Bizzell, Patricia. “’Contact Zones’ and English Studies” (481).

Bizzell, Patricia. “’Contact Zones’ and English Studies” (481).
“I suggest that we address this problem by employing Mary Louise Pratt’s concept of the ‘contact zone’:
I use this term to refer to social spaces where cultures meet, clash and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power, such as colonialism, slavery, or their aftermaths as they are lived out in many parts of the world today” (34)” (482).
F”Focusing on a contact zone as a way of organizing literary study would mean attempting to include all material relevant to the struggles on on there” (482).
[New England 1600—1800 as contact zone] “We would be working with categories that treated multiculturalism as a defining feature, that assumed the richest literary treasures could be found in situations in which different histories, lifeways, and languages are trying to communicate and deal with the unequal power distribution among them” (484).
“this approach fully integrates composition and rhetoric into literary studies. Studying texts as they respond to contact zone conditions is studying them rhetorically, studying them as efforts of rhetoric” (484).
I’m not sure I agree with this! One could approach this rhetorically, but it would certainly not be necessary or a given.
“It would also mean reorganizing graduate study and professional scholarly work in ways I hardly dare to suggest. I suppose that one would no longer become a specialist in American literature, a “Shakespeare man,” or a “compositionist.” Rather,people’s areas of focus would be determined by the kinds of rhetorical problems in which they were interested” (485).
Lu, Min-Zahn. “Professing Multiculturalism: The Politics of Style in the Contact Zone”
Would someone please tell me what are we teaching? I feel as though I’m caught in an argument that consists of people arguing for the total education of the student in anything even slightly related to the humanities in a composition course. I want my students to write. I want them to write well, and to recognize that “style” of writing changes as does “style” of dress. We put forth a different image for different occasions. Tuxes at a formal party, academic talk for academic papers. Jeans and a T-shirt for hanging out and IMing for chatting with friends. My students should, at those opportunities which arise, be introduced to acceptance of our multi-cultural world, but I would rather teach writing. Why isn’t writing—the kind of writing students learn in comp I, important to anyone? Exploration of creative writing, exploration of blogging, etc., could be taken in other places!
“My second concern has to do with a division many of us feel between our role as composition teachers and the role we play as students, teachers, or scholars in other, supposedly more central areas of English Studies” (488).
OF COURSE THERE IS A DIVISION!!!!!! Geeze!
“This exchange between an indignant Stein and an embarrassed “young man” reveals some of the criteria used by “educated America” when dealing with an idiosyncratic style” (489).
“Most of the readings I assign for these classes call attention to writers’ need and right to contest the unifying force of hegemonic discourses, and thus make Dreiser’s submission to the authority of the “better educated” appear dated and passive” (490).
“Why is it that in spite of our developing ability to acknowledge the political need and right of “real” writers to experiment with “style,” we continue to cling to the belief that such a need and right does not belong to student writers”?” (491).
It isn’t a matter of what “belongs” to student writers, it is a matter of time! How do you expect me to teach a student to a) write in a way his biology teacher can understand, b) master the art of clarity, c) explore different styles, d)use his own language. CRAP! One Person, One TERM!
Where does style belong? What is style? Aren’t we teaching one of many, even sometimes two?
“I do so by asking students to explore the full range of choices and options, including those excluded by the conventions of academic discourses” (492).
Could we please decide WHAT it is we are ATTEMPTING to teach?
“At this point, a “contact zone” would begin to take shape with three conflicting positions on the meanings of “can” and “able to”; the position of a speaker of idiomatic English, the position of the dictionary and the position of a “foreign” student writer” (496).
This is good, I like the idea of a “contact zone” being the difference between writers and their ways of writing. I want to do something with it, but I’m not sure what.
“Therefore, learning to become comfortable in making blunders is central to this type of teaching. In fact, there is no better way to teach students the importance of negotiation than by allowing them the opportunity to watch a teacher work her way through a chancy and volatile dialogue” (501).