Christopher Schroeder

Tag: English studies

  • Once Again

    Once Again

    Yoni Appelbaum, an Atlantic editor, asks in a recent article about American history in terms of its past and future.

    In it, Appelbaum highlights the need for a “coherent national story” as a way of surviving our politically polarized times. He explains that a more mainstream work-in-progress narrative he reports is contested by a “settler-colonial,” and white supremacy account, which appeals to the left, and a timeless American values version, which appeals to the right. He concludes by reporting that some consider this lack of a shared story as the beginning of the end while others hope that such a possibility will motivate Americans to renew its commitment to a more perfect union.

    Appelbaum’s survey of competing narratives might be a useful way of understanding contemporary political conflicts, but its central insight about the need for a shared perspective isn’t news, or new. Similar observations were offered in the middle of the 1980s culture wars by E. D. Hirsch Jr., who used his literacy research to challenge American education.

    Hirsch, who was alarmed by the state of literacy, confirmed conclusions about comprehension and context. These led him to challenge both educational pluralism, or the common belief that locally-relevant content should be taught in schools, and educational formalism, or the widespread belief that reading, writing, and presumably thinking are skills that can be separated from content.

    Schools instead should teach cultural literacy, or a shared cultural context, especially in English and history that like math and science need a canonical curriculum. Such an approach, which would challenge cultural fragmentation, would also increase students’ reading and writing abilities and even potentially their social participation.

    Hirsch’s perspective has problems. He oversimplifies both the politics of cultural literacy for example and differences among ways of reading, writing, and thinking (i.e., his “linguistic literacy”), which are better understood as cultural practices.

    Nonetheless, Hirsch seems genuinely concerned about a more equitable society. He both recognizes the value of cultural diversity and acknowledges the existence dominant culture without defending it. He also argues that a cultural literacy approach is especially useful to ethnic and economic minorities, who are less likely to be exposed to this dominant culture outside of schools and as a result are more likely to be marginalized and excluded if not introduced to it within schools.

    Hirsch in other words argues for a shared perspective, which he calls cultural literacy and what every American needs to know, as the basis for understanding each other and participating in society. In doing so, he suggests that this perspective, which goes beyond a shared historical narrative, is a challenge he was confronting in the 1980s culture wars that we’re still apparently debating today.

    Hirsch’s account also alludes to a bigger issue. Both Appelbaum and he frame their concerns as American, but Hirsch’s account of his and others’ research suggest that these could quite possibly be human concerns, ones that might be more evident in culturally diverse communities and societies but nonetheless are relevant to human comprehension and communication.

    Shared cultural contexts might be necessary for humans to understand each other and collaborate together, in which case these challenges could be much older, and at the same time ones that our ancestors have managed for millennia.

  • Sorry Yet Not

    Sorry, Baby takes its title from a comment at its end by Agnes, its protagonist and a full-time college English instructor who had been sexually assaulted when she was a graduate student at the same institution.

    This movie is organized by chapters as a series of flashbacks interspersed with Agnes’s struggle to overcome the effects of this assault with the help of her grad school friend Lydie and her neighbor Gavin. In it, Agnes is groomed by her professor and assailant Decker, who describes her as brilliant and reschedules their appointment ostensibly as a result of a sick child for a more private conversation in his home.

    Its story seems less about the assault than its aftermath, including her efforts to cope with its effects. The actual incident is more suggested, and is depicted as occurring behind the closed door of her assailant’s house. Moreover, the details, which Agnes reports, are hesitant and even ambiguous, and in her report, involve consent and intent.

    Agnes as a result is sifting through this experience and her reactions, and needs Lydie to interpret it for her. Lydie also helps her for example confront an insensitive ED physician, who says that her bath likely washed away any evidence, and a former fellow grad student and current passive-aggressive colleague Natasha at a dinner with other former students in Natasha’s new home.

    Agnes’s efforts are complicated when Lydie moves to New York City after their graduation although she returns to support her friend. On one visit, Lydie tells Agnes that she is pregnant, and she returns with the baby and her wife Fran, which is where the movie ends, and from where the title comes.

    All three in this scene cannot go to the lighthouse after the baby has a restless night, so Agnes sends her friend and her wife while she babysits for the twenty minutes or so that they’re gone. In this time, she discovers that she can comfort a fussy baby, and tells her that she will always listen to her but cannot protect her from bad experiences, for which she apologizes.

    The film received mostly positive responses from credible critics, and has a 98% aggregated positive rating, but it feels unfinished to me. One possible reason is that it’s the directorial debut of Eva Victor, and Victor also plays the role of Agnes, which could be a second reason. A third might be that it seems semi-autobiographical, which seems plausible especially given my own grad school experiences.

    Whatever the reason, the result is that it stops short of the most challenging content. The obvious central question is one about intent, consent, power, and intimacy — intellectual, emotional, and physical — among adults in such situation, which the movie mostly glosses over as if it doesn’t have anything to explore.

    Such a possibility can be illustrated by the tension between Agnes and Natasha, the passive-agressive colleague who studied in the same program and then stayed after graduation. Natasha tells Agnes that she wanted the full-time teaching position that Agnes received perhaps as a way of purchasing her silence about the assault or at least compensate her for her discretion.

    This confrontation occurs in Agnes’s new office, which was her former assailant’s, and centers upon Natasha’s claim that Agnes took what was rightfully hers. This claim is based in part upon Natasha’s belief that Agnes is insufficiently sympathetic toward those, including Natasha, who encounter more challenges than Agnes does.

    This exchange also includes the revelation that Natasha had sex with Agnes’s assailant in an effort to obtain his attention and other rewards, such as good grades or even a full-time position. That made me wonder whether Natasha is culpable or at least complicity in any way for Agnes’s assault.

    Such a question in no way suggests that her assailant isn’t, or shouldn’t be, liable. He assaulted Agnes assuming her account is accurate, and should be held accountable for that and any other prohibited or otherwise inappropriate actions.

    This dimension could be a moral trap set by the filmmaker, who obviously offers Natasha as a contrast, but it seems more like a missed opportunity. Natasha constantly simmers, and sometimes boils over, whereas Agnes seems unaware of her own anger, and almost needs Lydie to perform it for her. In this resides many possible, and provocative, interpretations.

    Regardless, the movie will remain in my memory as a model for alternative ways to address trauma. Nowhere is this alternative more evident than a conversation near its end between Agnes and Pete, a sandwich shop proprietor.

    Agnes has had a panic attack after her office conversation with Natasha on her drive home, and pulls into a parking lot to recover. Pete gruffly tells her that she cannot park there because his shop is closed but quickly recognizes her symptoms — his son, whom he later explains he doesn’t particularly like, has similar experiences — and helps her breathe through it.

    Agnes and Pete are later sitting in the parking lot after Pete made her a sandwich from his closed shop. As they talk, he shares his opinions of the adjacent business and his adult son. In their exchange, he also affirms her experience and encourages her efforts, and does so without compromising his own perspective.

    This exchange again could be another moral trap insofar that the contrast between her assailant and Pete is obvious. However, I think it affirms Agnes’s awkward attempt to address this trauma in an alternative way.

    Agnes has persisted even after her friend departs after graduation for her own life. She has persevered in the uncertainty of an institutional environment in which administrators perform alliance yet are clearly more concerned about the institution and its previous employees than its former student.

    Others might have exploded in similar situations. Agnes instead searches for support and sustenance around her. She rescues an abandoned kitten for example in addition to accepting a gruff stranger’s kindness.

    And Agnes turns to her awkward neighbor Gavin, who she discovers is also imperfect yet quite human. They have awkward sex in her bed and awkward intimacy in her tub, and yet they persist, which Agnes also does when Lydie later appears with her new wife Fran and their new baby. Fran inappropriately advises Agnes how to babysit, and yet Agnes responds with gentleness and kindness.

    Some might suggest that Agnes is dangerously disconnected from her emotions, but I think she offers another option for responding to such awful moments. Such a response is admirable, and one worth emulating, which makes this movie more than enough.

  • Secularism Indeed

    I had an unexpected experience at a recent secularism and literature mini-symposium.

    This event, which was moderated by the UIC English Department Head, included three other presenters, two local and one with some Chicago connection. The moderator offers initial observations, the presenters read papers aloud, and then the audience asked questions.

    I am genuinely interested in functions for literature beyond literary studies journals and college English classrooms. I expected something about secularism and literature in the present tense. What I got unexpectedly intrigued and repulsed me.

    (more…)