Cultural Collisions Aftermath (Discourse Chronicle)
Comments(3) [I believe presenting “Superman’s America: Audience, Reception, and President Lex” was successful. Our audience turnout consisted of seven people (counting presenters), but good discussions resulted from our small band of scholars. I found Adam Williams paper, “Me, Myself, and I: Hip Hop Culture and Racial Identity on tha Street and in African-American Literature” particularly fascinating. He contextualized Hip Hop artists and industry as a whole with a sociological model of self-development and linked those findings to themes within African-American literature. I felt proud of myself for being able to engage Adam’s topic with a question stemming from my love of Eminem’s music.
Although no direct questions were asked about my paper, I am accepting this experience as a success, not a failure or another example of Me vs. the World as a comic scholar. I still feel that I need to persevere for an acceptance of comic scholarship as an area of research, but maybe I can slightly lower my guard. Something I notice about my colleagues through this positive lens is that they enjoy holding dialogues with me about Superman outside of the classroom. Obviously I am always happy to oblige and appreciate different perspectives on the Man of Steel, but I no longer feel like I am being attacked for my interest in comics. Maybe it is because I am wearing a suit, but I think it has more to do with today’s experience. BK]
category: Life
Re: “Something I notice about my colleagues through this positive lens is that they enjoy holding dialogues with me about Superman outside of the classroom.”
This may not be an issue of scholarly acceptance so much as an in-group, out-group sort of thing. For example, I think I know enough about Superman to have a conversation about him, but I don’t know enough to ask questions about your use of him or the application of Superman to rhetorical criticism.
Also, at conferences in particular, people usually only ask questions if they already know the answer.
One the things that doesn’t satisfy me about studying rhetoric, and that ensures I’ll always remain primarily a 19th scholar, is that so often people use rhetoric to have such vastly different conversations, conversations that I either don’t know enough about to enter. The conference situation is usually one where someone (ie, a potential questioner) is reluctant to admit their ignorance, whereas in conversation, its easy to admit you don’t know something.
A final thought, No one asking you a question means no one asked you a stupid question.
Bob, welcome to my blog! I believe the in-group and out-group situation is a universal one stemming from specialization. One of the reasons I like to use literary theory is because it allows for other disciplines to enter into the conversation, even though my application of it to comic books is probably new to them. Although I love learning and using theory applications, I felt like my work was missing something, until I started learning about rhetoric here at Texas A&M. Beforehand, I produced new readings of comic books as literature, but now I am learning about answering how those readings are possible. Rhetoric seems to be my missing link.
I never expect anyone to know about comics as well as I do (and there are plenty who know more), which is why I am always willing to educate people about how I see them, but in exchange I am hoping to learn something from whoever I am sharing with at the same time. I am hoping that over time, people will know how comics work for me, so they will be able to engage me. After all, there is a fine line between “geek session” and “scholarly discussion” when it comes to popular culture.