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September 12, 2006

Speculation is the key word

Tonight's assignment is deceptively simple: write a speculative paper about how your "authorial identity". Sounds easy, right? Well, don't believe the hype. Despite the simple phrasing of the assignment, it's not easy to think or look back on everything you've written and then evaluate it. Off the top of my head, I can say with some very real certainty that I want to think that I am an activist; but in order to do that, I have to be a historian; and in order to that, I have to be a passive vessel that consumes the information my instructors demand that I authentically become familiar with and own. Like I said- not that easy a task. Especially when I consider that the most of the things I have read have little to do with my scholarly interests. See, I want to make the case for Latino/a rhetoric to be taken seriously. I want to draw the connection (like Villanueva does) between us and the ancient Greeks. I want to see Latino/a writers all over the place. And, I want to learn about it while I'm still in grad school. How many opportunities have I had to do this? Zip, zero, nada-because none the things I read, (importance to the field notwithstanding) apply to my vested interest. So what's a Latina to do? S-P-E-C-U-L-A-T-E on what I want to be when I leave the academy. For me the real question is not what I want to be, but how I can get there and be as informed as possible. Anyone want to speculate on that?

This is for those of you that are interested in the perils of authorship

Posted by dvaldesd at September 12, 2006 06:42 PM

Comments

Posted by: Tamika at September 12, 2006 09:10 PM