English

Exploring the Significance of Social Class Identity Performance in the English Classroom: A Case Study Analysis of a Literature Circle Discussion

Amanda Haertling Thein et al. — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 15:27:26 PST

English educators at all levels have endeavored to understand difference in their classrooms both in terms of the content that they teach and in terms of the social and cultural identities of students in their classrooms. However, although educators have come a long way in understanding identity as it is constituted by race and gender, much work is needed for social class identity to be understood with nuance and complexity. This article explores the salience of class identity as it affects one aspect of learning in the English classroom--literary interpretation. Specifically, this article draws on data from a six-week literature circle unit in which four white, socioeconomically diverse students discussed Dorothy Allison's "Bastard Out of Carolina". By examining and uncovering the students' social class identity performances as they influenced both their participation and interpretations in the literature circle, this article sheds light on the significance of social class identity in the English classroom and makes a case for the importance of a more thorough consideration of social class in teaching and research in English education.

Review of Susan Wells, Out of the Dead House: Nineteenth-Century Women Physicians and the Writing of Medicine

Amy Propen et al. — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 09:52:22 PST

Forming University and Teacher Partnerships in an Effort to Reframe and Rethink Mentoring Programs

Megan Guise — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 09:52:20 PST

Instead of thinking about teacher development as a series of discrete stages, mentors in schools and universities might re-conceptualize the process as a continuum, with the faculty involved in the preparation continuing a partnership to support the development of beginners in the schools.

Review of Mary E. Hocks and Michelle R. Kendrick, Eloquent Images: Word and Image in the Age of New Media

Laura J. Gurak et al. — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 11:03:29 PST

Critical GPS: Toward a New Politics of Location

Amy D. Propen — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 11:03:25 PST

This paper aims to extend the purview of critical GIS to also account for what would be akin to a critical GPS by examining two cases where GPS technology is used as a similar means to two decidedly different ends. I look at Acme-Rent-a-Car’s use of GPS technology to track the driving speed of their customers and then fine their customers for speeding, and the Amsterdam Real-Time Project’s recent use of GPS technology to create, for aesthetic purposes, maps of the real-time movements of individual Amsterdam citizens. I examine the social implications of a consenting or nonconsenting subject who is always already locatable. I suggest that the questions raised by each of these two cases are indicative of a social dilemma in GPS, and thus advocate for a critical engagement with GPS technology.

Visual Communication and the Map: How Maps as Visual Objects Convey Meaning in Specific Contexts

Amy Propen — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 11:03:23 PST

This article reports the results of a case study of two maps, produced by the National Marine Fisheries Service and the Natural Resources Defense Council, and their involvement in a federal court case over the deployment of the Navy's low-frequency active sonar. Borrowing from Kress and van Leeuwen's (1996) approach to visual analysis, Turnbull's (1989) understanding of the map, and Latour's (1990) understanding of how visuals work in social contexts, the article offers an analytical approach to studying maps as powerful visual, rhetorical objects.

Making Academic Work Advocacy Work: Technologies of Power in the Public Arena

Amy Propen et al. — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 11:03:20 PST

Through interviews and courtroom observations in a case study done in collaboration with a community partner in two judicial districts in Minnesota, the authors extend the scholarly conversation about critical, activist research in business and technical communication and make pedagogical suggestions by studying two groups who contribute to the discourse about victim rights: judges who accept plea negotiations and make sentencing decisions and advocates who help victims contribute, through victim impact statements, their reactions as crime victims and their requests for certain punishments and conditions for the crime perpetrators. The authors identify the technologies of power used by each group to assert their disciplinary authority and trace how these assertions play out in the courtroom. They conclude that by capitalizing on the normative structures of impact statements, advocates may actually give victims more power. Such activist research might benefit research participants and enhance research methods.

Degrees of Emotion: Judicial Responses to Victim Impact Statements

Mary Lay Schuster et al. — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 11:03:18 PST

Emotional standards and hierarchies in the courtroom may affect judicial reactions to victim impact statements. Based on judicial conversations and courtroom observations in two judicial districts in Minnesota, we suggest that judges contrast emotion with reason in order to maintain control of their courtrooms; when faced with emotional expressions in victim impact statements, judges appreciate expressions of compassion and tolerate expressions of grief but are uncomfortable with expressions of anger. These judicial responses to emotional expression, however, must be contextualized; for example, the judges we spoke with often articulated different reactions to impact statements given by victims of sexual assault, those who are strangers to the perpetrator, and impact statements given by victims of domestic violence, those who are in a relationship with the perpetrator.

Understanding Genre through the Lens of Advocacy: The Rhetorical Work of the Victim Impact Statement

Amy D. Propen et al. — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 11:03:15 PST

Through interviews with judges and victim advocates, courtroom observations, and rhetorical analyses of victims’ reactions to proposed sentences, the authors examine the features that judges and advocates think make victims’ arguments persuasive. The authors conclude that this genre, recently imposed upon the court, functions as a mediating device through which advocates push for collective change, particularly for judicial acceptance of personal and emotional appeals. This study understands genres as responsive to changes within the activity systems in which they work and extends knowledge about genres that function as advocacy tools within internal institutional systems.

Problematizing Literature Circles as Forums for Discussion of Multicultural and Political Texts

Amanda Haertling Thein et al. — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 13:03:32 PDT

In a six-week literature circle unit in a tenth-grade classroom, one group of students discussed Dorothy Allison's novel Bastard out of Carolina. By criteria frequently used to judge the quality of discussion, this literature circle was successful. However, several key moments are highlighted that point to the limits of literature circles as they are typically implemented for engaging students in the full critical depth of multicultural and political texts. Finally, suggestions are offered for rethinking literature circle pedagogy with the goal of offering students a more nuanced and robust experience with such texts.

Review of Mikko Tuhkanen, The American Optic: Psychoanalysis, Critical Race Theory, and Richard Wright

J. Bradford Campbell — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 09:07:11 PDT

The Politics of Doubling in "Mortality and Mercy in Vienna"

Douglas Keesey — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 14:26:15 PST

Vineland in the Mainstream Press: A Reception Study, Pynchon Notes

Douglas Keesey — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 14:26:10 PST

James Dickey's To the White Sea: A Critical Controversy

Douglas Keesey — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 14:26:06 PST

The Ideology of Detection in Pynchon and DeLillo

Douglas Keesey — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 14:26:01 PST

Mason & Dixon on the Line: A Reception Study

Douglas Keesey — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 14:25:57 PST

Appraising The Whole Motion: Dickey's Place in Literary History

Douglas Keesey — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 14:25:51 PST

They Kill for Love: Defining the Erotic Thriller as a Film Genre

Douglas Keesey — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 14:25:47 PST

Psychoanalysis of a Sequel: The Disinterment of Pet Sematary Two

Douglas Keesey — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 14:25:42 PST

Neither a Wife nor a Whore: Deconstructing Feminine Icons in Catherine Breillat's Une vieille maîtresse

Douglas Keesey — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 14:25:37 PST

This article undertakes a close reading of Catherine Breillat’s recent film Une vieille maîtresse (2007) to show why this, her first heritage film, is nevertheless strongly relevant to the gender politics of today. The author argues that Breillat’s cinematic deconstruction of differences between women is designed to undo the polarising effect of patriarchal representations of women as madonnas or whores — media images still prevalent even in these days of mixité and parité. Despite a tendency on the part of some reviewers to take the film’s gender images at face value, the author argues that Breillat’s interest lies not in the predictable (and socially conservative) contrast between fixed polarities, but in the uncertain outcome of a dynamic internal conflict, in the (progressive) possibility of indeterminate gender roles. Through a close examination of the film’s mirror imagery, deconstructive editing and transvestic costumes, the author demonstrates how Breillat both exaggerates and confuses feminine icons in order to highlight them as patriarchal stereotypes and to deconstruct their opposition. The article also draws on paratextual evidence, including the striking poster art used in the film’s advertising campaign as well as the revealing statements made at film festivals by Breillat and her lead actress.