Robbins-The Scholar in Society

Wow here we are at the end of the quarter and submitting our last blog of the quarter, and what does it get to be about except the good luck getting a job position that Robbins begins his article. When I began reading this article I was a little bothered by the way Robbins chose to position himself to start. It certainly expressed all the fears I have of not being able to get a job once I get out there and begin looking. So I was a little turned off from the beginning of the article.

I did like how Robbins spoke of Literature in relation to cultural studies. I was an American Studies major prior to changing to English Lit. I changed to English Lit because there really are no jobs in American Studies at the community college level so I had to think about what one thing we used in American Studies to study culture that I loved the most. That one thing was Literature. As Robbins says "Literature is social experience, and literature is also the dissolution or evasion or problematizing of social experience" (316). We used literature to look at the culture of the time in relation to the type of people that were written about and the time written about as well as the people who were doing the reading at the time. We also used Western Lit to look at the American West and regional literature to look at areas such as the Midwest during the pioneering times, etc. So there was always a strong tie between the two and I felt that was where I needed to head so that I can have a specialization.

I was also troubled by the assertion that Robbins made that Literature was losing its value in secondary schools and that many were discussing removing it from the curriculum. Had I not been exposed to literature in high school I probably would not have learned to appreciate it the same way that I do today. I know there are many people that take literature courses in high school and do not have the same reaction that I do but I just feel it is important that we expose our children to literature and let them make the decision for themselves whether they like it or not. I know as Robbins says we could never change the world but I hope to begin teaching and maybe my love of a subject will be contagious with my students. That I would get to have the privilege of helping students to learn about the classics or how to write an academic essay, whatever I get to teach I want students to know that I love what I do and I will hopefully have the opportunity to spread that enthusiasm to at least one student.

Translation Studies-Defined

I thought Translation studies was just about translating a text from one language to another. I had no idea that so much went into this process. Or that there was more to look at than the printed word.

When translating a text things such as the time period of original publication is very important. What was the culture of that time period like at the time? Did the author mean this word that could be translated in two different ways to mean this or that?

The fact that there is an entire theory surrounding the translation of texts is also a new concept to me. Things like equivalence (the varying concepts of adequacy, correspondence, fidelity, identity, or resemblance) and shifts brought on by the "structural differences between languages and the cultural differences between audiences" (296 297). All of these things have to be taken into account when translating texts.

It is something that is sounds like very detailed and time consuming work but to me very exciting as well.

Feminism and other studies-Cause and Effect

Feminism seems to be an area of study that is tied highly to emotions. Many women feel that they do not get a fair shake in life because they are women. The areas that Donadey and Lionnet touch on are areas that are convoluted by other problems. In other words the areas of feminism studies that they are speaking of are complicated by the fact that the women in question are both women and of color, or of an alternative life style or have disabilities.

In the section on "US Third World Feminisms" the discussion is about women of color and how now instead of just looking at the women of color within the United States there is a tendency towards "transnational perspectives" (227) which allows the study to include the original culture from which these women come from to form their sense of identity and thus to exert for their rights based on their cultural as well as their feminine perspectives.

In post colonial studies of feminism it appears that they find it important to study our past and the ways in which women have been discriminated against in order to not forget the past so that it will not repeat itself.

The study of feminists with disabilities is so much today like feminists of color studies used to be at one time, it is almost non-existent. It was good to read that their are efforts being made to make that different and to include this group in the feminist studies of the present day.

I personally am not a feminist. I believe that I am just as good at what I do as a lot of men, I feel that I work harder many times than my husband :-) but never once have I felt discriminated against. In the way I have felt discriminated in, whether it be in a career or when I was trying out for parts in plays in college or whatever I have done in my life, it was more about my weight. So am I being discriminated against because I am overweight or because I am an overweight female? Are women of color discriminated against because they are of color or because they are also women? I sometimes think that in our society today women are held on a much more even plane with male counterparts unless there is an "other" issue besides being a female. Whatever that "other" may be from sexual lifestyle to the size of clothes you wear. I am not sure which brings it about more. Again this is just the perspective from my experience.

Research-talking with others-Definition

It seemed obvious to me before beginning this course what research was and how to do it. Hadn't I done so much of it already in my undergraduate career? Well I guess I can say a resounding NO! I have to admit when I read Mann's book I think "Oh yeah I knew that", however had I used it or perfected it? Again a resounding NO! I learned a lot in American Studies about things called Oral Histories. It is very similar to what Mann is talking about when he discusses talking to others who are experts in their fields. The only difference is that Oral Histories are usually dealing with some major event and then interviewing a person who experienced it, like a survivor of 9/11. But Mann is suggesting to call someone who is an expert in or for whatever reason my have the information you are looking for or have answers to the questions you are asking. I have to admit I am one of those who would be in the category of being afraid to bother someone. I guess it would be a good exercise in getting outside of my box:-)

TSIS Past/Future

In the past academic writing has been held to some pretty strict standards. Today as I am learning in my 612 course Composition as a field is opening up to dialects being allowed more often. That as a whole the field of Composition is changing and growing is a wonderful thing. I think there are still some old school profs out there who will not ever change their way of thinking but we can hope.

I love how Graff and Birkenstein have positioned this article. They articulate exactly what I have been trying to all quarter. There needs to be some standards, but that a student should be welcome to bring in words or phrases that express who they are as a person. I love the way they have posed this, it is so clear and concise. I hope that as we progress further into the future that more and more composition teachers will be on board with this.

Comparative Literature-Fenus/Species

Comparative Literature has always been a field of interest to me. I have however mostly been exposed to the World Literature side of the discipline. I was amazed at the history of this discipline and the many areas in which Comparative Literature encompasses.

I did not think it would be difficult to find a Department of Comparative Literature in Universities. It appears according to Holquist that it is not easy to find such departments without them being embedded in other departments. I wanted to see how correct he is. I googled Comparative Lit. departments in California Universities, I found a total of 13 California Public Universities that offer some type of Comparative Literature curriculum. Some of these departments are with English Departments, some are by themselves or united with studies in Foreign languages.

I was also surprised and a little saddened to find that throughout the years classes dealing with Comparative Germanic Literature's and others have ended up in things like German Studies. The sad part of that statement is that many of those literature's are no longer taught in their original languages that they are taught in translation. One of the reasons I am looking forward to the French course for Grad Students is I would love to read a French Novel in French.

"As A Result"-Whole/Parts

This reading in TSIS is one of the areas that I need some fine tuning. Transitions in my papers either get the comments good or weak, need to strengthen. What I was not consciously aware of is that there are many different ways to transition and that there are actual names for these transitions. I mean I have always known that there were many ways to transition I just did not know the names of the different types.

Transition words is something that is obvious to me, however I thought that was basically it. While I use pointing words I did not know there was anything called such. Repeating key term and phrases, I really thought this was not a good thing, but apparently I am wrong. I love to use the repeating myself in different words. I try not to overuse any of these techniques, but learning the happy medium is sometimes a challenge.

Cultural Studies-Contradictions

Jean Franco wrote about Cultural Studies by discussing what was not good about it. I have to premise my Blog by stating that I have both a BA and an MA in American Studies, which is the study of culture through History, Literature, Sociology, and Political Science. In studying American Studies I took classes that dealt with almost every ethnicity in the United States, I had classes that dealt with different movements in America from the time of the revolution to present. I would agree with Franco quoting Toby Miller who sees "cultural studies as a tendency across disciplines, rather than a discipline itself" (209). I do not think that is a negative statement. There is no way to study a culture as diverse as America without needing to cross disciplines in order to study it.

The criticism from Paul Smith of the "propensity of cultural studies to avoid offering up any especially firm definition or methodology suggestive view of what culture really is" tells me that he really does not understand cultural studies (210). How can any culture define itself in one way unless it is isolated. American culture has been developed by the people who have immigrated to this country since the time of its founding to this day. It is a fluid concept, it is developing every day. When I was studying American Studies we had a course on Television in America, the Internet was just beginning to become important in our culture; it was not something we studied at the time, but it is now. America is very different post 9-11 than it was pre 9-11; that is now something that is studied in American Studies that was not when I was taking courses in this subject. To me that is what makes it so interesting.

There seems to be a downward turn in American Studies, as is probably happening in many other cultural studies as is referred to in Franco's article. I found this to be true when I wanted to teach at a Community College and they were not sure where to put my application. They did not think it fit into history, maybe in humanity studies, or maybe literature. So that is why I am here. I found it necessary to get a more specialized degree. I believe that in studying English Composition and Literature that my background in American Studies will benefit me in my studies of English and in my teaching down the road. It was also one of my favorite parts of American Studies. I do not think that we need to do away with a field however, just because there is not a tidy definition of itself. Each individual culture that is present in American culture will define itself according to its ethnicity while at the same time defining them self as an American that is not a contradiction, but believing that there needs to be tight definition of culture is a contradiction to what culture is.

Naysayer-Subject/Adjuncts

Graff and Birkenstein talk in these chapters about inserting a naysayer into your writing. Basically trying to jump anyone to the punch who may not agree with what you have written or what your argument is. In this way it is possible to disarm some of the people who would disagree with you. They give us more templates to use in order to properly insert a naysayer. They also suggest that we let other arguments be known so that we as writers are saying that we are aware of the other arguments but that we still believe what we are writing, our argument, is the right argument. This is there main subject, however they warn us against the adjunct of this subject.

The adjunct of this subject is that there are those who will believe the counter-argument more than they will believe your argument. They give the example of Benjamin Franklin who converted to Deism because in reading arguments against Deism, he found himself believing the counter-argument more than the argument for. That is one thing we need to be careful of. Of course there are many counter-arguments that will be very influential so we as writers need to be careful of what we use as a counter-argument to our arguments.