scholarly journals Resisting Monosexism: Representations of Bisexuality in Literature

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Audrey T Heffers
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Binary System ◽  
Creative Writing ◽  
Contemporary Literature ◽  
New York Times ◽  
Writing Pedagogy ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Creative Writing Pedagogy ◽  
Creative Resistance ◽  
The Status

In a New York Times review of James Baldwin’s 1968 novel Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone, Mario Puzo writes that “A propaganda novel may be socially valuable… but it is not art.” Puzo’s claim is a function of what creative writing pedagogy scholar Janelle Adsit calls “the particular privilege that comes with a denial of marginalization.” Assumptions of rigid binaries that categorise people as either hetero- or homosexual, a phenomenon that scholar Kenji Yoshino calls “the epistemic contract of bisexual erasure,” create and reinforce harmful ideas about bisexuality. Bisexual representation in literature can operate as a creative resistance to the status quo, undermining the alleged necessity for a rigid binary system of sexuality. From James Baldwin’s 1968 Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone to Jen Wilde’s 2017 Queens of Geek, this article traces representations of bisexuality in literature, with special attention to the ways in which bisexuality is demonstrated, described, and labelled in literature. However, while acknowledging the problematic representations of bisexuality in older fiction, such as Radclyffe Hall’s 1928 The Well of Loneliness, this paper resists a narrative of pure progress of bisexual representation, examining both problematic and nuanced representations in contemporary literature.

‘Have a Quiet, Orderly, Polite Revolution’: Framing Political Protest and Protecting the Status Quo

2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 733-751
Author(s):  
Tamara J. Lynn ◽  
L. Susan Williams
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Print Media ◽  
New York Times ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Occupy Wall Street ◽  
Wall Street ◽  
Presidential Candidates ◽  
The Status

This paper demonstrates how print media sources frame the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street in ways that, consciously or not, support the prevailing status quo – social, economic, and political elites. The study employs critical discourse analysis (CDA) as the analytic framework, investigating how print media (sometimes referred to as ‘print capitalism’) utilized framing techniques that disparaged the two political organizations but in very different ways. The analysis incorporates articles appearing in the New York Post and the New York Times from the inception of each organization, through six weeks after the 2012 Presidential Inauguration; articles were coded to uncover themes that defined both organizations as ‘outsiders.’ Tea Partiers are characterized as irrational demagogues, while Occupy Wall Street (OWS) activities are criminalized; both are dismissed as irrelevant, leaving the predominant ‘mainstream’ political rule intact. Findings identify tools of discourse used by media to limit the influence of competing movements while essentially protecting the status quo. Revealing these tools provides clues to unreliable discourse in media coverage of presidential candidates, which tends to quash open debate and threaten principles of participatory government.

Discourses of the “Too Abled”: Contested Body Hierarchies and the Oscar Pistorius Case

2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 288-307 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas F. Corrigan ◽  
Jamie Paton ◽  
Erin Holt ◽  
Marie Hardin
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York Times ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The Body ◽  
General Interest ◽  
Cultural Assumptions ◽  
Discursive Strategies ◽  
The Status ◽  
Athletes With Disabilities ◽  
Media Discourses

Using Foucault’s ideas about discourse and the body, this study explores coverage of Oscar Pistorius’s quest to compete in the 2008 Summer Olympics. The authors used textual analysis of coverage in The New York Times and Time magazine, two popular and influential general-interest U.S. publications, to interrogate fairness as the primary rationale in discourse about Pistorius. Journalists also privileged a medical view of disability, used descriptions of prosthetics to reflect cultural assumptions about “normal” bodies, and reinforced fear of the “cyborg.” Media discourses around Pistorius, as contested sites for meanings inscribed on the body, reinforced the body hierarchy and positioned progress for athletes with disabilities as threatening to the institution of sport and its values. The authors suggest alternative discursive strategies, such as those that question the Paralympic/Olympic divide or focus on the rights of athletes with disabilities to compete, as ways to radically challenge the exercise of biopower reinforcing the status quo.

scholarly journals GENRE APPROACH IN CREATIVE WRITING PEDAGOGY IN ENGLISH IN UPPER PRIMARY CLASSES IN KENYA

2021 ◽  
pp. 90-99
Author(s):  
Sophie Ahono Maninji
Keyword(s):  
Creative Writing ◽  
Primary Schools ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Writing Pedagogy ◽  
Exploratory Research ◽  
Ministry Of Education ◽  
Validity And Reliability ◽  
Creative Writing Pedagogy ◽  
Inappropriate Use ◽  
Pedagogical Approaches

Writing can be used to measure learning of the other three language skills and written materials be used for reference in future. Creative writing (CW) is the production of texts which have an aesthetic rather than a purely informative, instrumental or pragmatic purpose. It is a personal writing where the purpose is to express thoughts, feeling and emotions in an imaginative, unique, and sometimes poetic way. Of all the four language skills, creative writing is a high order skill that calls for molding through appropriate pedagogical approaches. In Kenya, English is both an examinable subject and a language of instruction. CW accounts for 40% of the total score in English subject. However, over 62% of learners fail to achieve writing competence at the end of primary course. Primary schools in Vihiga County have persistently underperformed in CW with more than (70%) of Class 8 learners scoring below the average mean mark. Despite this underperformance, only a few studies on CW pedagogy are available. CW studies conducted in Kenya have established that 60 % of teachers find it difficult to teach CW while 75% of learners find it boring. These have implications for pedagogy and students’ writing enthusiasm. The objective of this study was to explore the use genre pedagogic approach and its effectiveness in the development of CW skills. Archer’s theory of reflexivity which views writing as internal and external conversations was used. The study used qualitative exploratory research design and the study was conducted in Vihiga County. The data collection tools were Lesson Observation Schedule and Interview Schedule whose validity and reliability were tested through triangulation. From Class 6-8, 30 lessons in 10 purposively selected schools were observed and 30 teachers whose lessons had been observed were interviewed. Data were analyzed thematically through transcription, coding and identification of themes. The key finding was: inappropriate use of genre approach due to teachers’ knowledge gaps on CW pedagogical approaches. The study recommended that teachers of English use genre approaches appropriately in CW pedagogy and the Ministry of Education to in-service teachers of English on CW approaches. The results are useful to teachers of English and Teacher Training Institutions. KEY WORDS: Approaches, Genre Approach Creative Writing and Upper Primary Learners.

scholarly journals Information Literacy and Instruction: Embedding Information Literacy in an MFA Novel Workshop

2016 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 273
Author(s):  
John Glover
Keyword(s):  
Creative Writing ◽  
Faculty Member ◽  
Information Literacy ◽  
Writing Pedagogy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Writing Programs ◽  
Fiction Writing ◽  
Creative Writing Pedagogy ◽  
Virginia Commonwealth University ◽  
Creative Writing Programs

The rise of graduate creative writing programs in the United States during the twentieth century has been well documented. Less well documented is their connection with academic libraries, particularly in terms of their students’ acquisition of research skills. When I was asked by a faculty member to provide in-depth support for the MFA novel writing workshop at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), there were a few articles treating this topic, a few references in creative writing pedagogy books, and a couple suggestive course titles listed in MFA program curricula. In 2012–13, I served as the embedded librarian in this year-long workshop. In that role, I worked with the faculty member to develop assignments that helped students to incorporate research into their fiction-writing practice, met with students for two lengthy research workshops, and subsequently met with students individually as their research deepened.

Noise-Making, Occupy Wall Street, and the Politics of Amplification

Resonance ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 264-280
Author(s):  
John Vilanova
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Sound Studies ◽  
Discursive Construction ◽  
Occupy Wall Street ◽  
Wall Street ◽  
Media Activism ◽  
The Status ◽  
Drum Circles ◽  
Acoustic Device

This research explores a set of sound technologies deployed during the 2011 Occupy Wall Street protests in New York City’s Zuccotti Park. It examines the People’s Microphone, the Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) sound cannon, the drum circle, and the noise complaint. Deepening understandings of their places within the contemporary urban soundscape and their use during the protests, it uses historical research, textual analysis, and qualitative discourse analysis methods to explore the technologies within a larger framework of the city’s discourses around (in)appropriate sound and action. Its findings suggest that each individual technology was evidence for the nature of its user in a way that presaged how the conflict would play out. The microphone epitomized the ideology (and fragility) of the hyper-democratic Occupiers’ ethos. The LRAD suggested the state’s superlative sonic capability and its “monopoly on the legitimate use of noise.” And the drum circles and noise complaints that followed ultimately showed the ways “noise-making” is better understood as a discursive construction that delegitimizes sound. Together, they suggest the ways the hegemonic soundscape serves the status quo. The essay also elaborates a taxonomy of sonic terms, specifically exploring volume, amplification, and noise-making as terms that explain the dynamics of sound during protest. It offers scholars of media activism a toolkit for sound studies that gets at the dynamics and structures of sonic power and explores the way sound-making is a key battleground of modernity. Sound conventions are a way that contemporary society is codified, legislated, and contested.

Race

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Schickler
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Liberal Democratic Party ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Business Regulation ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
The Status

This chapter examines the status quo before the start of the civil rights realignment, showing that civil rights was simply not viewed as part of the standard “liberal program” as of the early 1930s. Although African Americans were vocal in attacking Franklin D. Roosevelt's weak civil rights record, they were largely alone. When whites on the left pushed Roosevelt to be a more forthright liberal or progressive, they criticized him for inadequate support for labor, weak business regulation, and insufficient recovery spending—but not for his failure to back civil rights. At this early stage, the “enemies” of a liberal Democratic Party generally were not identified with the South but instead were probusiness Democrats from the Northeast, associated with Al Smith of New York. Economic questions were the key battleground in the eyes of white liberals, and civil rights did not figure in these debates.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document