Replies: 9 comments

One more comment:
My remarks below ARE NOT about Jenny's dissertation or interest in affect.

They are about my frustration with Alcorn's book which starts well and ends with a very weak pedagogy.

And my comments are about my general concerns with all of this new theorizing on affect which I'm uncomfortable with at times because the theories (not her diss) sound like they lead to non-intellectual work - particularly when brought into the classroom.

Jenny's diss, on the other hand, will no doubt become a powerful and important book one day.

Posted by j @ 02/02/2004 04:09 PM EST

Maybe I wasn't clear.

The "it" in the above passage is not your project perse, but the whole notion of affect and teaching which I do see as problematic regarding intellectual work. The fact that you return to Alcorn to prove me otherwise is still not convincing. The pedagogy in that book is lacking seriously in intellectual work.

Posted by j @ 02/02/2004 10:44 AM EST

Flattering, jeff, thanks.

I'm not trying to reduce Alcorn's work to my project, but since Alcorn *is* talking about libidinal attachments, drives, subjectivity, and the circulation of desire--which are all things that I talk about--I guess I just figured it related. My mistake.

Posted by jenny @ 02/02/2004 10:11 AM EST

I'm not convinced. There are some problems with your arugment, but notably, it is absent of intellectual work. Reducing critique and analysis - the focus of writing regardless of classroom work or not - to affect has serious problems for knowledge acquisition.

I'm also troubled by a lack of critical distance. You are taking a comment on a book about desire and the student subject and turning it into a response about your dissertation. To write about any subject (and this is true for me as well) we also have to recognize the shortcomings of our own projects and/or not project those projects entirely onto other work.

Posted by j @ 02/02/2004 09:52 AM EST

erp--last comment. i also thought the way alcorn takes a rather expressivist turn was strange. it left me feeling a little disappointed. but it was also (for me) a confirmation of the fact that desire/affect is outside of comp's normal pedagogical mode of codification and application.

boy oh boy. this is good blog commenting right here. i hope to get a "Bloggie" from this years blog awards (in the category of "Best Blog Commenter"). Be sure to nominate me!

Posted by jenny @ 02/02/2004 01:51 AM EST

j, i don't think we can just reduce everything to the body. but the impulse to reduce everything to a *mediated effect* is just as wrongheaded. My desires (note the plural) don't just happen. You're right. But desire is different. i guess i don't see how this is a cop out. it doesn't do away with the social at all. my feeling is simply that we need a more complex understanding of these social forces/sociality.

i agree that alcorn can't really perform the kind of pedagogy he sets up. we're in agreement there. you might also take a look at dan smith's review of alcorn in the last issue of JAC for a different critique.

Posted by jenny @ 02/02/2004 12:35 AM EST

Regardless, your points don't come from the book but your own project. And I don't buy that affect is outside of social force. Reducing everything to "the body" is really becoming too much of a cop out. What you think is your body is a result of whatever force(s) you have been exposed to. Your body (and your desire) do not just happen.

The biggest shortcoming in Alcorn's book comes at the end in the student examples he borrows from as examples of reaching this desire.

They fall flat. They are journal entries of confession. What kind of pedagogy is this when writing is reduced only to personal confession? Alcorn really undercuts his arugment by creating a kind of Church pedagogy. I am not comfortable with that.

Posted by j @ 02/01/2004 11:14 PM EST

Jeff writes: "I am exposed to various forces (repeating the national anthem every day, for instance) that cause me to believe in democracy. My desire is not innate nor is it natural. Once I find believe in some kind of "hidden" desire, I fall victim to a vision of expression Peter Elbow preaches and which really creates a false sense of desire."

I think that you're at a crossroads with Alcorn's concept of desire, j. Is desire constructed in the symbolic? Well. . . hmm. This is the money question, eh? But what if we said "no"? Or what if we said "not entirely"? Aren't you making the unnecessary dichotomy between an outside (social forces of the symbolic) and an inside (some kind of personal, natural desire)? For my money, it doesn't have to land in either place.

Consider something we might call a primary sociality, which comes before the personal and "the" social. In order to achieve the kinds of gridded meanings that you mention, there has to be something "shared" between bodies. There has to be a carrier, a connection, or something that allows for (makes possible) that communion/communication. IOW, it is because we are FIRST open and exposed in this primary sociality (think Bataille and Levinas here) that ideological meaning constructions (or their resistance) can ever happen. I think it's possible to call this primary sociality an effect of desire.

We should also remember that this desire is not the same as desire-for. This affective desire is only production (even in very negative terms, like fascism). Desire-for (knowledge, love, pain, glory, recognition) is concerend with a lack. The terms can be deceptive. That's why I prefer the term "affect" to "desire."

Posted by jenny @ 02/01/2004 10:15 PM EST

Could it be I've sniffed out yet another Yellow Dog supporter?

Come on America! Get off your porches and run with the pooches-- the big Yellow Dog that is! Yellow Dog for President!