Changing the Subject in English Class: Discourse and the Constructions of Desires / Edition 3

by Marshall W Alcorn Jr

Overview

Drawing on the theoretical work of Jacques Lacan, Marshall W. Alcorn Jr. formulates a systematic explanation of the function and value of desire in writing instruction.

Alcorn argues that in changing the subject matter of writing instruction in order to change student opinions, composition instructors have come to adopt an insufficiently complex understanding of subjectivity. This oversimplification hinders attempts to foster cultural change. Alcorn proposes an alternative mode of instruction that makes effective use of students’ knowledge and desire. The resulting freedom in expression—personal as well as political—engenders the recognition, circulation, and elaboration of desire necessary for both human communication and effective politics.

Responding to James Berlin’s reconception of praxis in the classroom, Theresa Ebert’s espousal of disciplined instructions, and Lester Faigley’s introduction of a postmodern theory of subjectivity, Alcorn follows both Lacan and Slavoj Žižek in insisting desire be given free voice and serious recognition. In composition as in politics, desire is the ground of agency. Competing expressions of desire should generate a dialectic in social-epistemic discourse that encourages enlightenment over cynicism and social development over authoritarian demands.

With clarity and personal voice, Alcorn explains how discourse is rooted in primitive psychological functions of desire and responds to complex cultural needs. In its theoretical scope this book describes a new pedagogy that links thought to emotion and the personal to the social.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780809324279
Publisher:	Southern Illinois University Press
Publication date:	03/20/2002
Edition description:	1st Edition
Pages:	168
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Marshall W. Alcorn Jr. is an associate professor of English, Humanities, and the Program in the Human Sciences at George Washington University. He is the author of Narcissism and the Literary Libido.

Editorial Reviews

[P]rovocative in the best sense of that word, . . . this book is a gift to so many scholars and students in the field who direly need its explanations and insights, [and] is of the utmost importance to our field if it is to grow and really begin to practice the self-critique that it so highly values.”—Victor J. Vitanza, editor of Writing Histories of Rhetoric

From the Publisher

Alcorn (English and humanities, George Washington U.) argues that the gradual shift in the teaching of composition from a curriculum that looked at literature as an attempt to represent reality to one that stresses the subjectivity of the student in decoding texts has incorporated an insufficiently complex understanding of subjectivity. The current cultural studies programs stress political ideas over expressive writing, but Alcorn argues that political ideas will never be right unless there is attention to self-expression. Basing his work in the conceptual world of psychoanalytic theory, he outlines a cultural-studies practice that develops anti-ideological identity. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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