'Lest you think I am insane for asking you why a concept such as "writer" necessarily needs to be singular, I'll encourage you to keep thinking about our politics of "traditional" vs. "multimodal" composing for next week. Maybe the answer is simple: composing involves working with more signs/symbols/materials beyond words, while writing involves only working with words. Maybe not.
Since we have no trouble imagining -- or acknowledging -- the expansion of concepts like genre, text, mode, or medium to account for multimodality; and since some of our theorists see "composing" and "writing" as conflatable, rather than as hierarchical categorizations of one another; then what stops us from opening up other terms, like "writer"? What other cultural logics or politics might be at work (western or non-western) that make it okay to expand our notions of the materials and objects of communication, but not our notions of the communicators or of the goals of communication -- of people, of origin points, of ownership or ideas?
Yet, there are still aspects of writing or reading or writer (in its biggest, broadest sense) that are untouchable for one reason or another, or that we didn't -- as a class -- want to discuss. But I think we should. Who is the "writer" of Doreen Piano's "Writing the Ruins", for example? Who "authored" Patrick Claire's "Anatomy of a Virus"? What makes Maira Kalman's blog "her writing"?
For that matter, was William Burroughs the "inventor" of his own technique?
When we think about them through the lens of multimodality, we may need to categorize them further, or perhaps to challenge
their definitions altogether. Questions like these are "contact zones" in the sense that those are the places we can go to figure out What's really at stake in this for us?. Ownership? Fame? Capital? There's always something at stake for theorists, and there are always ideologies at stake for other people we know (i.e., family members, taxpayers, friends at other institutions, etc.) who are exercising their own judgment about what we do, whether it is valuable, whether it fits with their definition of "learning" or "school" or "writing" or "scholarship" or "social activism" or "public intellectualism" or "work" or "equity" or "language" or "deep attention," etc.
And all of this will happen after our final colloquium!On that note, to prepare for next week's colloquium on "Politics of Change," this is how I'd like to excerpt our texts:
- We'll all read Berlin's "English Studies, Work, and Politics" in its entirety
- Then read either Redd's "Tryin' to Make a Dolla' Outa Fifteen Cent" or Ohmann's "Literacy, Technology, and Monopoly Capital"
- (Of course, you are always welcome and encouraged to read all three texts.)
As you read, please note two things:
- similarities to Adam Banks's arguments about "access" from several weeks back
- how your chosen selection (Redd or Ohmann) either supports or works against Berlin's argument that English studies is the place to critique political and cultural (and capital) involvements.
Have a great week, and send any questions my way before then!
-Prof. Graban
