What literate practices does Mental Health First Aid incorporate to raise public awareness about mental disorders, reduce stigmatizing attitudes about mental illness, and help transform social conceptions of mental health?
Wendy Duprey
November 19, 2008
Annotated Bibliography
Writing Machines Seminar
1.) Sontag, Susan. Regarding the Pain of Others. New York: Picador, 2003.
One major aspect of Sontag’s project discusses the role of technology in capturing images of suffering at a distance; the hyper-saturation of images in the media, particularly on the television and in the news, deadens feelings, creates a state of boredom and the need for constant stimulation, and voyeuristically objectifies atrocities. For Sontag, “compassion is an unstable emotion. It needs to be translated into action, or it withers. The question is what to do with the feelings that have been aroused, the knowledge that has been communicated. If one feels that there is nothing “we” can do – but who is that ‘we’? – and nothing ‘they’ can do either – and who are ‘they’? – then one starts to get bored, cynical, apathetic” (101).
This bored, cynical, and apathetic stance towards suffering can be extended to witnessing mental illness and mental health crises. Most people have witnessed a person with a mental disorder, yet this witnessing typically occurs within the media framework, which manipulates and misidentifies mental illness as something strange, scary, violent, and punishable. As a result, people with mental disorders are often stigmatized and alienated based on media (mis)representations of their conditions.
Sontag writes: “People don’t become inured to what they are shown – if that’s the right way to describe what happens – because of the quantity of images dumped on them. It is passivity that dulls feeling. The states described as apathy, moral or emotional anesthesia, are full of feelings; the feelings are rage and frustration. But if we consider what emotions would be desirable, it seems too simple to elect sympathy” (102). While Sontag recognizes that the media bombards viewers with an overload of images, she believes passivity perpetuates the apathetic states that affect moral, ethical, and emotional conditions in society. However, for Sontag sympathy is not the answer because it rests on the same spectrum as apathy: “Our sympathy proclaims our innocence as well as our impotence. To what extent, it can be (for all our good intentions) an impertinent – if not inappropriate – response. To set aside the sympathy we extend to others beset by war and murderous politics for a reflection on how our privileges are located on the same map as their suffering, and may – in ways we might prefer not to imagine – be linked to their suffering, as the wealth of some may imply the destitution of others, is a task for which the painful, stirring images supply only an initial spark” (102-103).
Sympathetic witnessing, whether at a distance or up close, is not enough, according to Sontag: “Images have been reproached for being a way of watching suffering at a distance, as if there were some other way of watching. But watching up close – without the mediation of an image – is still just watching” (117). Although she doesn’t prescribe what witnesses and observers of suffering should do, Sontag does state, “A narrative seems likely to be more effective than an image. Partly it is a question of the length of time one is obliged to look, to feel” (122). Narrative, story, language, and pathos serve as meaning-making solutions to the objectification of photography and media, and yet the media, the technology, should not be blamed for apathy, but used to restore spaces of contemplation and social awareness of suffering. Sontag’s book provides substantial emotional fodder for thinking about suffering and mental illness.
2.) Turkle, Sherry. Psychoanalytic Politics 2nd Edition. New York: Guilford Press, 1992.
Turkle’s preface poses the question, “To what extent is each of us willing to accept the presence within ourselves of an other, an alien, whether that other be linguistic, social, historical, or computational?” (xxxii). This raises a platform to consider and think through aspects of mental illness that resists separating and stigmatizing those diagnosed with mental illness as “other” and, instead, positions ‘the individual’, all people, as having multiple selves that one may or may not be aware of. Technology and psychoanalysis, for Turkle, encourage us to “play with aspects of our nature that we experience as taboo” (xxi) and this active shaping and making of our identities allows psychoanalytic and computational theories to function as “things” or objects to revise our understanding of the human mind. Turkle writes: “People, like computer programs, can become momentarily derailed.” The idea that the human mind resembles mechanisms of computation is significant in our collective understanding of mental illness because it allows us to reassess functions of the mind in terms of information-processing and mechanical reasoning. Psychoanalytic and computational theories describe the mind (or the computer program) as having a cast of inner agents, and the way these inner agents work separately and together determines what types of games, narratives, and conceptions of ‘reality’ the mind conceives and creates. Thus, Turkle juxtaposes psychoanalytic and computational theories to re-imagine how we “think about thinking,” and as “a way of using theory to ‘work through’ powerful cultural images to help to arrange those images into new and clearer patterns” (xxvi).
3.) Derrida, Jacques. “‘To Do Justice to Freud’: The History of Madness in the Age of Psychoanalysis” Critical Inquiry 20 (Winter 1994)
Similar to Sontag’s work with analyzing the observer’s role in witnessing atrocities of war, torture, horror, and suffering, Derrida traces the history of madness within the framework of witnessing, particularly the problems with having a discourse on the history of madness. He inquires: “Is there any witnessing to madness? Who can witness? Does witnessing mean seeing? Is it to provide a reason? Does it have an object? Is there any object? Is there a possible third that might provide a reason without objectifying, or even identifying, that is to say, without examining?” (228-229) These questions form the backbone of my project when considering the lay person’s ethical responsibilities when witnessing mental illness or mental health crises, especially in the public sphere, and to what extent that lay person can act, as opposed looking away or simply watching the other person.
4.) Feiner, Kenneth and Knafo, Danielle. Unconscious Fantasies and the Relational World. Hillsdale, NJ: Analytic Press, 2006.
While this book mainly discusses the concept of unconscious fantasy and its place in psychoanalysis and the construction of “reality,” the aspects of play surrounding the representation of inner and outer worlds relates to the unconscious activity being represented in the media and how an audience’s identification with unconscious fantasies (represented in the media) determines the level of possibility this space holds for empathy and action. Furthermore, the discourse of fantasy, or the language of fantasy and the imagination, is something that often needs to be taught to those who suffer from mental disorders, trauma, addictions, or other psychosomatic disorders because this population usually finds it difficult to communicate linguistically; as a result, self-expression is often a regression to desymbolized, deverbalized, and somatized ways of communicating, where things or objects are manipulated, as opposed to putting thoughts into words to create meaning. The computer, therefore, becomes a tool which allows this population to engage in other forms of literacy and meaning-making.
5.) Kress, Gunther. Literacy in the New Media Age. New York: Routledge, 2003.
Kress points out that social, technological, and economical factors influence literacy in ways that inevitably affect human cognition, affect, and overall engagement with the world around us. This shift from writing as literacy to the image as literacy, and the book as a primary medium to the screen as the dominant medium of meaning making, will deeply alter the power relations that govern communication. “In a world of stability, the competence of reliable reproduction was not just sufficient, but of the essence – on the production line as much as at the writing desk. In a world of instability, reproduction is no longer an issue: what is required now is the ability to assess what is needed in this situation now, for these conditions, these purposes, this audience – all of which will be differently configured for the next task” (49). Rather than solely relying on language-as-writing for our mode of meaning making, Kress sees the multi-modal or multi-literate person as having the ability to assess a situation and respond with appropriate action by using various properties or modes of new technology: “That mode which is judged best by the designer of the message for specific aspects of the message and for a particular audience can be chosen with no difference in ‘cost.’ Multimodality is made easy, usual, ‘natural’ by these technologies. And such naturalized uses of modes will lead to greater specialization of modes: affordances of mode will become aligned with representational and communicative need” (5-6). Kress’s observations about new media and its effects on literacy changes the way we accept various modes of communication, and hence, literacy. I see the discourse surrounding mental illness as shifting in its tone and reception based on the acknowledgement of multi-modal communication. Without privileging linguistic expression as ‘the proper form,’ new levels of understanding can be achieved when definitions of literacy broaden to include speech, writing, image, gesture, music, etc. and the different means for conveying these messages (book, computer-screen, magazine, video, film, radio, online, etc.) (22). Kress implicitly makes a statement about changing our culture (including how mental illness is interpreted) when he says, “To make meaning is to change the resources we have for making meaning, to change ourselves, and to change our cultures” (11).
6.) Derrida, Jacques and Stiegler, Bernard. Echographies of Television. Malden, MA: Polity, 2002.
Derrida’s comments from “Vigilances of the Unconscious” reflect his desire for a psychoanalytic-type of labor that will “come through the unconscious, through relations between forces, a scene of work that, if scene means visibility, is not even a scene anymore. It is going on somewhere else, at rhythms we can’t control, in relation to which we aren’t obliged to be passive, but which imply, despite everything, at the very height of our activity, a kind of passivity” (136). This passivity represents a process and a presence that we must surrender to despite our lack of control. He acknowledges the importance of vigilance, consciousness, and active decision-making, but attributes that this type of political action “takes up only a limited space in the unconscious.” As a result, Derrida challenges current categories of psychoanalysis, particularly the category of the “unconscious,” and believes that psychoanalysis should be mobilized, active, and working to help citizens rearticulate experience and meaning-making beyond a mere discourse or “awakening” framework. Turkle’s research on psychoanalytic and computational models of meaning-making provides a rich framework to explore Derrida’s desire for a psychoanalytic-type of labor. Derrida considers this labor “to work, through psychoanalysis, within psychoanalysis, or to put psychoanalysis to work: this is at one and the same time a task, a situation, and a process that is under way…” (137). Indeed, the passivity that is occurring within the unconscious realm is “taking place, it is happening” and because this process is technical, the dialectic between psychoanalytic and computational theories is “under way”…waiting for new knowledge, new meaning-making heuristics, and new questions to be constructed – and reconstructed. New theories of mind must be constructed in order to fully articulate psychoanalytic processes in relationship to technology, and how technology affects these psychoanalytic processes, as Derrida and Turkle suggest.
7.) Beller, Jonathan. The Cinematic Mode of Production. Lebanon, NH: Dartmouth, 2006.
“With all the images of daily life in motion, the cinematic mode of production orchestrates the mise-en-scene for the production of consciousness and the consciousness of production. We cut, edit, produce, and direct; we watch, we process, we wait. You think all those movements, all that time, is your own consciousness, even though what plays on the screen in your theater comes somehow from beyond you” (80). Beller’s belief that our consciousness is orchestrated from “somehow beyond” positions all individuals in a mindset of reality as “a free-floating hallucination.” He discusses how the production of reality via images de-privileges language as the dominant discourse, thereby alienating expression, interpretation, and understanding of the world. Our inability to language reality at the expense of our alienation from consciousness radically alters our “language function and subject formation in the emerging media environment” (15). Thus, if we are alienated from the conscious agency to construct our own realities, then this image-consciousness or unconsciousness limits and constrains all minds, and does not limit hallucinatory states of being to people with mental disorders. The virtual-real is a condition that we are all living and accustomed to, according to Beller, which opens up common ground to discuss issues of mind, the unconscious, and mental health. People suffering from mental disorders do not have to be positioned as other, but rather, as individuals experiencing, to a greater or lesser degree, similar emotions and cognitive experiences that everyone has the potential to experience. Beller makes the connection between the birth of psychoanalysis and film, and believes that psychoanalysis is a symptom of film (of the image). If this is the case, then the image as literacy can be analyzed within the context of mental health literacy.
8.) Harris, Judith. Signifying Pain. Albany, NY: State University of New York, 2003.
Harris makes an important claim that people are attached to language in ways that are not just political or lexical, but emotional (10) and that the act of writing “freezes” or stabilizes nonverbal, encoded images and emotions into a language of processed understanding. The act of translating experiences into language allows one to witness pain and trauma, and in essence, heal by moving beyond a singular self, “frozen in time by a moment of unspeakable experience, to a more fluid, more narratively able, more socially integrated self” (13). In psychoanalysis and through the act of writing, language becomes the vehicle for a subject to be both participant and observer, in which double consciousness occurs and positions the subject in an omnipotent position, where he is watching himself speak (30). “Relief exists with unburdening one’s self to an/other, even when that process is seemingly outside conscious apprehension. Transferring pain, with the belief that an active observer, analyst, or reader can shoulder pain…” (31) relates to Sontag’s work on regarding the pain of others, along with Derrida’s questions about the circumstances surrounding madness and the act of witnessing madness. Since victims who speak about trauma often have a fragmented, emotionalized discourse, their credibility is undermined, along with seeming contradictory, dispassionate, or numb. Once again, this appearance of apathy or boredom does not mean that emotions are absent, but rather, that emotions are trapped inside that person. Having a witness around to empathetically listen assists in the healing process and allows the person experiencing a mental health crisis the ability to release pain. The following quotes represent the importance of witnessing and caring about the private suffering of others because of the relief and healing it brings to an individual: “By confronting the other, the speaking self is assured of its own self-certainty” (111); “A textual body such as the psyche can and will heal itself when its wound is exposed to a sympathetic audience” (208); “Desire behind all textual self-representation is to become evident as a whole and speaking subject” (210). Some of these ideas have shaped my thinking about why it is important for the public to become more informed about mental illness and how reframing the concept of mental illness into mental health literacy.
Wendy Duprey said this on November 20, 2008 at 9:22 pm
Crystal Starkey
Dr. Pruchnic
Annotated Bibliography
Atwill, Janet. Rhetoric Reclaimed: Aristotle and the Liberal Arts Tradition. London:
Cornell University Press, 1998.
Janet M. Atwill similarly emphasizes the connection between early rhetorical training and that of the body to the emergence of rhetoric and the liberal arts tradition. In particular, Atwill emphasizes how considerations of the body and materiality were bound up with conflicts between techne and logos that defined the early shaping of the field. According to Atwill’s interpretation, techne is contingent on knowledge as production “in the transgression of boundaries,” the construction and passing of “limits of knowledge and subjectivity, as well as social, political, and economic limits” (3).
Atwood, Tony. The Complete Guide to Asperger’s Syndrome. London: Jessica
Kingsley Publishers, 2007.
People with a pervasive development disorder, such as those grappling with HFA/AS, experience a range of characteristics which fall somewhere on such a broadly defined spectrum that it remains quite difficult for professionals to generalize and educators to identify and (thus) serve (Atwood 291). The relatively singular nature of HFA/AS has led many to argue that it is not a cognitive disability but rather, as mentioned earlier, a “cognitive diversity.” Those with HFA/AS often have unusually high skill sets related to long term memorization in such areas as art, history, mathematics, technology, or engineering, but diminished social skills and non-verbal comprehension. In particular, those with HFA/AS often experience difference in pragmatics (i.e. how language is used in a social context), semantics (i.e. not recognizing there may be several meanings), and prosody (i.e. an usual pitch, stress or rhythm) (Atwood 67).
Davis, Lennard J. Enforcing Normalcy: Disability, Deafness and the Body. New York:
Verso, 1995.
The ideology of ableism— defined as “discrimination in favor of the able-bodied” and “discrimination against disabled body”— Lennard Davis argues, has often been more “disabling” than the physical limitations of disabilities themselves. (11). It is within this isolation from the norm that people with conditions such as HFA/AS are oppressed, marginalized, stigmatized, and stereotyped. This distinction often creates an artificial hierarchy between able-bodied (or “normal”) persons as superior because of their “wholeness,” while people with disabilities are viewed as “fragmented” and inferior (27).
Davis, Mike. The City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles. New York:
Vintage Books, 1990.
Los Angeles citizens with monetary means created specific obstacles, which prohibited poorer citizens from migrating to the richer areas. Claiming it was in protection of their property value and school quality, the richer areas succeeded in further isolating the poor, and, simultaneously, creating segregated living according to race, ethnicity, and class. Davis goes on to dissect how/why poverty and high unemployment rates with block youth fostered the rise of gangs and the spread of crack. Davis describes the ways in which the physical fabric of Los Angeles fosters discrimination based on both race and class. Further, the massive amount of Asian imports led to the closing of many inner-city factories, which supported a massive number of black and Chicano families in L.A. In this way, then, gangs and crack became the contemporary commodity with the highest exchange value. Along the lines of Fordism and Marxism, Davis notes this about L.A.: “…the region’s leading foreign export by volume is simply empty space; more than half the containers which arrive in San Pedro filled with computers, cars, and televisions return with nothing in them” (135). Further, because the ascending power in L.A. is a “…re-monopolized land development industry,” much more labor is exchanged for (temporary) residence than for commodities (130 – 31). Davis seems to argue that capitalism’s power resides, for the most part, in land ownership. Thus, any effective challenge to the social order of things must place land as its central concern.
Garland-Thomson, Rosemarie. Extraordinary Bodies. New York: Modern Language
Association of America, 2002.
Garland-Thomson considers disability alongside race, gender, class, ethnicity, and sexuality as another “…culture bound, physically justified difference” (5). And through this representation we will “…unravel the complexities of identity production within social narratives of bodily difference” (5). Moreover, she argues, disability is a reading the body through the context of social relations: “Disability [is]…a product of cultural rules about what bodies should be or do” (6). These cultural expectations determine the way our bodies should look and act, so the degree to which we (don’t) meet these expectations determines, then, our depth of disability. Thus, some disabilities are more stigmatized than others. Unfortunately, conformities are almost always rewarded. Coining the term “normate” to describe “the constructed identity of those who, by way of bodily configurations and cultural capital they assume, can step into a position of authority and wield the power it grants them” (8), (the normate then is Cinderella, and everyone else working to reach that level are her step-sisters, cramming their too-big toes into the glass slipper), Garland-Thomson notes, such representations often objectify disabled people through denial of access and agency, creating an illusion, which falls far short of communicating of representing the complex context in which people actually exist.
Hawhee, Debra. Bodily Arts Rhetoric and Athletics in Ancient Greece. Texas: University
of Texas Press, 2004.
Debra Hawhee contends, one of the ways this connection has been historically maintained is the long-standing coupling of rhetorical training and athletic training of the body in early rhetorical pedagogy. According to Hawhee, athletic and rhetoric practices emerged as “a curious syncretism,” through a “crossover in pedagogical practices and learning styles, [which] contributed to the development of rhetoric as a bodily art” (144). As Hawhee further claims, these “twin arts” are crucial to teaching and learning (151), and thus effective teachers do not separate these aspects of education, because “it is precisely the moment when learning is connected to performing that the art’s embodied aspects come to the fore” (70).
Harvey, David. The New Imperialism. Cambridge: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Harvey illuminates the corporate media as rarely presenting the economy as directly connected to politics. In fact, the only time we are ever presented through this medium with news that intersects the economy and politics is when it is about interest rates, taxes, or (un)employment. For Harvey, this is because the media is supposed to publicize capitalism—even with all of it deeply rooted faults—as the best possible societal rule. This, then, according to Harvey is why theories like oil having something to do with the war in Iraq are dismissed as conspiracy rather than fact. Pulling from Marx’s theory, Harvey describes our current state as “accumulation by dispossession” in that the “War on Terror” is currently shown through the media as part of the capitalist agenda, which therefore relegates plain old fashioned robbery (I’m thinking of the several CEOs who made millions off their blue collar employees and were hand-slapped for it) as just a few individuals failing at capitalism rather than a fault intrinsic to capitalism. Harvey argues that accumulation by dispossession is supported by the need to maintain and increase profits while finding a place for the accumulation of capital. Thus the balance shifted from the ability to produce to the ability to invest and control. According to Harvey, the U.S. invasion of Iraq had everything to do with oil and the U.S.’s threatened economy by China. Rather than concede, the U.S. flexed its last remaining muscle in its military power and invaded Iraq to secure a stronghold over the one resource all countries depend: oil.
Jacobs, Dale and Laura R. Micciche. A Way to Move: Rhetorics of Emotion and
Composition Studies. New Hampshire: Boynton/Cook Publishers, 2003.
Donna Strickland and Ilene Crawford continue a long conversation on how the composition course may sometimes be leverage to uphold societal norms. In discussing the performance and correlating emotions of self-correction– which systematically moderates our desire for homogeneity and gives voice to often invisible voices within capitalism (in Jacobs et al 68)– Strickland and Crawford argue that consumerism is aligned with what “…advertisers assume to be shared values toward correctness and thus reinforcing patterns of feeling that support the dominate culture” (69). Thus, for Strickland and Crawford all written texts— whether student generated instructor generated or assigned texts— can be used to identify and challenge the (ab)normal in pursuit of this upheaval. Even the word “error” is a text that communicates little in terms of understanding what has been errors, but rather implies a negative feeling consistent with deviating from the (ab)norm. Indeed, “correctness” is a pedagogy of emotion and performativity in our classrooms displayed in assumptions of language and emotion. Just as “wholeness” is a performativity in our daily lives displayed in the casting of different bodies as deviant.
Johnson-Eilola, Johndan. Datacloud: Toward A New Theory of Online Work. New
Jersey: Hampton Press, Inc., 2005.
Learning to write has indeed shifted in relation to computers in that computers effect the location as well as the type of writing with which we engage. New media affords these students the opportunity to better understand the control of space without having to engage in such personal interactions for which they are often criticized (i.e. not making eye contact and not being able to read non-verbal cues such as body language). Composition courses (and processes) with students who have cognitive diversities, must also negotiate this careful balance. Johnson-Eilola writes about alternate ways of understanding information as “…creativity articulated not as the creation of unique information in a vacuum, but as involving manipulation of preexisting pieces of information in space…[through addressing] the symbolic-analytic work issues as a way to orchestrate temporal fragments, constructing a line from heterogeneous, disjointed spaces” (109). Since composition, by definition, speaks to the order and uniformity of an arrangement or organization (a rather linear way of thinking), Johnson-Eilola would argue for the de-compositioning of composition.
Massumi, Brian. Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation. Durham: Duke
University Press, 2005.
Massumi believes the body, society, indeed humanity, is far too complex to be reduced to a sequence of diagrams or mathmatical equations. Thus, Parables is Massumi’s attempt to dispel the cultural theorists who sought to reduce the body and its cultural processes to simplistic functions. While the text itself is riddled with a rhizomatic logic, I suspect this physical organization is linked to the travelled path the body experiences through the qualitative changes and movements signified by issues of gender, race, sexuality, ethnicity, abled-ness, etc. Massumi challenges cultural theorists to take an active stance in implementing and pursuing this movement and new direction. In Massumi’s words: “Invention requires experimentation” (3).
McRuer, Robert. Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability. New York:
New York University Press, 2006.
Robert McRuer argues Composition might be better named de-Composition. McRuer asks “What would happen if…we continually attempted to re-conceive composing as that which produced agitation— to re-conceive it, paradoxically, as what it is?” (148). McRuer, argues that composition, as it is often processed, digested and taught in contemporary universities, undergirds heteronormativity and heteronormativity undergrids composition” (150). Indeed in what McRuer calls “corporate universities,” composition remains focused on an ideal (thus unreachable), measurable, final product in which we are “…forgetting the messy composing process and the composing bodies that experience it” (152). The ways in which writing has been conceptualized leaves revision as mandated, forbidden, perhaps, because we only want revision that is “…safe, contained, composed” (168). As identity formation is directly connected to individual experiences (and the oppositional practices to those experiences) in terms of race, class, gender, and sexuality, the oppositional voice of disabled experiences has been absent. Unfortunately, the construction of normalcy since the 19th century has meant a simultaneous denigration of disability, as there is probably no area of life in today’s society in which some idea of a norm hasn’t been incorporated and assumed. Cognitive diversity may make us re-think the construction of classroom settings, urging us to create a more accepting environment for divergent forms of expression.
Virno, Paolo. A Grammar of the Multitude (Semiotext(e). Cambridge: MIT Press, 2004.
Paolo Virno uses the example of someone observing a snow slide and feeling an inner sense of pleasing security because, as an observer (rather than someone who is in the snow fall, or a direct participant), the person is confident and thankfully safe from danger. Through Virno’s examination of the relationship between dread and refuge, we can see a connection among the various disempowered groups in America’s capitalism. For example, minority groups, such as African Americans or Latinos are often lumped together with other minority groups, such as people with disabilities. In an attempt to escape the label of being the Other, one minority group will dispel the other: A poor white man might say, “I might be poor, but at least I am not a woman”; a white female might say, “I may be a woman, but at least I am not Black”; an African American might say “I may be Black, but at least I am not disabled”; a white man with disability/ies might say “I might be disabled, but at least I am not poor, Black, or a woman”. To be clear, here, I am not arguing the experience of being a woman, an African American, or a person with disabilities is similar. Indeed the Black, Female, and Disabled experience are distinctly layered and diversely complex. Still, the dialectic of dread/refuge can be seen here through the (mis)conceptions of dis/ableism, when compared too closely with the trinity of isms—race, class, and gender– in capitalism. While there is, Virno argues, a “continuous oscillation between different, sometimes diametrically opposed, strategies of reassurance” (35), disability has never been a monolithic grouping, and because the enormous diversity of disability differs from any other minority groups, experiences of cultural devaluation and socially imposed restrictions are often more varied and thus distinct from than the historical experience of these other groups, despite our tendency to link them together. Virno’s theory on dread and refuge can be seen through this example in that disempowered groups find refuge within themselves by defining precisely why they are not the dreaded Other. This example reflects the ways in which cognitive diversity has often been lumped with these other discourses and emphasizes the fact that we have been a little too loose with how we coordinate marginal identities.
Crystal Starkey said this on November 21, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Annotated Bibliography
1. Agamben, Giorgio. Kevin Attell (Trans.). The Open: Man and Animal. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004.
Though this essay will not focus on Giorgio Agamben directly, as it is predominantly concerned with the contributions of Aristotle, Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida, and Mary Midgely, The Open is incredibly relevant to any serious discussion of man’s singularity. In this text, Agamben approaches the issue of human singularity from a perspective similar to that of Martin Heidegger. In fact, he even derives the title of the text from Heidegger’s critical rereading of Aristotle’s logos. Thus, one can see that Agamben approaches some of Aristotle’s foundational texts by means of proximity. For his part, Agamben co-opts Heidegger’s conception of the zoon logon ekhon – logos referring to speech instead of reason – to argue that language is the crucial point of differentiation between man and animal. In Agamben’s adaptation, it is the very capacity that man has for language and contemplation that enables him to understand his own mortality. Considering that animals are, in effect, without the same speech capacities as humans, they are ultimately incapable of understanding life’s limits. According to Agamben, following on Heidegger’s work in Parmenides, this is what determines human superiority. Though this text provides an interesting and relevant reading of Aristotle’s logos, Agamben’s method of approach is also of crucial relevance to this discussion. The Open emphasizes Agamben’s interest in pursuing a genealogy that traces the historical reverberations of this discourse. Each chapter focuses on a different perspective of the issue, ranging from the texts of the Talmud to the writings of Michel Foucault. It is the very depth and structure of Agamben’s text that makes it a crucial starting point for any serious inquiry relating to this issue.
2. Aristotle. J.A. Smith (Trans.). De Anima. Books I-III (1994).
Aristotle’s De Anima, popularly translated as “Of the Soul,” is ultimately concerned with the issue of human singularity. Really, it is with this crucial text that we encounter the first serious investigation of the relationship between humans, animals, and plants. Throughout De Anima, Aristotle argues that man is both innately similar and different than the various animal and plant species that surround him. Although Aristotle’s suppositions are ultimately predicated upon the comprehension of certain differences, i.e. man’s possession of logos, Aristotle’s text also emphasizes a variety of ways in which animals and plants are similar to men. Unfortunately, despite his efforts, Aristotle’s text is predominantly lost to the contemporary discourse on human singularity. It is really only by means of approaching Martin Heidegger that contemporary academics even gain access to portions of De Anima. Thus, what is effectively missing from the discourse of human singularity is exactly that which Heidegger fails to appropriate: the method of taxonomy and Aristotle’s discussion of important intra-species similarities. In his reading of Aristotle, Heidegger gives too much attention to the distinction made with regard for logos (reason/language), while failing to consider the method of taxonomy, and Aristotle’s use of the plant as a model for discussing the human. Though a more thorough explanation of Aristotle’s contributions requires one to consider Rhetoric, it seems important that one consider what the method of taxonomy can contribute to any contemporary examination of human-human, and human-non-human animal relations.
3. Derrida, Jacques. (Trans. David Wills).The Animal that Therefore I am. Critical Inquiry 28.2 (2002), 369-418.
Jacques Derrida exists as an important intermediary between the work of mid-twentieth century academics and more contemporary theorists. Much like Agamben, Derrida is particularly interested in Heidegger’s work on the human animal. Although he shows a similar interest in Heidegger, his reading of the zoon logon ekhon diverges from that of Agamben, especially in that he understands the relationship between man and animal as being a difference in kind. Just as Heidegger works to reveal the redemptive merit of Aristotle’s logos, Derrida’s work also voices certain recuperative concerns (especially with regard for Heidegger’s Parmenides). As was suggested previously, Derrida believes that the relationship between animal and man should be expressed as a continuum of difference as opposed to a model that reads animals as lacking. As this wording suggests, Derrida argues that there are varying degrees by which animal and man possess language. Again, in Derrida’s terms, we should remain attentive to this difference in kind. Although this reading of Heidegger is particularly useful to a discussion of human singularity, Derrida’s work concerning reciprocity is also particularly relevant. Here, Derrida raises serious concerns not only with regard for the nature of the human and non-human animal (especially each species innate physiological capacity for language), but with regard for the relationship between these species. He questions what man and animal are capable of giving or reciprocating.
4. Haraway, Donna J. When Species Meet. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008.
Although Haraway’s suppositions are often a little strange, her discourse on the relationship between humans, animals, and even cyborgs, is fairly interesting. In When Species Meet, Haraway attempts to grapple with a long tradition of discourse that emphasizes the “exceptional” nature of the human-animal. In essence, Haraway is responding to a long history of texts that emphasize man’s innate superiority. In Haraway’s terms, such estimations are wholly disjunctive. She argues that at the very best, these texts serve to estrange man from the very species that he lives with: companion species. It is through her own examination of companion species that Haraway comes to a very different understanding of the relationship that exists between humans and non-human animals. The crux of her argument is that we actually contribute to our own detriment by not taking advantage of the relationships that might exist between man and animal. Haraway argues that only by really cooperating with the various animal species that surround us can we contribute to the greater benefit of all animal species. Only by interacting with the animals that we encounter on a daily basis are we granted the opportunity to do something that is beneficial for many species. Ultimately, this text will only really be used to balance the discussion of contemporary works relating to the issue of human singularity.
5. Heidegger, Martin. Parmenides. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998.
In Parmenides, Heidegger addresses the fundamental question of human singularity by returning to Aristotle’s highly influential corpus. In fact, one might read Heidegger as being one of very few authors that understands the fundamental importance of Aristotle’s work to the issue of human-human and human-animal relations. Here, as was alluded to previously, Heidegger’s return is marked by an emphasis on Aristotle’s conception of the zoon logon ekhon. His fairly dramatic revision is to read logos as meaning speech or language as opposed to reason. This move is partially recuperative in that it addresses the problem that the logic of reason incurs: To state that an animal is incapable of reason denies surmounting evidence that suggests otherwise. Animals are capable of foraging for food, constructing shelters, and participate in a variety of other activities that demonstrate a certain capacity for reason. Instead, in Heidegger’s conception, the animal is inferior to human because it lacks the same capacity for language. This is not really an attempt to argue that animals do not communicate in so much as Heidegger believes it is man’s capacity for contemplation that makes him superior; it is man’s capacity for contemplation that allows him to see into the open. In Parmenides, and elsewhere, Heidegger argues that it is man’s capacity for logos or speech that allows him to understand his own mortality. Thus, man’s superiority is ultimately tied to an awareness of death that the animal does not possess.
Although Heidegger’s text is particularly interesting for many of the reasons stated above, part of this text’s importance derives from the incredible level of influence it continues to bear in contemporary discourse. Whereas authors such as Giorgio Agamben, Jacques Derrida, and Paolo Virno appropriate Heidegger’s emphasis on language for their own purposes, Mary Midgely and Cary Wolfe are more critical of Heidegger’s suppositions. Whatever the purpose, it is evident that Heidegger’s work bears an incredible amount of influence on the discourse of human singularity, and that his text stands as an interesting intermediary between Aristotle’s foundational texts and more contemporary endeavors.
6. Midgely, Mary. Beast and Man. New York: Routledge Classics, 1978.
Though surely not the first, Mary Midgely is one of a limited number of scholars interested in something other than the traditional animal rights argument or method of approach. Instead of simply calling for the inclusion of various animal species or for a relationship of equality between humans and non-human animals, Midgely insists on inverting more conventional hierarchies. As opposed to a Heideggerian model that reads humans as innately superior to non-human animals because of the human capacity for speech, Midgely insists on reading human’s as being inferior because of a degraded ethics. In Beast and Man, Midgely argues that man is inferior to his animal kin because man is ultimately incapable of acting ethically towards others; other men and other animals. Considering that this essay deals, in part, with ethics as it appears in Aristotle’s De Anima and Rhetoric, Midgely’s ethical imperative is particularly relevant to this discussion of human singularity.
Also, considering the interest in Aristotle’s method (that of taxonomy), this text will engage Midgely’s process of inversion. Here, the response will focus on the implications that such a method incurs for the discourse of human-animal relations. As this text argues, positioning man as innately inferior to animal species encourages a dramatic reconsideration of the typical relationship of observer-observed. This is to say that whereas conventional hierarchical models read the animal as the observer of more intellectually sophisticated humans, Midgely reads that humans have something to learn from the various animal species that surround them. Returning to the issue of ethics, Midgely argues that animals provide a model for a superior system of ethics and ethical interaction.
7. Virno, Paulo. Multitude: Between Innovation and Negation. Los Angeles/New York: Semiotext(e), 2004.
Virno’s Multitude is really a continuation of his earlier work concerning the human-animal and political institutions (Grammar of the Multitude). In this highly influential text, Paolo Virno devotes himself to a number of important topics. He discusses and contrasts political institutions and what he refers to as the “body politic,” with the nature state. In his conception, the human animal when abandoning nature and moving into the realm of the State, agrees not to rebel. Though this is a particularly interesting observation, Virno also argues that nature reasserts itself into the body politic and the political institution. This can happen by the will of a sovereign or, more importantly, when people disintegrate into the multitude; “a plurality of individuals who resist the preliminary bond of obedience” (31). In essence, Virno devotes the latter half of Grammar to an examination of this multitude.
Although Virno’s work with regard to the multitude is particularly illuminating, especially as one can read the influence of French post-structuralism on his work, it is Virno’s initial suppositions that are most relevant to a discussion of man’s singularity. Within the initial pages of his text, Virno makes the important observation that the issue of human singularity is central to any serious political discussion. Here, of course, Virno alludes to a very specific host of authors and theorists, Heidegger being the most preeminent. Here, Virno provides a particularly interesting introduction to the issue of human singularity.
8. Wolfe, Cary. Animal Rites: American Culture, the Discourse of Species, and Posthumanist Theory. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2003.
Cary Wolfe is important to the discourse of human/animal relations for numerous reasons. First, considering that Wolfe comes out of more contemporary realms of scholarly discourse, it seems important that he be included in order to balance the discussion. This is to say that Wolfe’s inclusion demonstrates the continuing, perhaps increasing, interest in the issue of man’s singularity. Second, Wolfe is particularly relevant considering his interest both in ethics and Derrida. In part, this essay will turn to Wolfe’s criticism of Derrida.
(Derek Risse)
jargoncomputer said this on November 25, 2008 at 1:27 am
Inman, James A., and Donna N. Sewell. Taking Flight with OWLs: Examining Electronic Writing Center Work. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2000.
Taking Flight with OWLs examines computer and technology within writing centers. The contributors hope to make an argument for integrating technology into the theoretical realm and writing center practice. The authors of the book indicate the need for such a discussion within an age of technological integration into academic institutions. Additionally, since technology has been integrated rather quickly into institutions, many writing center directors have not had the chance to assess what technology works and what doesn’t fit student and center needs. My interest in Kairos and temporality within online sessions is addressed within the article “Cyberspace and Sofas: Dialogic Spaces and the Making of an Online Writing Lab.” This article focuses upon the integration of an online tutoring lab and looks at the dialogic spaces among the tutors as well as the tutees. Another article “The Asynchronous, Online Writing Session: A Two-Way Stab in the Dark?” looks at asynchronous (which is what Wayne State uses) tutoring and evaluates the way role/temporality plays in formulating productive discourse and how potential limitations can be addressed within such an environment. Face-to-face sessions contain instances of distance as well. Over time, this distance becomes less. This is similar in online sessions, but the distance is not only verbal, but physical as well. There is no ability to read the student’s body language, but “such privacy can be empowering to the student” (133). While some theorists may worry that online sessions may increase misinterpretation, Harris and Pemberton remind readers that face-to-face are on free of misunderstanding. Therefore, online tutoring can “alleviate some of the baggage that accompanies physical bodies” (134).
Hobson, Eric H. Wiring the Writing Center. Logan: Utah State University Press, 1998.
While this is an old book, it is one of the first books to look at technology and its integration into writing centers. In many ways, this book is an attempt to pave a road within the frontier of the new and quickly emerging virtual/technological aspect of pedagogy and writing centers. And, while this book was written in 1998, sadly, Wayne State’s writing center has just recently integrated online tutoring to its repertoire of services. Therefore, this book is of use, because a handbook for this integration is necessary and the handbook produced by Hobson is very unique and was produced almost all via electronic exchange. The project was conceived of and planned via email conversations; most of the chapters were submitted, responded to, and revised online. David Healy asks the question: “What is the ontological status of a virtual writing center, and what kind of relationship will clients develop with it? How will it be perceived by the rest of the academy? What possibilities and what threats are opened up by going online” (191). Additionally, writing centers need to address dissent and tutor/tutee resistance to the integration of technology within the tutoring exchange. Cynthia Selfe describes technological integration as a “potential for increased communication, community building, information access, and literacy education that technology offers students and teachers” (309).
Ascott, Roy. Telematic Embrace: Visionary Theories of Art, Technology, and Consciousness. Berkley: University of California Press, 2003.
Telematics stands for the integration of telecommunication and information technologies. For Ascott, it means no less than a radical change in the way we deal with and perceive, art, society, technology, — ourselves even. He understands art as a process in which the roles of artist, object and audience are being dramatically redefined, where change is inevitable and the essence of the artistic process, and where interactivity between humans by means of technology or between humans and technology is the place where meaning is created. The place integrates individuals, science, art, and technology and produces new levels of consciousness.
Ascott performed student based experiments while at Ipswich Civic College. In one of the experiments, Brian Eno delineates an experiment in which a
mindmap” was employed. In this project, each student had to invent a game that would test and evaluate the responses of the people who played it. “All the students then played all of the games and the results for each student were compiled in the form of a chart—or mindmap. The mindmap showed how a student tended to behave in the company of other students and how he reacted to novel situations. In the next project, each student produced another mindmap for himself that was the exact opposite of the original. For the reaminder of the term he had to behave according to this alternative vision of himself (40-41).
This experiment is interesting when correlated to online tutoring. Online tutoring forces tutors to adjust to a new situation and this also transfers over to the tutor who interacts with students face-to-face. Therefore, similar to the second project, the tutor is encouraged to produce an alternative vision of him/herself. This new interaction also produces a new vision of tutoring and tutees. Additionally, Ascott was interested in the tension that results from one being plunged into a new situation.
Ben-Ze’ev, Aaron. “The Logic of Emotions.” Philosophy and the Emotions. Ed Anthony Hatzimoysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. 147-179.
The article “The Logic of Emotions” by Aaron Ben-Ze’ev addressing the emotional and cognitive interactions of reason. The author explores the ways in which emotional reasoning has a different logic than that of intellectual reasoning. Yet, according to Ben-Ze’ev are not entirely contradictory: they have some common principles. Intellectual and emotional reasoning both respond to specific circumstances. Yet, the type of reasoning employed by emotional reasoning is different from intellectual reasoning: “intellectual reasoning can use certain principles typical of emotional reasoning but emotional reasoning can seldom use intellectual principles while still remaining in the emotional mode” (162). Emotional and intellectual reasoning is always circulating within writing center sessions. Many theorists indicate that the benefits of online tutoring comes from the non-emotional exchange one experiences. Yet, I would argue that emotional, as well as intellectual reasoning/exchanges occur during online sessions and are transferred over to the face-to-face sessions. Therefore, one must address not only the intellectual, but the emotional reasoning experiences within both realms. It is not just the intellectual component that colors online and face-to-face sessions.
Jenkins, Henry. Convergence culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York: New York University Press, 2006.
Jenkins’ book posits that writing, knowledge, and literacy changes within new media. The re-appropriation and collaborative nature of new media changes student and teacher’s view of literacy practices. Media convergence is steadily becoming an important part of students’ reading and composing lives, and many of them demand this convergence in all aspects of their lives, even learning. Thus, according to Jenkins, it evident that the proliferation of media convergent texts that remix a variety of content—some in the public domain, some not—comprises a significant dimension of many young people’s composing lives. As such, media convergence needs to be understood not only as a powerful way of manipulating “texts” to create new meanings, but also as a site of authorial contestation, particularly as more traditional definitions of composing, authoring, and ownership come under scrutiny, are challenged, and shift in the production of multimedia texts. How might this fit into online tutoring? With tutoring, there is always the question of authorial rights and whether or not tutors “help write” tutee’s papers. Yet, this question does not seem as problematic when Jenkins’ theory is considered in correlation to tutoring training.
Perhaps one of the most interesting dimensions of “media convergence” and “convergence
culture” discussed by Jenkins comes from our changing relationship to communications technologies. Indeed, the richest convergence point in media convergence may be between person and machine, the human and the technological, as the mixing and converging of media offers yet more sophisticated, potentially more nuanced forms of communication, representation, community building, and reflection on our own subjectivity, on what it means to be a communicating person in a techno culture. This convergence brings up questions of literacy, subjectivity, individuality, and collectivity. What is an author, a teacher, student, communicator? How do technological convergences alter our understanding of literacy, collaboration, tutoring practices, and so on? Jenkins poses a statement in need of further consideration: “We need to confront the social, cultural, and political protocols that surround the technology and define how it will get used” (p. 212). Ultimately, we are urged to take advantage of media convergence to re-examine, re-assess, and re-vision some of the most important convergences of pedagogy and technologies.
Opdenacker, Liesbeth, and Luuk Van Waes. “Implementing an Open Process Approach to a Multilingual Online Writing Center: The Case of Calliope.” Computers and Composition 24 (2007): 247–265.
This article describes the main characteristics of Calliope, a Belgian online writing center. Calliope began with the collaborative development of a theoretical framework based on a process approach to writing with a recognition of differences in learning and writing profiles. The author’s describe their theoretical framework, how it was developed, and how it is used in their classes (blended learning). There are three key components of the multilingual online writing center: (a) the Feedback Editor, (b) the collaborative writing environment, and (c) the e-portfolio tool. The paper ends with a discussion on technical and content-related problems encountered during Calliope’s development process.
While developing a learning and writing environment, the producers became more and more convinced that about the need to integrate pedagogical principles, content development, and technological principles needed to be integrated within the online tutoring system. “For example, before beginning to develop content suitable for a web environment, one should be aware of the pedagogical concepts behind the content and have a technological environment in which to actually develop and evaluate the content” (263). The aim is to create a pedagogical writing environment as opposed to a “simple” learning environment. This environment features different writing tools to support specific aspects of the writing process. Giving and receiving feedback, rewriting texts on the basis of that feedback, communicating in a collaborative project, and interacting with portfolios are the crucial functions in this educational writing environment.
Our future plans include the development of a method for assessing the quality of digital
educational materials. If a pedagogical approach is taken to the implementation and training of online and technological tutoring, students and tutors will engage with the material, reinvent themselves, and produce new forms of collaborative interactions.
Bassara, Andrzej. “Temporalizing Ontology.” Computer Sciences 30.1 (2007): 289-298.
“Ontologies, as technology, are used to encode knowledge about world, mainly
about a specific domain, and to provide common understanding of these domains” (289).
They are often considered as a common point of reference in communication. In other words, this speaks to the way a certain group perceives certain idea. Ontologies are treated mostly as static entities. They are constructed once and hardly ever undergo the process of change. Unfortunately this approach is rarely
correct. “From the above definition at least three important sources of ontologies dynamism may be identified. Change in each of them may lead to significant
changes in ontology: domain (external), conceptalization (internal), requirements (technical).
Ontology, then, in online and face-to-face networks may be quite dynamic. This dynamism arise from the variety of content being shared. It may be even impossible to come to an agreement on one common ontology, while the community consist of users from different cultures and with different backgrounds. Therefore, temporality comes into play and statements produced for one session or student may not work the same as for another student or session. This is the only part of the article that worked for my research. Otherwise, the rest of the article was full of statistical data that did not relate.
Spore, Melissa Anne. “Wired Writing Centers.” Advanced Learning Technologies (2001):137 – 138
Melissa Anne Spore considers the factors contributing to the successful development and operation of electronic writing centers. “I argue that online tutoring, rather than Web or
software exercises, comprise the heart of online writing lab (or OWL). I make this
argument by examining the pedagogy behind teaching writing, the use of grammar, the
nature of the online writing conference, and the software, and Web pages designed for
wired composition” (9).
Online tutoring uses technology to provide information, resources, and provide tutoring to university and college students through technology-based distance learning. It brings the advantages of writing centers—assistance with student composition that is directly related to course work and academic writing: “The evolution of OWLs parallels developments in the pedagogy of composition and the growth of computer communication. It is especially interesting—if not surprising—that new pedagogical
directions complement new technology” (7). Also, new technology also changes the tutor and tutee interaction and the ways in which tutoring is defined, experienced, and materialized within one’s psyche.
Asynchronous conferencing is seen as both positive and negative by Spore: “One writer is concerned with ‘work-place ethos’ (Beatty) as tutors become isolated from one another. Others are concerned with the technology’s capacity to monitor tutor/learner conferences, creating the kind of ‘Big Brother’
workplace familiar in some data-entry and call centres; in academia, this surveillance has been termed (after Jeremy Bentham) ‘panopticism’ (32).
Yet, I think that while there is a possibility for online tutoring to produce route actions, these route actions can also be positive. Tutors begin to digest and internalize the online pedagogical commentary produced within the online realm and transfer that knowledge to the face-to-face session. This new materialized knowledge is than re-experienced within the digital realm and back again in the face-to-face realm. This ongoing exchange leads to more and more positive and effective interactions both within the online and face-to-face realm.
Jule said this on November 28, 2008 at 7:31 pm