On Tue, 22 Apr 1997 00:46:43 -0500 lissa bloomer wrote:
> From: lissa bloomer <ebloomer@MAIL.VT.EDU>
> Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 00:46:43 -0500
> Subject: what students read and what should we teach?
> To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU
>
> in response to nalo -- and also a bunch of other stuff:
>
> eye-yi-yi. i have so much reading to do. egads. i've never heard of
-Bone
> Dance- so i'll give it a try. you know, this sounds really really
really
> terrible, and i promised myself 7 years ago when i first started
teaching
> that if i ever muttered the words i should quit
immediately..........but...
> here are the words... i'm beginning to tire of trying fem works in a
> freshman comp class. i'm not complaining - i love my job and the
students
> -- i think i'm obsessively worrying as constructive procrastination
since i
> have papers to grade. however, it's just that it's first of all
damaging to
> my own persona, since it's hard to teach books that are so close to
home,
> so personal, and so religiously a part of my core beliefs. ya know?
it's
> hard for me to distance. for example, i used marilyn robinson's
> _Housekeeping_ (which Marlene Barr would certainly call "feminist
> fabulation", since Ruth and Sylvie both leave ((transcend)) the
patriarchal
> world for another) in 1105, and felt quite emotionally drained. i
wanted
> them all to love it as much as me, and when some didn't, it hurt. i
want to
> use _Momaday_ in a class, but i'm not sure i can well. there are,
maybe,
> 20 books that i'm not sure i could ever use in a classroom because
they are
> so close to me. (the kind of books that i want to match the paint of
the
> covers to paint my bedroom... the kind of books that smell of the
bottom of
> my sachel...) and, strangely enough, most, if not all, of these books
are
> feminist and of the sf ilk. and the more i read, the more i find i
cannot
> share in the freshman english classroom. too scared? yes. and it
sucks.
> that i have to, as nalo says, "bait and switch" is terrible. that if i
use
> Ursula Le Guin's "Carrier Bag of Fiction" in the classroom and then
am
> assumed a male-hating-radical-feminist-who
> is-going-to-automatically-fail-all-men is too.
>
> how does one teach a feminist sci fi book????? how does one
teach a book
> that one loves without going insane? (( i know the "one should only
teach
> the books that one loves so that one will be motivated" answer...
and i
> know the "jesus, get some distance" answer.... and i know the "you
must
> share all the books, you selfish geek" answer....and the "you
should be
> teaching an optional class in an arts program" answer...and the
"you need
> to go pay for your voice and get your damn phd" answer...))
>
> could you share your "delaney shelf" with anyone? ((and did you
write that
> you HEARD him SAY something? wow. did you meet him?))((Le
Guin and Delany
> are gods.))
>
>
> -lissa bloomer
>
>
> I really do sympathise with the above, and it is not just feminism
as such. My male colleagues think that teaching westerns is
mainstream but teaching musicals would be feminine (Thoroughly
Modern Millie is still one of the most popular films I have ever
shown). I am currently having problems with a mature student. She is
very good, very bright, but continuously saying that texts, both fiction
and non-fiction are "too feminist". I keep pointing out that many other
texts have other axes to grind but it is hard work. However, today I
had an unexpected pleasure. As part of the course I am teaching on
The American City, I set a passage from Sarah and Elizabeth
Delany's Having Our Say. The class positively glowed... they loved
the extract, both male and female students and have all bounced off
to read more, and this despite the strong feminism that comes from
both women in their different ways. Being told that they were related
to Samuel Delany, whose short story they read the week before, sent
some of them back to that. Sometimes it can really work.
It is worth all the knocks. I currently have a third year student (in her
fifties) who started off very hostile to feminism and has come to the
point where she is reading feminist literature. The problem I think is
not so much the freshman classes, but if you find yourself in a
position where you are not teaching these students at a later date, so
that one cannot either see or promote any change that may take
place.
Farah.
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