Justin J. Bain
PhD Student in Composition and Cultural Rhetoric
Syracuse University
315-443-1412
jjbain@syr.edu
Projects: Narrative in the Material Present
A Response to Joe Harris: Narrative in the Material Present
The past few weeks of this Spring 2000 Semester I have spent a great deal of time reading various books and articles dealing with issues of social class and its implications for work in academe. And as I have read I have felt for the first time that I can see myself being represented in the field. It is not a cathartic feeling, but it is one of equity—of seeing those with similar class backgrounds having a voice about issues that matter—that makes me feel good. Yet "feeling good" is never enough: as one reviewer of Judith M. Meloy’s Writing the Qualitative Dissertation remarked, "I really don’t see much of a point to all this, except, perhaps, to make the qualitative researcher ‘feel good’" (Meloy xvi). If this is all Meloy’s book did, I would be inclined to agree with this anonymous reviewer, and if this was all that my readings on issues of social class have done, I would be inclined to agree with Joseph Harris’ recent article in the September 2000 issue of CCC.
In his article Harris offers several critiques regarding the treatment of class in composition. His first is that the autobiographical and experiential approaches to class in Composition tend to treat social class "as a personal quality, as an aspect of character" (46). Harris, I believe, understands class as a larger issue, one that encompasses more than an aspect of character and that has broader implications. I think Harris’ critique is in this manner both right and wrong. As James Zebroski points out in his recent syllabus for "Critical Studies in Writing Curriculum: Social Class and Curriculum," social class is, simultaneously, a work relation, a cultural heritage, an individual identity, a location in the social structure, and a rhetorical concept or practice. Though Zebroski’s definition is tied closely to the purposes of his course and so is in some respects limited, it does point to a multi-faceted definition of class, one that Harris seems to deny. To understand class only as, say a work relation, is to both ignore that such a relation is tied to the physical body of the one that works and to miss completely the rhetorical practices involved. In this postmodern world any understanding that is not multi-faceted is more limited than one that is. Bruce Horner, for instance, examining what it means to be at work in Composition, defines work as "simultaneously an activity, the product of an activity, and the place of its practice" (xvii). So if Harris is correct that the way class is taken up in composition is limited to an individual’s character, then he has a right to be concerned, but if he is advocating the dismissal of this sort of understanding and its replacement with another, than he is only perpetuating the problem he identifies.
To examine the validity of his claim, it is necessary to look at Harris’ evidence. This he draws in part from Coming to Class, an anthology whose work he claims "result[s] in a series of narratives that recount the difficulties faced by working class students and teachers in moving into the middle-class world of the academy" and that have "the peculiar effect of always locating class in the past, as a way of talking about where someone has come from rather than about where they are now" (46). Harris is again partly correct in that many of the narratives in Coming to Class do in fact articulate moments from the past, but this is done in an effort by individual authors to account for past and present cultural scripts in their understanding of Composition and in their day-to-day practices. Jim Daniels, for instance, on the first page of the book states that while he is no longer a member of the working class, his teaching style reflects his background as a working class kid. In this moment, social class is in Daniels’ past, but it is also affecting his future, "where he is now." To say that one is no longer working class as Daniels does is not to say that one has been removed from class structure altogether, but that one now understands their place in it differently. This means that Daniels is, in fact, addressing class as something "happening" now—the antithesis of Harris’ statement. Other contributors to the book, such as John McMillan, try to work out in their articles the relationship between social class and narrative (138), and this too goes to contradict Harris’ statement that social class is only understood in this book as a part of the past.
I would not, however, want to eliminate the parts of the book that were about the past. To focus on social class in the present is to ignore its function as a cultural heritage and rhetorical practice (the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves). To ignore the past is in may ways to ignore social class altogether, as if it only exists in its present form and is not to some extent also a historical and ideological construct. Harris, I think, would also be concerned about this ideological understanding of class; later in his article he goes on to argue for another sort of class analysis, one that is more focused on the social and material interests that undergird our teaching. Explicitness seems to be Harris’ key concept, because, again, Coming to Class does address these issues. Beverly J. Moss, for instance, writing about the social issues and material circumstances of her own education, identifies what is for her and for bell hooks a key issue: the social division created by the use and proliferation of a publicly inaccessible academic discourse. bell hooks, quoted by Moss, asserts "the academic setting is separate only when we work to make it so" (167). Moss and hooks’ interest in this social reality, the division of the academic from the public, is addressing a social reality that relates to teaching. What Moss does not do, what Harris seems to expect, is to make explicit what to do about this divide in some concrete and final way.
Perhaps such an extended analysis would be good for Composition, and perhaps it is necessary. But so is the work of Moss and hooks. So is the work of Kevin Railey that recognizes the activity of teaching as an immersion in material reality (177). To advocate an understanding of class as Harris does, one that is less narrative and less personal, is to both take away power from narrative and to take away class from the people who are part of it. Social class does not occur independently from an individual’s perspective, it is not an absolute truth "out there" that exists without people. And narrative is a means of accessing an individual’s understanding of class. I believe that narrative’s ability to bring issues of class to the forefront speaks strongly for its ability to bring other issues to the surface. In a required composition course, for instance, narrative would be a useful asset in allowing students and teachers to be aware of those intersections of the personal and the academic, whether they are about class, race, gender, or whatever. For Xin Gale, it is the narrative form of autobiography that allows a sort of community to form in the classroom through the process of telling stories and the resulting collective understanding of experiences. Narrative bridges the academic and personal divides and introduces the element of choice into the academy, and choice enables both students and teachers to begin to understand the stories they tell themselves about who they are and the work they do. This is a choice the contributors to Coming to Class had, and it is a choice we should all be allowed to enjoy.