Posted on 01/30/2008 10:48:05 AM PST by bs9021
Erykah Badu in the Classroom
by: Bethany Stotts
Chicago, Ill—Interdisciplinary writing may offer a way to overcome value judgments and examine literature from “multiple perspectives” incorporating social, political, and economic factors, argues Professor Akua Duku Anokye. The Arizona State University professor told a Modern Language Association (MLA) audience this December that “if we label texts illogical, maybe they’re illogical to us... so sometimes we make these kinds of evaluative judgments without taking into consideration the circumstances and the culture from which they come.”...
An associate professor of Africana language, literature, and culture, Anokye adopted a similar non-judgmental attitude following the September 11, 2001 attacks. She responded to the tragedy by working with Arab-Americans on an oral history project. “For example, in the wake of September 11, 2001, my students in a first year composition and ethnic study learning community worked to develop an oral history project with Arab-Americans and people of Arab descent in” a nearby metropolitan area, she said...
The [Erykah Badu] skit, which Anokye regularly uses to introduce her courses, recounts a woman’s anger at her boyfriend for rescinding his promise to take her to the Wu-Tang concert... It contains such inspiring observations as ....Well I be blowing up your pager daddy/But you never called me back/Well I be putting in 9-1-1 baby/But you never called me back, no no.”...
According to Professor Anokye, this stylized piece provides a springboard for profound economic, social, and psychological discussions. “It’s economic because we’re talking about exchanges here. It’s psychological because here’s this woman that’s kind of been dumped. It’s sociological because it’s talking about so many instances where maybe there’re not enough men to go around,” she argued...
(Excerpt) Read more at campusreportonline.net ...
The course has a real waste of time and money aura ...
I can see this woman is destined to go far in her chosen profession.
My contribution to the discussion would be so profound that it couldn't be printed here without getting me banned.
Hey, Eekera Boodoo.... see if this sounds “logical” or not...
You’re a pinhead!
Anybody read "Howl"?
This is the Modern Language Association, for pete’s sake, which has been a laughingstock since the early 80s, being addressed by someone named Inky Dinky Doo, with apologies to Jimmy Durante. As one critic put it, the MLA is made up of “...self-parodying hypocrites who claim to teach English but can’t even write it intelligibly, or hack critics who treat the magic of literature as so much grist for the reigning theoretical paradigm....”
Shouldn't this kind of course be taught by lesbians?
They developed an oral history project in a composition class?
Would it be a value judgement if I said that I think this whole thing is a load of cr*p?
A perfect candidate for the new Ebonics for the Sociopath Chair at the University of Massachusetts!
If I understand this the message is that logic is a Western concept which should not be imposed upon other cultures.
This, of course, would also be a surprise in much of Indian culture and large parts of Chinese, Japanese, Korean and other East Asian cultures. But Islam and particular will be allowed ot have cultures in which logic is never required.
If we combine this with our refusal to point out that absent the one-crop economy of oil Sharia law has not worked very well, it does not bode well.
I LOVE that quote because he just sums it up, leaving one free to go on to other, more constructive trains of thought.
>>>“if we label texts illogical, maybe they’re illogical to us... so sometimes we make these kinds of evaluative judgments without taking into consideration the circumstances and the culture from which they come.”...<<<
This kind of thinking is such an artifact of the 1960s. The speaker tries to sound profound without having any substance. Of course, since I don’t understand what he’s trying to say, I obviously don’t take into considering his circumstances and culture.
What trite crap. Every English teacher - including myself - who has ever taught any poem, book, text, magazine article, song lyric, haiku, epic poem, sonnet, play, or film has always, in every case, spend countless hours considering the circumstances and culture of the writer. Any Freeper reading this can recall teachers spending hours and assigning multiple projects asking students to think about where a writer came from and how that influenced how the writer wrote.
The speaker, plainly put, doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about. That’s my evaluative judgment.
Here’s another judgment: college has really turned into a vast wasteland of meaningless thought, hasn’t it?
>>>“if we label texts illogical, maybe they’re illogical to us... so sometimes we make these kinds of evaluative judgments without taking into consideration the circumstances and the culture from which they come.”...<<<
This kind of thinking is such an artifact of the 1960s. The speaker tries to sound profound without having any substance. Of course, since I don’t understand what he’s trying to say, I obviously don’t take into considering his circumstances and culture.
What trite crap. Every English teacher - including myself - who has ever taught any poem, book, text, magazine article, song lyric, haiku, epic poem, sonnet, play, or film has always, in every case, spend countless hours considering the circumstances and culture of the writer. Any Freeper reading this can recall teachers spending hours and assigning multiple projects asking students to think about where a writer came from and how that influenced how the writer wrote.
The speaker, plainly put, doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about. That’s my evaluative judgment.
Here’s another judgment: college has really turned into a vast wasteland of meaningless thought, hasn’t it?
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