Clinamen

So, I have this "reading list" for the summer. The idea is that if I make a list of books that I want to read (and check them off as I read them), I'll actually read them...it's kinda working. The problem thus far has been that I'm reading stuff that's not on the list - such as Delillo's The Falling Man, Saramago's The Double, and Urrea's The Devil's Highway (this is the book for next year's first-year composition course).

Still, I'm making my through the list. I've worked my way through Ulmer's Internet Invention. I wanted to read this book to see what Ulmer's up to (I had skimmed Teletheory and some other texts) and also to see if I wanted to use the book for my Computers and Writing course this fall.

Well, I think I am going to use this book, but I'm a bit worried about doing it. It's a really difficult text, and a lot of the stuff in it will go over students' heads (shit, some of it was way over my head). His references to Barthes, Jameson, and Althusser make it difficult, but I also think the text does some things that I've been looking for from a textbook. It ties together theory and pedagogy. It also doesn't pretend to speak from "nowhere." That is, Ulmer is very up front that he speaks from within a discipline (English studies), and this is something that a lot of rhetoric texts don't do. For this reason, it avoids some disciplinary imperialism...but this also means that it operates within a very specific language game. Anyone using this book will have to prepare themselves and students for a lot of "Huh?" moments. I'm okay with these moments. In fact, I think these moments are the most useful moments a teacher can have. However, I don't think this book is for everyone.

The best part about the book is that it forces students to take note of how they've been interpellated...how their way of viewing the world has been shaped by a number of factors. At the beginning of the text, I was concerned that it might be (at least partially) participating in what Michelle Ballif would call an "identity disclosing pedagogy" (I blogged about this). However, after reading the text I'm convinced (for the most part) that Ulmer is not guilty of this. I am still not completely comfortable with the "coherence" he attributes to the mystory. That is, students are developing a web site called a "mystory" that narrates the different parts of their lives (family, career, entertainment, community) in a way that makes connections between these different parts. At times, this search for connections makes it sound like he wants students to look for the narrative strand that carries through their entire life. These are the moments that I'm not entirely comfortable with...but I'm willing to give this text a try anyway. I'm especially excited about using the Google Maps API for Ulmer's mapping exercise (an exercise that asks students to play cartographer and map the different institutions in their community - this allows them to think about the ways those institutions shaped them).

Has anyone out there used this text? Do you have suggestions? Comments? Thoughts?