Today’s post will be more in line with my final project. It has occurred to me that I could have done this the whole semester, but epiphanies do not always happen when they are supposed to. I am interested in the ways in which theory can interweave with the composition classroom by informing teaching philosophy, classroom dynamics, as well as assignments. For today, I will do a close interpretation of Julia Kristeva through the lens of composition theory. My intention of my analysis is to align the language of her theory to the language of composition. Perhaps inspired by Susan Jarratt’s discussion of the rhetoric of political protests and the importance of spurring a discussion of controversial topics, I too wish to start a discussion, but about how theory can inform composition studies.
Julia Kristeva’s biggest contribution to theory and philosophy is her reinterpretation of Freud and Lacan. Freud argues that the baby must detach itself from it’s mother to avoid castration, while Kristeva argues the baby does this to abject the mother and reassert his/her own boundaries of identity. In other words, this is me, and my mother is over there. Through abjecting “the infant finds the maternal body disgusting, if still fascinating, and is able to leave it behind and enter the social.” (Oliver 154) Each individual feels the need to red themselves of the unnecessary or the “filthy” in order to feel a new and ready to find a personal identity: “on the basis of the simple logic of excluding filth, which, promoted to the ritual level of defilement, founded the “self and clean” of each group if not of each subject. (Kristeva 168). In the composition classroom, the instructor becomes a form of maternal figure by leading discussion and guiding the students through their academic writing journey. A re-constitution of the term abjection can be interpreted in the following way: If the teacher is a maternal figure for the students, then she/he should help the students learn to realize they must face society on their own once they enter the “real” world. Fisher and Fray’s idea of the gradual release of responsibility is a useful idea in this context. That is to say the I do, We do, You do model. Here is the link. This idea is a non intrusive and implicit way of helping the students separate from their instructor, the maternal figure, and be prepared to write for other audiences. A person does not only abject the mother, however, they will continuously abject aspects of themselves which they find grotesque and unnecessary to their personal development.
Julia Kristeva also contends that people must also abject society from themselves. They reassert their boundaries of identity from animals to name an example. “thus renouncing the possession of all women in their turn, they establish at one stroke the sacred, exogamy, and society.” For the composition classroom, this can mean overcoming the lack of entrance into societal discussion by writing papers and refuting other people’s ideas with one’s contentions. The simpler transcription of this idea that I prefer, is that students must abide by the writing process to leave behind, “the filthy,” in this case, the original messy versions of papers. I am not sure who invented the writing process (perhaps it was Murray?), but I learned about it from Lad Tobin in his article entitled “Process Pedagogy.” This is a process where students pre-write, write, and revise in a recursive process to create more authentic papers. Tobin quotes Murray “Instead of teaching finished writing, we should teach unfinished writing, and glory in it’s unfinishedness…” (2) Thus the language of composition can be aligned with that of Kristeva’s psychoanalytic analysis by reconstituting the term abjection to mean, learning to leave behind the teacher as well as original drafts by revisiting them. These are only a couple of ways of reconstituting the terms of course as there are many ways of reinterpreting the term as well as these theoretical perspectives we have been reading all semester.
The previous was only a snapshot at what I am working on. I decided to focus on a select idea to explicate it in a detailed manner that is not overwhelming to the reader as well as to myself. I will probably use this in my final project. Perhaps my final project will end up being more theory, and I think that’s fine. But after I finish reconstituting the language I wish to use in composition, I wish to make these ideas concrete and give useful activities and strategies for the composition classroom. I think this is a wonderful way to engage in a dialectic between these two fields. I can jump back and forth between my discussion of theory to that of composition. Thank you for reading, it has been fun engaging with conversation with all of you through this medium the whole semester. Happy final project composing!
Works Cited and Consulted
Kristeva, Julia. "From one Identity to An Other." French Feminism Reader. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000. 158-165. Print.
---, ---. "From Filth to Defilement." French Feminism Reader. Lanham, MD:
Rowman & Littlefield, 2000. 166-176. Print.
Levey, Ellen. Gradual Release of Responsibility. Jan. 2007. PDF.
Oliver, Kelly. "Maternity, Feminism, and Language." French Feminism Reader. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000. 153-157. Print.
Tate, Gary, Amy Rupiper, and Kurt Schick. "Process Pedagogy." A Guide to Composition Pedagogies. New York: Oxford UP, 2001. 1-17. Print.
