Steel yourself

[Diana York Blaine]

If you were only as right as as you are adamant you could be our
secret weapon for change, Steely!  You bring up something I haven't dared
suggest to the list but may as well:  English departments do feature a
number of us who are willing to posit "crazy" notions because we are one
of the few disciplines lacking Big Money Buy-Offs to support and propogate
the status quo. Barring that we are left with the rantings of lunatic
geniuses who happily attack sacred cows in their literature and little 
incentive to rationalize away the observations of, say, Thomas Pynchon.
Notice your list of evil-doers in academia. What they have in common isn't
university affiliation as much as expertise in fields capitalism
needs/wants to continue its exponential growth.  And whether you like it
or not, Freud and his ilk have had huge and damaging effects on our
conceptions of identity and social dynamics.  Those of us interested in
rewriting cultural metanarratives must grapple with him and many other
ideologues.  Theory has practical implications, even Pomo
theory, and I've yet to see a compelling argument, from you or anyone 
else, as to why I should shun it. But no one says you have to read it. Why
the insulting attacks?

I'm surprised to hear you found my senior American fiction class so
boring!  Particularly since I was surrounded by students yesterday after
the final exam telling me (yet again) that it was the most interesting
class they ever had, that no one had ever asked them to think before,
that they had never thought about many of the issues we discussed in class
or had never thought about them in those ways.  And yes, every single
one of them has a story about family financial ruin related to the
oil bust of the '80s.  Funny though they do not view it objectively as
related to larger issues of capitalism, technology and greed.  Why
should they?  Who encourages them to?  Well, in the best of worlds, none 
other than your dreaded academics. As for selling my students short,
again, sadly you're mistaken.  I practice feminist pedagogy which
in fact assumes their ability to think and speak;  this contrasts with  
traditional educational practices. In class I decenter my authority and
hand them the majority of the burden for grappling with the texts that we
read. I'm sure you're familiar with Paulo Freire and other progressive
educators;  I base my classroom dynamics on their theories. My turn to
make assumptions about you: you think it's a bunch of crap and you're
going to unload a hod of arrogant bombast that passes as argument. Talk
about elitist, Steely, have you checked out your own posts lately?

Thanks for the tip on your TO article;  I'll look for it.     Diana