The Rules: Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen authors (poets included) who have influenced you and will always stick with you. List the first 15 you can recall in no more than 15 minutes, and they don't have to be listed in order of relevance to you...
1. Roald Dahl
2. Edith Hamilton
3. Joseph Campbell
4. Philip Pullman
5. Cristina Garcia
6. Saul Williams
7. Gwendolyn Brooks
8. Kevin Young
9. Frank O'Hara
10. Amiri Baraka
11. Pablo Neruda
12. William Shakespeare*
13. Tennessee Williams
14. Neil Gaiman*
15. Howard Zinn
This list really got me thinking about how few Spanish and Latino writers are on my list, and how angry that makes me. LOLOL. Despite the fact that I'm in a graduate program for writing and literature, I haven't had much opportunity to read for pleasure since high school (this being due largely to my outrageously and deliciously misspent youth and taking twelve years to complete my BA in English). Consequently, I've depended largely on my college and grad courses to inform my reading choices. And I'm sure there are those out there who read voraciously all year round, who can't wait to consume the next page all the time, and I have to admire that kind of enthusiasm. But as far as I'm concerned, the last thing I've wanted to do on my breaks has been to read "literature".
So what makes me angry is this: the fact that in an English major at college that loves to boast its number-14-or-17-English-program-in-the-country (number four in queer lit and number 10 in African American lit, last I checked, which was, I'll grant you, probably three or four years ago) and in two and a half years in a studio/research MFA program (basically meaning we have to take at least three graduate-level literature courses as part of our degree requirements) with a decent enough reputation, I could probably count on one hand the number of times we've studied Latino or Spanish authors. Even in the single English department class I was able to find that would even go near Latino authors (Caribbean Women Writers) only included a few Latina writers, all of whom wrote in English.
And there was the rub for my school. The Department of English, I found out from a professor of mine, had had a huge discussion about including non-American and non-English authors to be taught in the curriculum. It was apparently a major point of controversy. Their conclusion was that they would only include Anglophone literature - meaning literature written in English, in countries where English was either the main/one of the main languages spoken. OK, cool. Now we have post-colonial lit available from South Asia, some parts of Africa, and the Pacific Rim. However, the department would not allow translated works to be included. Meaning no Latin America or Spain, no French-speaking African countries, no Middle East, and sorry, East/Southeast Asia!
So OK, this is the point in the story where people who'd make the argument about language would often come in. "But the name of the department is 'English,' not 'Literature.' It'd be great to be all-inclusive, but the canon of the English language is vast enough without bringing in all these other literatures, which really don't have anything to do with the depth that we're trying to get to with English." What's problematic about this argument is that the translated works of authors from around the world have been influencing English writers since pretty much the beginning of English writing. (Also, plz to see the ancient Romans - if they hadn't included the works of other countries and languages in their studies, they'd barely have had a culture at all.) This has probably never been more true than in the 20th and 21st centuries. I'm sure there are authors who haven't been influenced by Borges, or Lorca, or Márquez, or Neruda in the "English" canon, but to pretend these authors don't really need to be represented in a serious English program is really short-sighted and honestly, kind of latently racist.
In my undergrad, at least, African-American literature was covered. To some extent, my grad program has done some work to that end as well. However (and this is where my "list" comes in), the dichotomy of mainstream American culture has bled its way into my, at least, literary educational experience: the vast majority of conversation is about white people; when race needs to be represented it's by black people; some vague and indistinct hems, haws, and nods are periodically given to the slew of other cultures and ethnicities that go unrepresented and unlearned about. I love African-American lit, I love Af-Am studies, and I don't regret a minute spent learning about either subject. However, there is something wrong with the fact that I know more not only about the literature of white American culture, but also black American culture, than the literature of my own cultures.
(I will note here that poetry classes have always been better about this, in my experience, than fiction classes. Poetry professors will usually at least throw you a Rumi bone and talk about a ghazal once in a while, and there's no way to study 20th century poetry without representing minorities - but again, not usually translated works. Excepted from this are my POCs (professors of color) and the amazing and wonderful and brilliant contemporary poetry professor I had in undergrad. Their curricula were diverse, rich, and challenging.)
But in my case, at least, it can be said that much of the onus of my ignorance lies with me. After all, I could have been reading Latino and/or North African authors on my own time, or taken more Latino/Puerto Rican and Hispanic Caribbean studies classes (which I did, twice) or Middle Eastern studies classes (even though Middle East is an Orientalist/ethnocentric term and largely inaccurate regarding the geographical location of my ethnic origins). But again, I found it really difficult to want to read on my own time when I spent so much damn time reading the rest of the time, never mind working, other classes, and wanting to have a life that existed outside the realm of books and papers and desks. And honestly, I didn't want a degree in Latino or Middle Eastern studies. At the time, I considered them niche fields that would limit my opportunities and preparedness for graduate programs in writing or literature.
In fact, I was right. I already feel ignorant enough in my classes half the time because my focus in undergrad was very heavily on 20th century and post-colonial literature; if I'd majored in Latino studies, I don't know if I would have gotten into the program I did, but I'm certain I would have had a much harder time. I wanted an English major with a history minor, and I'm not sorry I got them, but I am annoyed at the other gaps that have been left in my education.
But then there's the language issue. Casting aside all of these arguments about culture and richness and diversity and the rest, the fact remains that the literatures of these other areas of the world are not written in English, and, after all, the major is in English.
You know, except for Kafka, Nabokov, Yeats, Camus, the Bible - the list of works taught in that English department that have been translated into English from the languages of other countries that happen to be populated by white people goes on and on.
But I guess they're canon, so it's different, right?
It's even more offensive because the exclusion of Latin American literature, especially, from literary "canon" in the United States is, to me, another subtle way in which the US puts itself above Latin America. I think in a lot of ways, America treats Latin American nations like service colonies: they're there to provide resources, maybe occasionally some entertainment (often at their own expense), but never taken truly seriously on an intellectual, cultural, or artistic level. The fact that so many people in academia take this narrow view contributes hugely to the fact that Americans at large are so ignorant of Latino culture and art, because there is definitely a trickle-down effect as far as intellectual respect is concerned, and if the universities snub Latin American achievements in culture and the arts (you know, except for during National We Love Hispanics month, which I don't think is really even a month, but is like, half of October and half of November - I have no idea, I'm in on the lam in Cambridge, Latinos are only allowed in East Boston and part of Jamaica Plain up here), how is anybody in mainstream America supposed to be aware of the value of the contributions of Latinos to the American cultural landscape?
Something really stinks here. I know it's easy to throw around the term "racism" and sometimes, I get a twinge of the sense that I'm just being "angry race girl" - but this isn't really one of them. This isn't only detrimental to me - because I was raised in two other cultures, I at least know enough to recognize the omission of these literatures from my academic studies. The real problem here is for people who've never had any substantial exposure to people of other ethnicities, or their art or culture, who will spend their lives not only less culturally aware and sensitive, but whose lives I truly believe will be a little dimmer without reading some of these amazing works.
Kinda fucked.
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Thursday, January 15, 2009
The Miseducation of the Sass Factory
I get increasingly uncomfortable with the whole idea of academia as time passes.
Okay, maybe that's not true - if anything, I'm extraordinarily comfortable with the idea of academia, the academy, higher and graduate education. There's something sexy and romantic about a place where ideas are exalted; where the whole point of everything boils down to thinking, intellectualism, and knowledge. That is attractive and sexy and beautiful.
But, in some senses, formal education – especially at the higher levels of it – encounters some of the same problems of other spaces where things start to be more about theory and ideas than the physical and logistical realities of the world (namely, the internet). Some of those problems include a lot of people thinking they’re way more clever than they actually are, people becoming ignorant of the world that exists outside of the academy (and I mean the real world, not what they’ve read about in books or essays, or what they encountered when they studied abroad – or, if we’re talking about the internet, the world that exists outside of Wikipedia or their favorite message boards), and often enough the development of a sense of elitism over people who are not in their particular club (this can range from people who aren’t in academia/grad school to people who aren’t studying 19th century Petrarchan sonnets written by queer, one-legged men with glass eyes).
But that’s not even the point – I’m making this about other people, and putting my shit on them. The fact is, everybody (okay, not everybody – but really, the majority of people) I know in grad school, who’ve been through grad school, in academia, or who’ve been in academia are very nice people, when it comes down to it. Okay, ‘very nice’ seems a little insipid – but they tend to be interesting, engaged, intellectually curious, a little nerdy, and charming. In some ways, these people represent my tribe. But the problem is (as it often is) that I have many tribes. And the problem with that is that the ivory tower is real – I think all this studying really does present the danger of taking you away from people, places, things, and yes, even ideas that aren’t in that world – that can’t really exist in that world.
Further, I feel as though despite the fact that education can open so many doors for a person – can in some ways, offer someone the machete to cut through the jungle undergrowth of complacency and ignorance that threatens to engulf anybody who sits still intellectually (or otherwise) for too long (that’s right, I brought it with the guerrilla warfare metaphor, which may seem like it totally contradicts my whole point, but bear with me – this is [part of] what’s funny about academia: everybody seems to think he, she, or it is a fucking guerrilla – at least in the humanities and social sciences) – when it comes down to it, you’re not really learning to think ‘outside the box’ – you’re just learning to think inside a different, more oddly shaped one.
Which, okay, look. Most of us need boxes to think in. We need context, we need structure, we need a basis on which to set (or justify) our principles, or our ideas about the world, or at least a platform on which to rest all the neat things that we learn. The problem is that the world is not a box, life is not a box. Boxes are meant for storage, not for living in, and while they can make you comfortable, they also don’t let you grow past a certain point. So the lesson, then, is not to let education of any kind define you, but to use it as the tool it was meant to be, right? I guess so.
I like grad school. I like the fact that thinking and learning are considered important enough ways to spend my time that the government will lend me money to do it. And I think I’m learning useful things – things of practical importance as well as things that benefit my personal and intellectual growth. But I’m suspicious of it – there’s a lot of privilege here, and what’s more dangerous, a lot of privilege that doesn’t even really know it’s privilege. I mean, by grad school, privilege is looked upon as an accepted idea – most people who make it to grad school have enjoyed privilege at one point or another in their lives (most, not all). But because of that, people don’t actually realize how privileged they really are, which is yet another way that people disconnect from the world that most people are experiencing.
That’s disconcerting, because the fact of the matter is, I don’t want to be Rigoberta Manchu; I don’t even want to live through the struggles my parents did, and I don’t want to be without the opportunity to educate myself or further myself. I certainly don’t want to forget the fact that life is hard – much harder than mine – in so many places. And truthfully, I’m not going to be able to forget that, ever, because I’ve lived through things way harder (and more ‘real,’ whatever that means) than grad school. I think it’s good that I’m still uncomfortable. The honeymoon is over, and I’m back to the constant struggle between wanting to embrace the place where I am and wanting to tell it to go fuck itself.
HA!
Okay, maybe that's not true - if anything, I'm extraordinarily comfortable with the idea of academia, the academy, higher and graduate education. There's something sexy and romantic about a place where ideas are exalted; where the whole point of everything boils down to thinking, intellectualism, and knowledge. That is attractive and sexy and beautiful.
But, in some senses, formal education – especially at the higher levels of it – encounters some of the same problems of other spaces where things start to be more about theory and ideas than the physical and logistical realities of the world (namely, the internet). Some of those problems include a lot of people thinking they’re way more clever than they actually are, people becoming ignorant of the world that exists outside of the academy (and I mean the real world, not what they’ve read about in books or essays, or what they encountered when they studied abroad – or, if we’re talking about the internet, the world that exists outside of Wikipedia or their favorite message boards), and often enough the development of a sense of elitism over people who are not in their particular club (this can range from people who aren’t in academia/grad school to people who aren’t studying 19th century Petrarchan sonnets written by queer, one-legged men with glass eyes).
But that’s not even the point – I’m making this about other people, and putting my shit on them. The fact is, everybody (okay, not everybody – but really, the majority of people) I know in grad school, who’ve been through grad school, in academia, or who’ve been in academia are very nice people, when it comes down to it. Okay, ‘very nice’ seems a little insipid – but they tend to be interesting, engaged, intellectually curious, a little nerdy, and charming. In some ways, these people represent my tribe. But the problem is (as it often is) that I have many tribes. And the problem with that is that the ivory tower is real – I think all this studying really does present the danger of taking you away from people, places, things, and yes, even ideas that aren’t in that world – that can’t really exist in that world.
Further, I feel as though despite the fact that education can open so many doors for a person – can in some ways, offer someone the machete to cut through the jungle undergrowth of complacency and ignorance that threatens to engulf anybody who sits still intellectually (or otherwise) for too long (that’s right, I brought it with the guerrilla warfare metaphor, which may seem like it totally contradicts my whole point, but bear with me – this is [part of] what’s funny about academia: everybody seems to think he, she, or it is a fucking guerrilla – at least in the humanities and social sciences) – when it comes down to it, you’re not really learning to think ‘outside the box’ – you’re just learning to think inside a different, more oddly shaped one.
Which, okay, look. Most of us need boxes to think in. We need context, we need structure, we need a basis on which to set (or justify) our principles, or our ideas about the world, or at least a platform on which to rest all the neat things that we learn. The problem is that the world is not a box, life is not a box. Boxes are meant for storage, not for living in, and while they can make you comfortable, they also don’t let you grow past a certain point. So the lesson, then, is not to let education of any kind define you, but to use it as the tool it was meant to be, right? I guess so.
I like grad school. I like the fact that thinking and learning are considered important enough ways to spend my time that the government will lend me money to do it. And I think I’m learning useful things – things of practical importance as well as things that benefit my personal and intellectual growth. But I’m suspicious of it – there’s a lot of privilege here, and what’s more dangerous, a lot of privilege that doesn’t even really know it’s privilege. I mean, by grad school, privilege is looked upon as an accepted idea – most people who make it to grad school have enjoyed privilege at one point or another in their lives (most, not all). But because of that, people don’t actually realize how privileged they really are, which is yet another way that people disconnect from the world that most people are experiencing.
That’s disconcerting, because the fact of the matter is, I don’t want to be Rigoberta Manchu; I don’t even want to live through the struggles my parents did, and I don’t want to be without the opportunity to educate myself or further myself. I certainly don’t want to forget the fact that life is hard – much harder than mine – in so many places. And truthfully, I’m not going to be able to forget that, ever, because I’ve lived through things way harder (and more ‘real,’ whatever that means) than grad school. I think it’s good that I’m still uncomfortable. The honeymoon is over, and I’m back to the constant struggle between wanting to embrace the place where I am and wanting to tell it to go fuck itself.
HA!
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