The first text I'm posting on today is one I was basically forced into reading (but thoroughly enjoyed) to make an argument to a publisher as to WHY storytelling, creative nonfiction, and poetry should be considered academic discourse. So to help me make this argument, Boss handed me a copy of Christopher Schroeder, Helen Fox, and Patricia Bizzell's book Alt Dis: Alternative Discourses and the Academy and told me to read the first article. This is Patricia Bizzell's "The Intellectual Work of 'Mixed' Forms of Academic Discourses."
Bizzell argues that "the academic community is changing . . . and becoming more diverse--more people of color, more women, more people from the lower social classes, more people whose natvie language is not English or not the so-called Standard English . . ." (2). She goes on to address the fact that this diversity has brought with it new forms of academic discourse and that "we find these discourses appearing in articles in top-rank academic journals and in books from prestigious academic presses" (2).
I guess when I joined the academics I thought that people would respect the way I chose to share knowledge and research. Obviously I couldn't have been more wrong. However, I'm NOT gonna give in to this attitude. If the publisher wants a work of collected academic essays, then they need to offer my co-editor and I a contract up front for this type of book. It's not that I'm incapable of writing "standard academic" essays, and in fact, my essay for the proposed book would be of that variety, but I feel people should be allowed to express their knowledge in a way that works for them. Just as their are many authors who like to share their knowledge in the form of poetry, creative nonfiction, or some other form, there are readers out there who need and want this type of text. I should know, I am one of them. Actually, I would like to see someone who only writes academically try their hand at storytelling!! They would see that they are no more comfortable shoving that square peg into a round hole as those who choose to write in an alternate discourse mode who then attempt to be purely academic.
Nuff said.
Bizzell argues that "the academic community is changing . . . and becoming more diverse--more people of color, more women, more people from the lower social classes, more people whose natvie language is not English or not the so-called Standard English . . ." (2). She goes on to address the fact that this diversity has brought with it new forms of academic discourse and that "we find these discourses appearing in articles in top-rank academic journals and in books from prestigious academic presses" (2).
I guess when I joined the academics I thought that people would respect the way I chose to share knowledge and research. Obviously I couldn't have been more wrong. However, I'm NOT gonna give in to this attitude. If the publisher wants a work of collected academic essays, then they need to offer my co-editor and I a contract up front for this type of book. It's not that I'm incapable of writing "standard academic" essays, and in fact, my essay for the proposed book would be of that variety, but I feel people should be allowed to express their knowledge in a way that works for them. Just as their are many authors who like to share their knowledge in the form of poetry, creative nonfiction, or some other form, there are readers out there who need and want this type of text. I should know, I am one of them. Actually, I would like to see someone who only writes academically try their hand at storytelling!! They would see that they are no more comfortable shoving that square peg into a round hole as those who choose to write in an alternate discourse mode who then attempt to be purely academic.
Nuff said.
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