Academics behaving "badly" (regarding profanity)

I am fascinated by those instances in which scholars "break" with the norms of academic prose and interject surprising images or words into their texts--the more highly theoretical the work is otherwise, the more interesting the rhetorical effect of a well placed "damn" or some such "improper" utterance is. I am, in fact, in the process of collecting these examples as I run across them, hoping to make some kind of conclusion about their place in academic discourse (a genre that itself is beset by conflicting definitions--it is safe to say, I think, that those of us who are pushing against the boundaries of academic writing are, in this posthuman age, almost unsure at this point where those boundaries lie any more). The following example comes from Donna Haraway, in a chapter from Simians, Cyborgs, and Women entitled "Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective," in which she explores feminist objectivity--this quote is taken from a compelling section on "vision" as a metaphor:

"And like the god-trick, this eye fucks the world to make techno-monsters" (189).

For some background, Haraway is a biologist whose interests also intersect with the humanities--primarily what we in the humanities might term "medium studies"--and her work that I am most familiar with is that on cyborg feminisms. Her prose is rich/dense, and I marvel at just how much revision she must have gone through to consistently produce sentences such as this:

"In our efforts to climb the greased pole leading to a usable doctrine of objectvity, I and most other feminists of the objectivity debates have alternatively, even simultaneously, held onto both ends of the dichotomy, which Harding describes in terms of successor science projects versus postmodern accounts of difference and I have sketched in this chapter as radical constructivism versus feminist critical empiricism" (188).

In order to "get" Haraway, you need a good deal of critical theory behind you (i.e. a basic understanding of Marx, Derrida, and Lacan is essential). Point being, if you spend a morning reading Haraway (as I did today), and go on to pick up Kenneth Burke later (as I also did), reading Burke will feel like zipping through a Dick and Jane novel. (And Burke is also fascinatingly, relentlessly metadiscursive, which is a topic for another post.) But this is not to say that she is dense in an off-putting way--quite the contrary--her work operates on such a high level theoretically that I constantly feel I have to stretch to fully understand her and effectively apply her to my own work (a journey that is well worth the effort).

But what does this all have to do with the eye that "fucks the world to make techno-monsters"? Precisely this: Haraway depends on a keen rhetorical sense in order to make her multiple perspectives and positions converge in a text that is understandable, even enlightening--she made a choice to use the "f" word (no, not "feminism"-the other one) in the context of vision as a metaphor for the masculinist "gaze" that lords over much technological innovation. She simply had no other way to convey this fact, and pushed the boundaries of depersonalized academic prose a little further.

Women and Narratives of Illness

One of the things I admire about women is their ability to see humor in the most hideous situations and write that humor into engaging narratives that can almost make you forget you are reading about brain surgery/chemo therapy/insert your own worst medical fear here kind of stuff. At this point, since cyberspace is no longer in its adolescence, humor almost becomes a tool of solidarity for many women who participate in online communities that create a space for sharing medical information and experiences with treatments and procedures (for example, there is an asynchronous discussion board solely for women with stage 4 breast cancer, quite worthy of its own post, but not today).

I hate to sound sexist (no, really, I do), but, very often, when men face pain or get sick, they whine. (Please note--my esteemed opinion on this matter comes from my observations of, well, basically one guy, and it was my dad.) And whining is just not very interesting discourse. Hence, you do not see many men writing books like Karen Duffy's Model Patient: My Life as an Incurable Wise-Ass.

Don't get me wrong--I do not buy into the damaging "if you just have a good attitude and see the humor in everything your condition will improve" Pollyanna rhetoric--I actually find that idea repellant. Women have a right to have and express their rage, fears, and frustrations with illness--I just happen to enjoy the obvious strength that is shown when they channel those emotions into prose that does anything but make an audience see them as victims of the caprices of either their bodies or modern medicine (or both).

What made me think of all this today was a random book I came across in the public library this morning. It was too hot to do anything but read, so I trekked downtown and pulled about six books off the shelf, none of which had anything to do with my current teaching or research interests. One in particular, Never Apologize, Always Explain: How One Woman Regained Her Self-Respect After an Ileostomy and Made a New Life for Herself, literally made me laugh out loud in the library, which is rather rare. Here is the small passage that did it for me--it concerns the author's (Patricia Stout Skilken, who was pretty young at the time of her operation) preparation for surgery--the anesthesia is beginning to take effect, and she labors to clarify what she should expect after the procedure:

'"I asked," Isn't it a little messy when you go to the bathroom?'" Don't say shit, I thought. It sounds so immature and I don't want to sound immature, I want to sound sarcastic because sarcasm sounds tough and in control, and if I am in control I can beat this bastard."
'"No, you will wear a plastic pouch taped over the new opening, and your small bowel will empty into the pouch.'"

The hell with maturity.

'"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?'"

The way that she narrates how she turned on a dime to disrupt the expected passive, patient politeness is brilliant. It's the raw honesty--the universality, I suppose, of that reaction that's so fantastic. It's kind of like breaking through the wall to question, and demand an answer for, the absurdity of what she's about to go through. And believe me, this narrative is filled with whining of her own and the recounting of some unbelievably histrionic scenes (one of which involves Skilken throwing a food tray at a cranky nurse). And I actually ended up wanting her to just get a grip several times throughout my reading--she was, afterall, throughout this whole mess, surrounded by a massive support system that included both of her parents, her husband, and her children--but what ultimately kept me glued to the book was the fact that it was beyond entertaining.

Weakest blog post ever (apologies in advance)

A couple of months ago, I attended a conference in Seattle (RSA for all of you rhetoric folks in the know). It was fabulous, and I really enjoyed the city. For the trip home, for reasons I still do not understand, unless I was interested in doing some sort of autoethnographic study about enduring sleep deprivation in various airports, I scheduled flights that would have me either waiting at an airport or in the air from 8 pm at night until 2 pm the following day. So, during those hours, I periodically journalled in a cheapo notepad I had bought (for $15) at one of those airport newsstands. Here are some of the results of that inspirational burst of unbridled freewriting energy (and keep in mind that I was literally doing this to keep myself awake and also dozing in and out of consciousness while I wrote):

What I guess is funny about this, and the reason I felt it to be worth retyping, is the increasing sense of desperate fatigue and annoyance with the people around me.

5/27/08

We begin boarding in 30 minutes. (and then a bunch of bla bla bla about how much I enjoyed dining at the Cheesecake Factory and the hot fudge sundae I inhaled without shame)

All the little shops and restaurants at the airport are closing now--I just want to get out of here. Everyone looks so tired. I tried to find out how close we are to Alaska--many people seem to be flying there from Seattle. I wonder if it's a place worth seeing.

(and then a bunch of pontificating about a book I am considering writing a proposal for)

6 minutes until my restroom break and then we board--hooray! (at this point I had taken to scheduling breaks for myself, trying to convince myself they were like mini field trips down the hall)

We'll get to Dallas early and I'll have 4 hours to bum around and scrounge up some breakfast. We board at 10:20. I'm so happy to be on my way back home.

(more pontificating about my book project, which was really starting to sound fabulous in the midst of the crushing boredom)

This [the airport] is a good place to people watch. You see people kissing each other goodbye, and your imagination can't help filling in a story there, bickering with each other, and sometimes just running their chubby bodies down the aisle to catch their planes.

6:30 am

I have almost 4 hours till my plane boards. This day is killing me! But at least I'm in Big D now. And it's a short hop to Houston.

I don't think I've ever really "killed" time before like I am right now. I am waiting these minutes out with a maniacal determination--why don't they have few little beds in airports? Or at least blankets and pillows? They know we're tired. And I'm starting to feel cranky too. But I have to maintain my sanity so I can greet my dad.

I'll find some coffee and something to eat at 7. Then before I know it, it'll be 8.

I drank some weirdo "passion fruit" tea at the Cheesecake Factory yesterday--it smelled like perfume and tasted like it too until I dumped in some Sweet'N'Low. Scary stuff.

Too tired to think any more, but I've enjoyed freewriting.

8:20 am

Why do all these stupid first class people get to get on first? And what makes them first class? Money? I just wish I could lay down--this flight is only a little over an hour.

Board in 80 minutes

I'll tell you one thing--I'm about sick to death of airport restrooms. I've been travelling since a little before midnight and I am finally on the last leg of the trip. I need some food and some comfy covers to snuggle/hide under for a while. Come to think of it, I have a whole summer to hide. Woohoo! This will be a good year.

Board in 35 minutes

I'm homesick for Dallas. I need a week there. Just took a pic of myself with the cell phone--bleccchhh! I look like a toad--with bags under her eyes.

My peeps will be p.o.'d that I took not a single picture while in Seattle. I'm sorry, but when I'm having fun, I'm concentrating on having fun, and not on going to great lengths to remediate that fun through a camera lens so that you can tell that I was, indeed, having fun. I guess I have a very Garfield perspective about some aspects of life. [clarification--Garfield the cat is my hero, and thus, when I notice myself adopting a particularly cynical or sarcastic view of something, I have to give him some credit--we can discuss the disturbing pathology of someone who admires a cartoon character later...]

[And now for the last gem, which was apropos of absolutely zip and was probably written on the plane ride back to Bum-out from Houston...]

There is nothing grosser than bar food. Really. Most of it is fried chunks of who-knows-what--maybe cheese--maybe meat--but what do the patrons care? It's a BAR--it's not about having a good meal--it's about getting tanked.

[And for clarification on that last "blurt"--I almost never go to bars unless I feel it is some kind of social obligation--this brief rant referred to one such outing in which several acquantances ordered an "appetizer sampler". "Appetizer Sampler" translated basically means "a bunch of stuff cooked/fried within an inch of its life and thrown on a plate--we're not even sure what all of it is, so out of pure laziness and to eschew identifying it, we're calling it a "sampler.'" I was all agog at this cornucopia of nastiness--it was like a train wreck on a platter, and no, I did not partake.]

So there you have it: airport blurting, a completely useless genre, which I have invented.

Second Blog Post...(on audience addressed and blogs)

I have been working on this second blog post since December 1, 2006, so prepare to be dazzled by my brilliance.

Not quite. In reality, what happened was this; I created this blog with much excitement a year and a half ago with every intention of dropping by every day to wax rhetorical/linguistic/pedagogical. After a few weeks, the new semester began, I became bogged down with teaching and research, and once I actually sat down to write another post, I realized I had lost my blog. I literally misplaced it in the great chasm of the Internet (thank you, Steve, for reminding me to capitalize that, even though I know you are not reading this), having forgotten I created it through blogspot. But a week ago I decided to hunt it down, and lo and behold, here it is, intact.

If a blogger makes a post in cyberspace and no one is around to read it, does it make a sound? Yes, I realize that I have mangled one of the great philosophical questions concerning the presence of an audience, but, well, you know what I mean. The question of blogs and their audiences (and how the audience shapes the genre) is one that interests me greatly. I am considering having my Fall 2008 advanced students (perhaps even my first years) create a blog for the purpose of recording various structured freewrites and research logs. Many of them, no doubt, will have already had experience with blogging on myspace--a *good* thing, in my opinion. They will likely come in without the knowledge that one can create a very engaging academic blog that allows them to collaborate productively with peers, and so this little rhetorical adventure will (1) allow them to expand their knowledge of a genre they are well aware of, thereby allowing them learn by association, and (2) let them write for a real audience--an audience addressed (me, their immediate peers in the class, and whatever cyber-couch-potato-riffraff who randomly searches blogs and happens to find theirs) rather than invoked.

So, back to whether this post makes a "sound" (or perhaps "resonates" might be a more appropriate word) if no one reads it. In fact, is this even a blog if no one reads my posts? I don't know yet. I'm sure that over the coming months I will mention to someone that I, too, have a blog, and they will peruse it and perhaps even tell someone else, and eventually I will gain some small readership of likeminded rhetoric dorks who enjoy pondering things like this to no end. But for right now, it feels kind of cozy posting in what may be the last tiny undiscovered corner of the net.

First Blog Post

This is the first blog post I have ever written.

I teach writing. For a living. I teach students to write about literature. I teach them to write about writing. I teach them to write about what other writing teachers have written about writing. I tell my students in general terms how technology (especially blogs (!)) will change their writing and the writing of their students in the future. And yet here I am, having never dabbled in the genre myself. I have, however, read quite a few blogs--some of these I have kept up with for the last couple of years.

I think I had a prejudice against blogs--something about the way they meld public and private lives and thoughts just struck me as strange and maybe even a little exhibitionistic. Are they journals? (I don't really think so, although on the surface they seem like diaries dressed up a bit and splashed across the internet.) And why do these people have such faith that what they think--about the war, about some book they read, about how cute their new puppy is--is something anyone would care about? Their contents usually read like extremely carefully constructed prose. Prose with a theme--posts generally have a point--a witty observation or critique of society or politics.

This is much more difficult than I thought. I have no theme today, and I do not feel like artificially inventing one. However, I will say this--this blog is going to explore the elements of my life that I have immersed myself in for the last nine years--rhetoric, feminism, technology, composition, and pedagogy.