After the Fallout

Things are settling down here. The semester has ended. Grades are due soon, but I only have final papers to evaluate, which tends to be easier than the papers during the semester, both because the quality is often better and because I don't have to make the extensive comments that I make on earlier papers, since most of the final papers will never be seen or retrieved by students. The children's schools will be winding down also. My son is looking forward to an orchestra competition out-of-town at a festival next Monday, and has his end-of-the-year concert tonight, in which he performs the solo! He had to try out for it, so we are very proud. Doodle is also practicing for an end-of-the-year program, and we had our "Mother's Day Tea" at her school last Friday. It was so neat having her serve me tea just as my son had done for years while he was at the same school. I wish I could send all of them there, but the job search won't permit. We are still looking for housing for the fall--ideally cheaper housing than what we currently have. It's a challenge, but we have some viewings lined up for Saturday, so we'll see. . .

I am recovering from the stress of two weeks ago. I had the dreaded meeting with the advisor, but it was not so bad. Instead, what I think has happened is that he has realized that I do indeed need help with this whole process. I was told that he will work with me on the answers to some anticipated questions to help me to better survive interviews. I had started thinking of some of this anyway, but my preparation may have been off. The random nature of the interview process leaves me very insecure, and I don't take comfort from the fact that it's like this for everyone. I think of myself as someone who thinks well on her feet and can communicate effectively, but I feel like I can't be completely honest in answering or I will jeopardize my chances of getting hired. That is singularly uncomfortable for me. If I conceal my thoughts about something, I feel like I'm being hypocritical and dishonest. I probably come across as smug or judgmental, too (imagine that). Because really, I'm judging them as much as they are judging me--that's too much judging for someone like me. But maybe if I'm not in the kind of "fog" that I was in last time, I will be able to think of responses that work. *sigh*

I have come to realize the depth of my insecurity. I think it has been building during all of the years I was away from coursework. It perhaps had its seeds in coursework, as I realized how different, and in many ways, agenda-driven, most of the scholarship in my field was from what I had imagined myself doing, and tried to fit myself into it. I developed a defensiveness, realizing that I would be judged according to the fact that I was not doing what others were doing. But I have not ever seen literature as a vehicle for social change, and I did not use it to critique society or to lobby for a more enlightened existence. I wonder--had my undergraduate courses been more overwhelmingly political, would I be here now? But I had professors who were contentedly thematic or New Critical in their approaches. Or even subtly New Historicist. I can't think of any who were overtly feminist--and this includes the lesbian poet who once tried to teach me to dance in a bar in New Orleans. I realize that even those professors--one art historian comes to mind--who tried to adopt a feminist perspective failed miserably by most standards, and I was allowed to write a paper refuting the agenda of Eva Keuls' Reign of the Phallus (but not refuting its research, which I found fascinating) in my freshman honors seminar. In those days, I didn't even like literature that was overtly political--Animal Farm, for example--because that's not what I was looking for in literature. Now I adore dystopia, so that has changed drastically, but I'm all about the context of the work. Though I do admit that I see an enduring message in many of the dystopian works I teach! So I was not out of line with my undergraduate professors, who preferred to teach interpretation rather than theory, and who did not structure their courses thematically to promote certain ideologies or worldviews or whatever. Would it shock you to know that I never read "The Yellow Wallpaper" in an undergraduate course? I did read The Awakening in high school, and utterly rejected it. I believe I had to read it again in an American Lit course, but I probably did not repeat the task. And I didn't like Emily Dickenson.

In graduate school, things changed radically. The goal of papers was completely different, and left me rather befuddled as I tried to figure out what, if anything, I had that was worthy according to the different standards I was confronting. My papers were (predictably, perhaps) reactionary. I proposed "different" ways of looking at feminist issues, focused on areas that were less politically charged (to me), and rejected Marxism except in the rare cases when it seemed to fit the author's own agenda. But I became dismayed by it all. Some of the versions of Marxism I encountered in guest speakers, etc., impressed me by their absolute futility, and the selections of texts in my graduate seminars were often uninteresting to me. I have a very short list of courses that I enjoyed, and even fewer texts that inspired me. And then there was the teaching. When I taught literature, I had a considerable amount of freedom, except the limitations imposed by the Intro to Lit anthologies. (Would it surprise you to know that I have never taught "The Yellow Wallpaper"?) In an era when any designated "greatness" of literature is considered suspect, the question of how to introduce literature to non-majors becomes complicated. And as far as I can tell, it comes down to introducing ways of viewing the world, reshaping the way students view the world by introducing, celebrating, or promoting certain perspectives, or using literature to try to make sense of life experiences, which some anthologies do try to do even though this is kind of a universalizing impulse. My problem with both approaches is that presenting literature with such specific purposes imposes a way of reading on the text. This limits the potential for discovery of meaning. I do not believe that there are infinite ways to read a text, but I also do not believe that the critics always have it right. That's why my interpretations of texts in my dissertation are not linked in any way to the criticism of the authors whom I study. That's probably why one of my committee members wrote so many little X's in the margins, though he seemed to like the overall dissertation. I do believe that the greatest literature is universal in a sense, in that it taps into the things that are common to humanity. And I do not think that the idea that there are things common to humanity contradicts the singularity of individual experience. But I'm a very empathetic person, and a very empathetic reader, so perhaps this desire to get inside others' heads and understand them makes me see the question of universality a bit differently. I want to see how we as individuals connect while understanding the differences that we face as individuals or as members of different communities. If there is no universal connection, then literature is pretty much meaningless.

Which I guess brings me to another breaking point of sorts with my discipline. Because I believe in a some kind of universal human experience, albeit mediated by particular circumstances, I think that there is inherent value in reading to seek those connections, to find ourselves in others, to find others in ourselves, and by evaluating ourselves and our experiences through reading, to grow as fully realized individuals. This is very outdated. But I feel that in order to function in a community, which is where the emphasis is these days in teaching and studying literature, we have to know who we are, and that's a complex question. I can't teach this, and I don't try. But I also don't try to stress difference to the point that it annihilates the self. I don't want to change anyone's worldview, but I do want to help students to put their worldview in perspective, and I think literature has infinite potential to give individuals perspective, as long as they are open to it and recognize it for what it is, and in order to accomplish this, we need to be non-threatening, by which I don't mean subtly subverting their worldview while pretending to be sympathetic. Not at all.

So I didn't really come into this profession to introduce or promote certain ideas, though I have dabbled in and do enjoy ecocriticism and postcolonialism. I don't think that by teaching certain texts in certain ways, that I stand to improve anyone's social condition. And I'm not terribly invested in the idea that everyone needs to tolerate everyone else's beliefs and ideas to the suppression of one's own, because that doesn't lead to understanding of any kind. And frankly, there are a lot of things I'm not interested in talking about with students. And wouldn't you know? Every one of them is represented in the standard composition text. And typically, they are represented in such a way that it is clear what the authors of the book want the student to think. In teaching argument, the arguments presented make a case for a certain worldview. And the students sometimes accept it without opposition, because the claims are so persuasive. Or they get mad because their opinions differ and they don't know how to articulate them. Now, a lot depends on the student and how the materials is presented, but I'm just not interested in negotiating any of this. Perhaps the issue is that while I can find universal experience in art, I can not find any evidence of that same interconnectedness in the diatribes that litter composition texts. So there's no room for sympathy or empathy, and there's no art. Granted, there is some clever use of language, which I can appreciate, but that is not the same as art, because art has an element of beauty or at least awe. Art evokes rather than stating, which is why popular music is not art these days! So this is why teaching comp and resolving to find a job in comp represents such a defeat for me.

And really, friends, I have felt disillusioned for so long, and read so many bleak accounts of the "realities" of the academic job market, and the promotion and tenure process, that the sense of futility has been overwhelming at times. The fact that I did not quit one of the many times I considered doing so is a small miracle. So perhaps I have something to do here before it is all over? Perhaps. I don't know.

But I entered into this meditation because I have been told twice by professors recently--my advisor and then my direct supervisor in Writing Programs--that I needed to work on my self-confidence. Now, when I was in high school, people didn't think I was self-confident, because I had some self-doubt, and some social insecurity. But that didn't mean that I didn't think I was at least as good as the people around me, I just didn't think anyone else was likely to recognize it in any kind of meaningful way. I guess not much has changed. But I felt pretty confident in coursework, and I have always felt that I could at least accomplish whatever I put my mind to. I'm not so sure about that anymore, though I did write what one friend of mine calls "the big book report" (which mine was *not*). I wonder if that is because I don't have sufficient relish for the task before me? And I can't imagine what circumstances could help me regain that relish. So perhaps the problem is that I am unsure of whether I want to put my mind to the task before me. Is that the same as a lack of self confidence? I'm not so sure. But it doesn't matter if I relish the task before me or not. At this point, my options are severely limited, and feeling like I don't have a choice motivates me to inaction--a choice in itself, no?