JAC: A Journal of Composition Theory, Volume 28, Numbers 3 & 4, 2008 Page: 462
391-836, [2] p. : ill. ; 22 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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462
may be partly or wholly exclusive of those embraced by other clusters of
people, even well-intentioned, reasoned arguments can be interpreted (or
misinterpreted) as hostile to oneself and one's position within the
discipline. As Olson puts it, "since the beginnings of composition as a
field, we have all been struggling over how to define it, over its heart and
soul" (30).
Indeed, it should be clear by now that heart andsoul, as the figurative
repositories of those most affective aspects of our being, are very much
a part of "composition as an intellectual discipline" (Olson 31). Equally
true is that, so far, my portrayal of what Burke might call the "flare-ups
of" our disciplinary "barnyard" (23) suggests a model of struggle in
which each stakeholder has an equal footing, in which each group
possesses the same power to influence the theoretical, methodological,
and pedagogical directions the discipline will follow. But that is not the
case. Irrespective of how amorphous, open, and heterogeneous one
understands disciplinary communities to be, and irrespective of whether
one imagines such communities to be oriented abstractly around shared
epistemic values or concretely around material social practices, a simple
truth is that, like all complex systems, whose existence depends on
maintaining disequilibrium, disciplines derive their vitality from the
give-and-take of the different and (by some measures) distinct
subdisciplinary systems that they comprise. That is, at any one moment,
certain groups will inevitably hold more influence within the discipline
than others. Given, then, that it is not unreasonable to talk about members
of some groups of compositionists being in sometimes heated disagree-
ment with members of other groups; given as well that the source of such
"heat" is precisely the fact that our disciplinary and intellectual identities
are deeply, fundamentally affective (and therefore personal); and, finally,
given that some groups tend to hold more power within the discipline than
others; then it is also not unreasonable to suggest that the struggle over the
"heart and soul" of the discipline should be subject to similar concerns
about politics and social justice as those of macro-socially-oriented
identity politics.
I am not suggesting that whatever inequities may exist between
disciplinary and subdisciplinary groups in composition, English, the
Humanities, or higher education in general, are as significant in scope asjac
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Association of Teachers of Advanced Composition (U.S.). JAC: A Journal of Composition Theory, Volume 28, Numbers 3 & 4, 2008, periodical, 2008; (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc268404/m1/74/: accessed April 23, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; .