FoolsCap

Here’s a pile of random thoughts that have come to me, both in light of discussion on Monday and in preparing my notes for the textbook review assignment.

While looking through ReMix and Writing About Cool, one of the things I observed was that both stem from a cultural studies approach to writing pedagogy.  Fine.  But I was also preparing notes for my 7010 paper, which necessitated looking into the dreaded Adorno and Horkheimer.  So, this juxtaposition got me thinking:  Why do so many cultural studies comp texts seem to approach popular culture as an oppresive force from which students must be liberated?  I’m not saying that either text in question does that–in fact, both seem pretty intent on validating the student as producer of culture as well as consumer (in Trimbur’s terms)–but I wonder if there is a way to teach popcult without framing the study of its products as an act of liberation, whether im- or explicitly.  That is, can popular cultural studies be made "fun", with no agenda other than that of pedagogy behind it?

Or does that miss the point somehow?  Do we have to teach to a higher ambition than saying to our students: "Consume all you want–just be aware of why/how you are consuming"?  What I’m trying to address is Johnson’s idea about making writing pleasurable. . .and not in an S&M pain-and-release sort of way, although that certainly has its appeal.  (Um. . .did I say that out loud?)  I’ve looked at Jeff’s 1020 syllabus centered on music–which, being something of a minor music geek myself (I can name drop Big Black but don’t buy vinyl) seems thoroughly awesome–and tried to come up with something similar for my own syllabus, to no avail thus far.  Jeff’s comments on the listserv about choosing only a textbook and a handbook seem sensible to me for my first couple of semesters teaching–but then I might try something a little more adventurous.

Part of what brings this on, as I said, is Adorno and Horkheimer.  I think a lot of the impulse to teach a "liberating" approach to culture studies stems from reading this text.  My problem, then, with the idea of "liberating" students comes from the fact that I disagree with A&H about their characterization of the culture industry.  While I agree with them that the cult ind reflects and incorporates ideology, I don’t see that as either a bad thing or as oppressive.  Further, A&H seem to construct a cult ind that serves to pacify the masses, which I just don’t buy.  Johnson, drawing on Stuart Hall, writes about different positions a consumer of cultural product can take in relationship to received ideological content–and this model makes so much more sense to me.  Althusser writes about societies "secreting" ideology, and ideology as being one’s lived relationship with the world. (I might be paraphrasing or quoting here, don’t know since I’m looking at my notes and not the text.  Which is to say, I’m not committing plagiarism.)  Again, Althusser’s model makes more sense to me than that of A&H, in which cultural products are monolithic, oppressive, and seem to force ideology down your throat.  To which I say: that’s not culture, that’s propaganda.  Maybe I’m midsreading A&H or someone else.  Maybe I’m willfully doing so.  Who knows?

On to the next point, which is still tangentially connected (points will be less so as the missive continues): Is this notion of liberation from popcult the basis for the "liberation pedagogy" I keep hearing about?  I like the sound of liberation of pedagogy–there’s an ideal that I might teach toward–but I’m not sure if I understand it well enough (or, you know, at all) in order to incorporate it in my pedagogy.

I’ve also been re-examining some of the questions about invention in light of the textbook review project.  And I realize that, in fact, I’m, not sure I even understand what the questions are.  Here’s some of them that seem to get addressed in various places in our readings:

• How to generate worthwhile assignments?
• How to help students want to write?
• How to help students enjoy writing?
• How to ask questions about writing/reading?
• How to say what you want about what you’ve read?
• How to learn from what you’ve read?
• How to develop students’ investment in what they read/write?

Even these seem to be missing something important, but I don’t know what.  Vitanza writes of an invention that is also an act of dissent, running counter to traditonal intersubjective rhetorics.  I admit I don’t understand much of Vitanza–or, rather, that his text is elusive, allusive, and illuminating in equal and frustrating fashions.  It raises questions but finds no answers.  Which is to suggest that maybe it serves as an example of the invention he envisions–not a rhetoric based on declaring "X means X" but rather one that asks "does X mean X?  Does X mean Y?  How does X mean X or Y?  Can X mean X and Y?  Or even Z!?!?" 

I want, if I may, to christen these two differing rhetorics a Rhetoric of Certainty and a Rhetoric of Ambiguity.  I think there is an undeniable appeal to both.  On one hand, the RoC is probably what many of us are used to writing.  Even when we do textual analysis, we’re looking at stating a claim about a text and then trying to support our argument.  Which is fine, I think, it’s served generations of scholars and well and will probably do so for generations longer.  On another hand, what I think we can draw from a lot of our readings is that our students won’t have the knowledge or the skills yet to employ the RoC.  This is where we run into our old friend the 5P theme–it’s a foolproof way to assert "certainty" about an argument, whether you aree or not and without having to ask difficult questions about your text.  It is, then, a pedagogical/composition commonplace that takes the place of real discourse.

On another hand, if we incorporate a Rhetoric of Ambiguity into our pedagogy, we don’t necessarily have to ask our students to make every essay a definitive statement on tennis shoes, gun control, P. Diddy.  The RoA serves multiple functions (appropriately).  First, I think it would be a relief to our students to know going in that they’re not necessarily expected to have right/wrong answers at this point in the game (a little underlife pun there).  Second, RoA encourages, I think, the sort of questioning/probing/generative writing we’ve talked about encouraging in our students.  Third, RoA is also a rhetoric of juxtaposition, so it sort of naturally leads into the questions that many of us seemed inclined to ask about texts anyway.

A meta-moment sidebar, now, dear colleagues and interested bystanders.  All of that above about rhetorics and whatnot–spontaneous and not at all preplanned.  An example of RoA in action–you’ve witnessed, if you will, a sort of revelation/revolution in my thought about comp pedagogy as it happened–real-time almost.

So. . .this brings me to my next point.  What we might see in Jeff’s pedagogy is this RoA (or RoJ if that doesn’t make you think of Ewoks) at work.  To sometimes frustrating effect.  I admit, it’s taken me a long time to see it and I haven’t always taken well to the comments he’s offered on my blog or in class.

Look: we’re all adults here, so I’m gonna lay it out there and let it ride.  No offense meant to anybody who takes offense–if you think I step out of line, let me know so we can work it out. . .here goes:

Yes, I was pissed as hell when Jeff said I wasn’t getting it.  That’s my right.  But, you know what I hate to admit, is that he was right.  I wasn’t getting it.  I’m not saying that I "get it" now, but I sort of feel like I’m closer to "it."  I don’t want to speak for everyone, but I think that maybe many of us weren’t getting it.  (I’m still not sure what "it" is, but maybe that’s the point of RoA.)  And what was frustrating for us was not our inability to get it, but rather in Jeff’s refusal to provide it for us.

Because that’s not how a Rhetoric of Ambiguity works.  Now, I don’t want so say that Jeff is working from my idea, but my idea seems to be reflected in his pedagogy and is, in part inspired by it.  For one thing, Jeff might not be able to give us the answer because, hell, who says there’s an answer?  What Jeff was trying to do, perhaps–and at least it worked this way for me–was not to get us to find an answer but to find the questions.  Which, in many ways, is more productive.

Here’s where I get sort of personal and, again, I don’t want anyone to take offense.  What I’ve had a hard time with is recognizing that I might never be friends with Jeff Rice.  I admire him, admire his work, and I think already my writing has improved because of some of the things I’ve read under his instruction.  I was thinking about this because of Trimbur’s analysis of Elbow and Bartholomae as varying father figures in a domestic-model comp classroom.  Naturally, I started to assess how my own instructors may have fit, and for me, Jeff doesn’t fit into either model.  Jeff’s pedagogy seems to not be founded on encouraging student growth through the justification of ideas (as Trimbur sees in Elbow/Batholomae) but on encouraging the insight that leads to asking the right questions. . .which leads us back to a Rhetoric of Ambiguity.

I was watching the Simpsons season 6 the other day, and there’s an episode where Springfield’s teachers go on strike.  Lisa Simpson is in withdrawal, and at one point she begs Marge: "Please grade me!  Please grade me!  I’m sosososo good, and ever so smart!"  It was funny, but I recognized much of my own resistance to Jeff’s pedagogy here.  Mine and Lisa’s concept of the classroom depends on the validation of the instructor in loco parentis, and Jeff’s might not.  (I don’t want to make this suggestion then have him comment that I’ve got him all wrong, hence all the "mights".)  I feel like Jeff doesn’t give a fig whether I feel validated or not, and might not even care whether he and I are friends.  But, you know what, he’s not my friggin’ life coach.  His job is to help me be an effective comp teacher, which, so far, I think he’s done a smashing job of.  (He may argue whether I’m ready to be an effective comp teacher, but I feel more prepared than I did on 11 Sep.)

So what?  It’s not easy to give up that urge toward validation, and part of what I’m trying to do here is attempt the sort of intertextual, ambiguous, juxtaposed reading of the course material that Jeff has advocated, all while saying "yes" to the texts without critiquing them.  It’s not easy, you know?  I admit. . . I would love, more than nearly anything, for Jeff to read this and respond, "Yes, you’ve got it, knocked it out of the park, you’re brilliant, you’re my new protege and together we will reshape the world!"

It’s not going to happen.  My prediction: he’ll offer one or two pointed questions that make me rethink this whole frickin’ rant and start from scratch.  And part of me will think: damn it, Jeff, look how much thought and effort I put in to analyzing things the way you told me to, and instead you invalidated my effort and made more work for me in the process.  But another part, the part that realized the Rhetoric of Ambiguity and Juxtaposition will think: damn, he’s good.  Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.

So: two final points and then I go get something to drink before starting my 7010 paper:

1. In Jeff’s book, he writes about looking at the way texts are constructed in order to use those same techniques to analyze and sometimes subvert the text.  In short, he draws on Derrida as a model of cultural critique.  This is an old point of contention for me, but I want to rephrase it as a question.  Okay, Derrida has value.  What I still don’t understand is how to reincorporate a literary/critical theory as a pedagogical practice.  When I look at what Jeff’s doing in his textbook, I see it as demonstrating one way to approach a text, that is, I can teach the method, but how can the method be how I teach?  I’m not refuting the pedagogical use of theory, just admitting that I don’t know what to do with it.
2. About Jeff’s comments against "critique" as a learning and writing practice.  Again, I was pissed, true, but I think I see now where he was coming from.  Spellmeyer writes: "I will never achieve an exhaustive sense of the knowledge we have each created in speaking.  There is always ’something else,’ as Foucault says, an omission that remains for the writer to discover" (Spellmeyer 727).  The danger in critique is twofold (at least):  First, it reduces "something else" to "only this," which is restrictive, not generative, and seals shut the discourse with a moment of dissent.  Secondly [at the risk of sounding sycophantic],  as Jeff pointed out in class: who am I to think I have remotely enough knowledge to close that discourse?  I wanted to argue with Jeff that he was misreading my "critiques"–which I thought were questions and responses to the text.  Maybe, though, I was misreading.  What I may see in Sommers as an ommission, oversight, or error is in fact a question, probably one I don’t have an answer for, hahaha.  But Vitanza might, or Corder. . .but they’ll raise questions too, which lead to Ulmer, or Faigley. . . .

All of this mad ramble brings me to the lyrics of the Soft Boys song "I Wanna Destroy You."  I was listening to their album Underwater Moonlight while working with my notes last night, and I seem to have drawn a connection between the two then that now, in the cold harsh light of day, seems tenuous.  Nevertheless, I transcribe the lyrics here. . .maybe someone will make a connection between my daft scribblings and the song:

"I Wanna Destroy You" (by Robyn Hitchcock)

CHORUS:I wanna destroy you.  (4X)

I feel it coming on again

Just like it did before.

They feed your pride with boredom

And they lead you off to war.

The way you treat each other

Really makes me feel ill:

‘Cuz if you wanna fight

Then you’re just looking to get killed.

CHORUS (2X)

A pox upon the media

And everything you read!

They tell you your opinions

And they’re very good indeed.

CHORUS (1X)

When I have destroyed you

I’ll come picking up the bones;

You wont have a single atom

Left to call your own!

CHORUS (4X)

So, I close: Please grade me!  Please grade me!  I’m sosososo good, and ever so smart!"