Traversing the Democratic Borders of the Essay

Cristina Kirklighter

Description

Scholarship on the personal essay has focused on Western European and U. S. varieties of the form. In Traversing the Democratic Borders of the Essay, Cristina Kirklighter extends these boundaries by reading the Latin American and Latino/a essayists Paulo Freire, Victor Villanueva, and Ruth Behar, alongside such canonical figures as Montaigne, Bacon, Emerson, and Thoreau. In this fascinating journey into the commonalities and differences among these essayists, Kirklighter focuses on various elements of the personal essay—self-reflexivity, accessibility, spontaneity, and a rhetoric of sincerity—in order to argue for a more democratic form of writing in academia, one that would democratize the academy and promote nation-building. By using these elements in their teachings and writings, Kirklighter argues, educators can play a significant role in helping others who experience academic alienation achieve a better sense of belonging as they slowly dismantle the walls of the ivory tower.

Foreword
Gail Y. Okawa

Acknowledgments

1. Introduction

The Personal, the Political, and the Rhetorical: Montaigne's and Bacon's Use of the Essay Form

Essaying an American Democratic Identity in Emerson and Thoreau

The Essay as Political/Cultural Critique in Latin America

Achieving a Place in Academia through the Personal Academic Essays of Victor Villanueva and Ruth Behar

2. The Personal, the Political, and the Rhetorical: Montaigne and Bacon's Use of the Essay Form

Brief Biography of Michel de Montaigne

Montaigne's Departure from Traditional Rhetorical Writing

Francis Bacon and the Essay

3. Essaying an American Democratic Identity in Emerson and Thoreau

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Biographical Background

Montaigne, Plutarch, Emerson, and the Essay

The Essay, Education, and the Formation of a U.S. National Identity

Emerson and "The American Scholar"

Henry David Thoreau

Historical and Political Background of Walden

Early Book Reviews of Walden and Its Significance to the Essay

4. The Essay as Political/Cultural Critique in Latin America

Freire's Place in Latin American History

Freire's Social Pedagogy and Its Tie to the Elements of the Essay

Freire's Pedagogical Ties to Self-Reflection in the Essay

Accessible Writing and the Freirian Essay

Freire and the Issue of Spontaneity

The Essay's Elements of Sincerity and Truthfulness in Freire's Writings

5. Achieving a Place in Academia through the Personal Academic Essays of Victor Villanueva and Ruth Behar

Conversations with Victor Villanueva on Bootstraps and His Influence in Rhetoric and Composition

Villanueva's Use of Self-Reflection and Accessibility in Bootstraps

The Movement from Mimicry to Spontaneity in Villanueva's Academic Writings

Sincerity and Acceptance in Villanueva's Scholarship

Ruth Behar and Her Rise to Academic Prominence

Behar's Use of Self-Reflexivity and Accessibility to Reconcile Her Ethnographic Identity in Academia

Spontaneity and the Essay: Behar's Growing Resistance to Becoming a Translated Academic

Behar's Use of Sincere Writing to Uncover Her Truth as an Ethnographer

6. Conclusion

Works Cited

Index

Sujets

• Discourse analysis
• Stylistics
• Semantics

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 février 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780791488119
• Langue: English

Extrait

TRAVERSING THE DEMOCRATIC BORDERS OF THE ESSAY

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TRAVERSING THE DEMOCRATIC BORDERS OF THE ESSAY

Cristina Kirklighter

S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y O F N E W Y O R K P R E S S

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany

© 2002 State University of New York

All rights reserved

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For information, address State University of New York Press, 90 State Street, Suite 700, Albany, NY 12207

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Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

Kirlighter, Cristina. Traversing the democratic borders of the essay / by Cristina Kirklighter. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7914-5467-3 (alk. paper) — ISBN 0-7914-5468-1 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Essay. I. Title.

PN4500 .K57 2002 809.4—dc21

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

2002017733

Foreword Gail Y. Okawa

Acknowledgments

C O N T E N T S

1. Introduction The Personal, the Political, and the Rhetorical: Montaigne’s and Bacon’s Use of the Essay Form Essaying an American Democratic Identity in Emerson and Thoreau The Essay as Political/Cultural Critique in Latin America Achieving a Place in Academia through the Personal Academic Essays of Victor Villanueva and Ruth Behar

2. The Personal, the Political, and the Rhetorical: Montaigne and Bacon’s Use of the Essay Form Brief Biography of Michel de Montaigne Montaigne’s Departure from Traditional Rhetorical Writing Francis Bacon and the Essay

3. Essaying an American Democratic Identity in Emerson and Thoreau Ralph Waldo Emerson Biographical Background Montaigne, Plutarch, Emerson, and the Essay

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Contents

The Essay, Education, and the Formation of a U.S. National Identity Emerson and “The American Scholar” Henry David Thoreau Historical and Political Background ofWalden Early Book Reviews ofWaldenand Its Significance to the Essay

4. The Essay as Political/Cultural Critique in Latin America Freire’s Place in Latin American History Freire’s Social Pedagogy and Its Tie to the Elements of the Essay Freire’s Pedagogical Ties to Self-Reflection in the Essay Accessible Writing and the Freirian Essay Freire and the Issue of Spontaneity The Essay’s Elements of Sincerity and Truthfulness in Freire’s Writings

5. Achieving a Place in Academia through the Personal Academic Essays of Victor Villanueva and Ruth Behar Conversations with Victor Villanueva onBootstrapsand His Influence in Rhetoric and Composition Villanueva’s Use of Self-Reflection and Accessibility in Bootstraps The Movement from Mimicry to Spontaneity in Villanueva’s Academic Writings Sincerity and Acceptance in Villanueva’s Scholarship Ruth Behar and Her Rise to Academic Prominence Behar’s Use of Self-Reflexivity and Accessibility to Reconcile Her Ethnographic Identity in Academia Spontaneity and the Essay: Behar’s Growing Resistance to Becoming a Translated Academic Behar’s Use of Sincere Writing to Uncover Her Truth as an Ethnographer

6. Conclusion

Works Cited

Index

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F O R E W O R D

Gail Y. Okawa

I’ve told this story before. It was a profound moment in an already long teaching career. I had heard Paulo Freire’s name for the first time at a CCCC convention in the mid-eighties, and was tantalized by the discus- sion of his ideas. That summer I was fortunate enough to participate in a week-long workshop with him and scholars like Henry Giroux and Michael Apple, thinkers who restored my faith in education. Drawing participants from the west to east coasts, the workshop was well- attended and provocative, but some of us—educators of color—began to feel a familiar discomfort in relation to the dominant group. We formed a pan-ethnic People of Color Caucus and met with Freire, sitting together on the floor, in overstuffed chairs, speaking of our concerns and experiences with racial and class inequities. Inevitably the question arose: “What can we do?” His advice was for me unexpected but unfor- gettable: “Find the spaces,” he said, “invade the spaces.” This book from the heart and mind of Professor Cristina Kirklighter does just this. Not only does it provide a helpful overview of the work and trends in our field, an impressive and meticulous synthesis of scholarship on the essay, but it brings together a seemingly strange and eclectic lot— from Montaigne and Bacon to Emerson and Thoreau to Freire himself, Villanueva, and Behar—in a way that makes sense. In her quest to estab- lish the personal essay as an invaluable means of individual expression and social study, the author offers a humanized view into European and North American essayists, long ago studied and perhaps forgotten by some of us: Montaigne through a contemporary lens and perspective; Emerson and Thoreau as nation-builders. Even the Latin American Freire is drawn as a

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Foreword

man in the process of discovery and change, alive, dynamic, and in flux. This portrayal made me recall Freire’s ironic reference that summer 14 years ago to himself as an “efficient dish washing machine” (or something to that effect), a man revising his role in his own family. Sometimes mak- ing gods into men is an invasion. Cristina’s work in this volume affirms my work during much of my career, especially the last 15 years or so, and reveals some chance—and some deliberate—crossed paths. In forming a multicultural cohort of writing center tutors at the University of Washington in the 1980’s, many of them undergraduate or graduate students of Alaska Native, American Indian, Asian American, African American, and Latino/a backgrounds, I began to see how personal life experience and critical reflection merged in the tutors’ developing sense of themselves as thoughtful professionals. I was hooked by the connection. In designing my dissertation study years later, I asked my participants—all teachers of color—to trace their experiences with literacy from their earliest rec- ollections to their careers as teachers of writing at the time, a choice based on my experience with the UW tutors, an abiding interest in the persons behind the roles, my research on autobiographical narrative, and what was, by then, an internalized belief in the power of personal and critical reflection. At one point, I had the bright idea to ask Victor Villanueva if he would participate in my study and write an autobio- graphical narrative for it, to which he replied, “I’ve just written one; do you want to see it?,” and sent me a draft ofBootstraps. In effect, we have been doing this work “so as not to lose [ourselves] in the enormous distance between what [we] do and say,” as Freire wrote later (Letters to Cristina3), and Professor Kirklighter points out in this volume. Like Cristina, in the early 1990’s, I combed through CCCC program books and attended the sparse offering of papers on the personal essay, the autobiographical, the narrative before they came in vogue, when Anne DiPardo and others were admonishing compositionists to see the value of students’ personal narratives in light of the politics of literacy. On one of those occasions in 1994, I happened to hear Cristina deliver her first paper “Redefining the Autobiographical Essay Through Multi- culturism,” was inspired to speak to her after the panel, and invited her to join the Latino Caucus (of which I have been an honorary member since 1987). Inclusion works against the isolation; another invasion of another space. Even those of us who do this work need to be reminded of its value, to see it in the context of a broader history, a larger effort, and this book aids us in the process. In drawing together elements of democracy, in ascribing a democratic character to the personal essay

Foreword

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that crosses generations and cultures, the author illustrates the cur- rency of the genre and the absolute necessity of our understanding and use of it not only in our scholarship, but in our classrooms. Villanueva and Behar’s stories and writing illustrate this. With the calamitous events of September 2001 loaming large, we will need more not fewer means for cross-cultural empathy and awareness, more not fewer avenues for questioning received knowledge—the deeds and words of the powerful, more not fewer demands for self-reflection, accessibility, sincerity, and authenticity. In troubled times when “democracy” is touted sometimes too casually and carelessly, it becomes all the more important to continue our vigilance in questioning the face of things, not for the sake of academic exercise, but to preserve those things we hold most dear. Cristina Kirklighter helps us to see the usefulness of the personal essay in achieving this end.

Gail Y. Okawa September 2001 Youngstown, Ohio