Imagined Geographies

Nedra Reynolds begins her essay "Composition's Imagined Geographies: The Politics of Space in the  Frontier, City and Cyberspace," discusses "Importing Composition" by Muchiri et al. I made a note in the margins next to the quotation "The teacher in New York or Los Angeles may look out over a classroom and think, 'the whole world is here.' It isn't" (qtd in Reynolds 13). The note was that composition professors have capacity to hold honorable, yet misleading perceptions of space in our classroom. I'm seeing this all tying into the conversations about writing environments (particularily social/business/political environments, discourse communities so to speak) that we create in metaphysical spaces, in customs of discourse. This leads to the necessity of literacy studies.

One of the most interesting essays from Ecocomposition pages 97-208 was Long's Education and Environmental Literacy. Long's work over the years has covered 20th century American literature, environmental writing, and teaching reading a writing. For more on Long's bio and current work, visit here.

Where I believe Long arrives to by the end of his essay is that literacy studies help us find "the human center" situated in the world. Furthermore, the literacy approcah gives us and our students the opportunity to express who we are and receive and understand those expressions in writing communities. We share and enrich our cultural values by learning about other discourse communities and furthering our notions of tolerance, objectivity, and reflective thinking. Furthermore, we also have the opportunitiy to refine our own discourse communities in learning about others, even if we do not participate in them. Citing Martha Nussbaum (e.g., Nuss-Bomb with all respect) Long suggests "The citizen of democracy 'must incerasingly learn how to understand, respect, communicate if our common problems are to be constructively addressed'" (qtd in Long 131). He also calls attention to the value of literacy studies vis Giroux's study of Friere's "Critical Conciousness" which views "literacy as changing the world . . . understanding of citizenship, democracy, and justice that was global and transnational" (qtd. in Long 132).

However, what do we make of Nedra Reynolds discussion, particularly point #3 on page 13, about arguing for "a spatial politics of writing instruction that denies transparent space and encourages the study of neglected spaces where writers work" (13)? Is she talking about the same things that Long is exploring? I think they may share some common concerns about not only the importance of a literacy approach in some writing assignments, but also the value of expressing ourselves so we have a connection with the spaces around us so we can reach that unity so many of the pastoral texts we've read this quarter attest to such as Silko, Momaday, Sanders, etc. They indeed show us the literacy of places where they have dwelled, what it means to be and live there with the places they describe. However, the texts in Ecocomposition (pgs 98 - 206) and Reynolds' discussion, encourage a pastoral of the individual space and its connections to surroundings, not only physical, but socio-political places too.

If education is about learning and gaining intelligence, perhaps we should investigate more of the places we communicate within and the places where others coommunicate? 

Converging, tolerating, listening and sharing who we are may indeed indeed make us more intelligent, not just better citizens.

What is Ecocomposition Anyway?

Blog on Cooper's "Ecology of Writing" --go comment, I know you want to. 

From Cooper's "Ecology of Writing" she cites Stanley Fish who says, "readers are guided by interpretive strategies, that these strategies are constitutive of interpretive communities, and that the strategies originate with writers" (365). Such strategies, Cooper argues, are "part of the mental equipment of writers and readers" and such equipment requires our examination to understand communicative environments.

Dr. Stanley Fish - Professor of Law at Florida International University

As in David Orr's commencement address in 1990 to Arkansas College, he demonstrates the environment of academic discourse at AC, and arguably most higher ed institutions in the country. The interpretive communities of the academic college are much like German education at the beginning of the 20th century.  German education (in Wiesel's words) "'emphasized theories instead of values, concepts rather than human beings, abstraction rather than consciouness, answers instead of questions . . . '" (qtd. in Orr 1). Looking at colleges as environments allows us to see what is advantageous, as well as what might be limiting or dangerous in said environment, as well as what other discourse environments can do to help improve that environment and influence thought diversity and awareness.

 

David W. Orr is the Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics. He is also a James Marsh Professor at large at the University of Vermont (Oberlin Web page).

This is evident in Orr's discussion of success. he says that our notions of success in our culture are warped and ill-conceived without much consideration of longevity and sustainability. he says that the planet "needs people who live well in their places" (see Owens' "Eutopia" on page 31 of Ecocomposition), and "people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane" (Orr 4). It is exactly this idea of success that defines the different environments of a college and a sustainable living movement and requires an ecocomposition approach to writing.

Ecocomposition can politicize and polarize a classroom, which is not the major point I think any of the authors are making on this reading list, although they do warn of it at varying degrees. What the point is overall I believe, is that we need to begin to view discourse communities as unique and specialized, but weak in that their perspectives are limited, myopic, and even self-serving and self-righteous. It is not just the business schools driven by The Art of War in teaching "success" in capitalism, but also the academics flying into distant cities to present papers and talks without really examining how their behavior affects places, people, and ecologies of local to global scope (Weisser and Dobrin 28). Citing Youngstown, Ohio where Orr grew up, he said that manufacturing corporations left that town disheveled because the "bottom line" ursurps "unemployment, crime, higher divorce rates, alcoholism, child abuse, lost savings, and wrecked lives" in what our culture values most (Orr 5). One last example, my favorite of Orr's, is how ecocomposition can help us see how limited our "worldy" views are that colleges and universities grant us in the United States. Orr argues, "no student should graduate without understanding how to analyze resource flows and without the opportunity to participate in real solutions to real problems" (Orr 6). The main point of Ecocomposition is that it is a realization that writing communities have limits, limits we shouldn't bind ourselves within as participants in the world.  

 Success, a fleeting term from discourse community to discourse community?

According to Weisser and Dobrin,

ecocomposition is an area of study which, at its core, places ecological thinking and composition in dialogue with one another in order to both consider the ecological properties of written discourse, and the ways in which ecologies, environments, locations, places, and natures are discursively affected . . . ecocomposition is about relationships . . . it is about the production of written discourse and the relationship to those places it encounters. (2)

Ultimately, I see ecocomposition as a useful way to teach discourse and demonstrate the importance of dialectical and critical thinking in the world at large today. Ecocomposition helps students understand how to step back and look at discourse as of a cultural phenomena, as potentially biased, and as one of many perspectives on issues of importance. Ecocomposition helps us realize that there are many locations of thought and value, and that is a wonderful argument for advocates of critical thinking. However, given its limitations, ecocomposition can politicize the classroom if not defined properly to students. As with the term environmentalist, many biases and prejudices are embedded in ecology, and hence ecocomposition. While it can apply to issues of sustainability, it is also more importantly applies to issues of location in not only physical space, but also the metaphysical space of discourse communities and the environmental factors that influence them.

Furthermore, we can alienate students with ecocomposition in assignments. In Derek Owens' outline of seven assignments, he demonstrates ways to write ecocomposition that doesn't stop at the Thoreauian place portrait, but delves into ecocomposition exigencies like "Eutopia," "Neighborhood Histories," "Tribal Testimonies," and "Future Scenarios" to name some examples (W and D 30-34). Such discourse opportunities extend participation to not only privileged narratives about pristine landscapes, but also to sites of cultural wealth that are not natural wonders in the sense of an outdoor documentary, but natural wonders of perspective, community, and people that can help us connect our fragmented ecologies of discourse across cities, states, nations, and the globe. As Killingsworth and Krajicek state, "some of our students in ecocomposition lack sufficient alienation or critical distance, just as we and our heroes may well lack sufficient socialization" (W and D 54).

 

308 Video Essay about Place and Ecology

Hey, check this out. A recent project that was turned into me. I thought it would be useful/worth considering for our class and especially the reading for this week.

Meet your Meat

Meet your meat is a PETA slogan that has been in use for years; it seems to have resonated with me because I kept thinking of it when viewing Food Inc., reading the excerpt from Omnivore's Dilemma, and Schnieder's essay on Slow Food, "Good, Clean, Fair." However, these texts remove some of the dramatization that alienates others considering how to act on the issue. Again though, the radical acts of PETA (and other environmentalists) have been instrumental to some of the progress and acceptance of perspectives like Pollan's, Kenner's, and Schnieder's. Groups like them bring hard issues to the surface.

The texts by Schnieder and Pollan fill in some gaps from Food, Inc. that I found particularly helpful to my inquiries. The details about feeding cows rendered animal fat and ignoring the instincts we have to keep food and fecal matter apart were very powerful in Pollan's excerpt--I can't wait to read that book.

Teaching the slow food philosophy was an interesting detail in Schnieder's essay. I though the example of Alice Waters showing Petrini the effectiveness of "school vegetable gardens" Can anyone really complain about teaching young students about vegetable gardening? Many probably would complain, but the connection to our health and longevity as a species cannot be denied. Furthermore, growing something with your own two hands alleviates depressive thoughts and emotions, as well as gives you a sense of appreciation for what you have and your abilities to support local sustainability.

Another more important quote from Petrini about the interconnectedness of food, culture, health, ecology and thinking:

I also like how this quote about the new gastronomy ties the readings together. Perhaps this is a new aim for food and culture programming on television; demonstrating sustainability and fine food working together and really emphasizing the origins of the dish's components.

 Has our food culture gone out of control because of financial exigencies?

If it were only that simple . . . 

Considering Omnivore's Dilemma, I am curious about what Pollan is saying about the details of how the federal farm bill should be considered a food bill. What does that entail?

The trope of the feedlot as a city is such a good metaphor that it is quite literal in many ways. The subsidization of corn and the fossil fuel need to generate and transport it is harrowing. Can we change this behavior or is out culture too resistant? I was near a pig feedlot in South Carolina a few years ago and the stench of sulphur and cesspits was ubiquitous and nauseating. Our culture hides this stuff away and it is something hard to support when you are informed.