Critical contentions: feminism(s) and critical pedagogy in composition studies

Abstract

"Critical Contentions: Feminism(s) and Critical Pedagogy in Composition Studies" serves as a work of educational anthropology within composition studies in its analysis of complementary but separate strains of academic discourse that have marginalized one another in forums of scholarship. The resulting critical contentions have, in turn, limited possibilities for the application of critical pedagogy in the writing classroom. First, I draw upon cross-disciplinary sources to build an axiology of critical pedagogy within the framework of composition studies, defining key scholars, pedagogical principles, and terms. Then, I position feminist composition as one form of critical pedagogy, outlining key principles of feminism that have influenced the teaching of writing and reviewing specific feminist critiques of critical pedagogical concepts such as decentered authority, empowerment, appreciation of difference, and resistance to dominant culture. This study also traces the evolution within feminist composition from a language of critique in the 1980s and 1990s to a language of possibility after the year 2000. Complicating the supposed divide between feminists and critical pedagogues in composition, I theorize their complementary relationship as potential allies. Finally, I combine the feminist concepts of positionality, relationality, connected knowing, and jouissance to theorize a relational pedagogy , a postmodern feminist critical pedagogy that envisions composition classrooms as cultural studies labs for connecting embodied student experiences with rhetorical ways of relating to others within discourse communities both inside and outside of academia. A relational pedagogy relies on rhetoric-- defined as the study of the production and reception of verbal, visual, and written texts-- to release critical pedagogy from its compulsion toward Leftist-only politics. Students writing within a relational pedagogy determine their own political agendas as they perceive content, genre, structure, style, and even grammar as rhetorical choices available to them but constrained by dominant culture and reader expectations. Through philosophical mapping of specific classroom practices and teaching methodologies, I argue that rhetoric-- specifically rhetorical analysis-- can help teachers of writing move beyond the existing theory/practice split in critical pedagogy and use rhetoric as a way to explore the strengths of feminism as it informs critical pedagogy.