Call for Papers
Affect Matters: Transforming the Text of the Composition Classroom
Panel Proposal for the 2003 College Composition and Communication =
Conference, New York City, March 19-22, 2003
I am seeking 3 to 4 panelists to investigate how affect suffuses the =
composition classroom in ubiquitous, indispensable, and still =
underexamined ways. Despite recent scholarship on how emotion and more =
broadly, affect, come to matter in the classroom (in the work of Lynn =
Worsham, Victor Vitanza, D. Diane Davis, Nancy Welch, T. R. Johnson, and =
Laura Micchiche, among others), we still need to address a crucial issue =
suggested by this year's call for program proposals: how can we =
transform what is through language and relationships? =20
This panel may examine the myriad ways in which affect contributes to =
transforming possibilities that involve language and relationships =
between teachers and students in the composition classroom, uncovering =
the theoretical, practical, political, and cultural meanings of =
affective struggles in the classroom. In his poem "Theme for English =
B," Langston Hughes' suggests powerfully that students and =
teachers--despite, or better yet, because of ever-present differences in =
terms of identity--become implicated within each other in complex ways. =
As teachers, we frequently invoke such phrases as "connecting with =
students," teaching with passion, " or "creating community in the =
classroom." Invariably, such phrases point to an affective dimension in =
the classroom that warrants more critical scrutiny.
Contributions to this panel may bring into play the following questions:
- how can "affect" be understood in contextual, pragmatic, and critical =
ways?
- how can a critical engagement with affect help us transform what is?
- in what ways does a focus on affect mobilize teachers' and students' =
desires, fantasies, and motivations?
- how does affect contribute to transforming possibilities in terms of =
language?
- how does a consideration of affect complicate and enrich our =
understanding of teacher/student relationships?
- to what extent do affective connections undermine the controlling =
influence of processes of subjectification?
- in what ways does a discussion of affect allow us, as teachers and =
students, to understand what keeps making the learning process at times =
joyous, generative, active?
- how does a focus on affect help uncover processes that make lives and =
our classrooms at times problematic, oppressive, hegemonic?
- what kinds of resources, strategies, and politics does a focus on =
affect suggest?
Please send 300-word abstracts, queries, or comments by April 18, 2002 =
via email to Christa Albrecht-Crane (albrecch@uvsc.edu).
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Christa Albrecht-Crane, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of English and Literature
Utah Valley State College
800 West University Parkway
Orem, UT 84058-5999
801.764.6286
albrecch@uvsc.edu
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