Abstract
The example of Brodkey’s English 306, representative of the 1980s culture wars and the universalist response of President Bill Clinton, provides rhetorical justifications for the cultural mission of diverse educational institutions, such as Hispanic-serving institutions. The Brodkey example points to the fear of political conservatives of changing pedagogies that stray from the classics, and it seems that Clinton’s universalist rhetoric would be more effective in calming these fears and garner more support from Republican factions.
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Notes
- 1.
“Whiteness exercises such political force despite its thorough discrediting as a ‘cultural color,’ despite its having become the fair game of standup comics who reflect on the vacuity of ‘white culture’ in a nation in which so much that is new, stirring, excellent and genuinely popular—in music, fashion, oratory, dance, vernacular speech, sport and increasingly in literature, film and nonfictions writing—comes from African American, Asian American and Latino communities” (Roediger 6).
- 2.
In “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes Towards an Investigation),” Louis Althusser states, “in other words, the school (but also other State institutions like the Church, or other apparatuses like the Army) teaches ‘know-how,’ but in forms which ensure subjection to the ruling ideology or the mastery of its ‘practice’” (Gupta and Sharma 88), from The Anthropology of the State: A Reader by Aradhana Sharma and Akhil Gupta.
- 3.
The term “Hispanic” refers to people of Latin American descent such as Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Dominican, Central American, South American, and “Other Hispanic”. (US Census Bureau)
- 4.
Octalog I. “The Politics of Historiography.” Rhetoric Review, 7 (1988): 5–49.
Octolog II: “The (Continuing) Politics of Historiography.” Rhetoric Review 16.1 (1997): 2244.
- 5.
Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States features critical historical stories such as the massacre of Filipino villagers, features historical figures who are in danger of becoming erased from history books in Texas and the rest of the us, and includes voices from nontraditional historical figures such as Frederick Douglas. Quoting Zinn, “My history…describes the inspiring struggle of those who have fought slavery and racism, of the labor organizers who have led strikes for the rights of working people, of the socialists and others who have protested war and militarism My hero is not Theodore Roosevelt, who loved war and congratulated a general after a massacre of Filipino villagers at the turn of the century, but Mark Twain, who denounced the massacre and satirized imperialism.” “Making History”, letter from Howard Zinn to The New York Times, July 1, 2007. Also see: “A Radical Treasure,” The New York Times by Bob Herbert, January 29, 2010: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/30/opinion/30herbert.html?ref=howard_zinn
- 6.
His/story is used to imply the patriarchal nature and influence on traditional historical narratives, since most traditional histories have been written by men.
- 7.
Earl Warren College is one of the six undergraduate colleges at the University of California, San Diego and is named after the three-term California Governor and former Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, Earl Warren.
- 8.
Mary Louise Pratt (1991). “Arts of the Contact Zone” (pdf). Profession (New York: MLA) 91: 33–40. http://www.class.uidaho.edu/thomas/English_506/Arts_of_the_Contact_Zone.pdf. Archived at University of Idaho, English 506, Rhetoric and Composition: History, Theory, and Research.
- 9.
The actual assignment reads as follows: Summarize Calcott and Starnes in relationship to one another paying particular attention to the various purposes of history presented in both articles. What claims are they making? How does Starnes specifically elaborate on the various purposes of history presented by Calcott? Is there a critical stance toward history present in either of the two articles? After engaging with the various purposes evident in the Calcott’s and Starnes’ articles, using O’Sullivan’s “Manifest Destiny” excerpt, apply one or more of the purposes of history to the position made herein.
- 10.
Such appeals could have been but are not limited to an appeal to a deity, an appeal to lessons from the past, an appeal to the monarchy of England.
- 11.
The specific wording of “Manifest Destiny” and the excerpt referred to in this student’s paper are as follows:
For this blessed mission to the nations of the world, which are shut out from the life-giving light of truth, has America been chosen; and her high example shall smite unto death the tyranny of kings, hierarchs, and oligarchs, and carry the glad tidings of peace and good will where myriads now endure an existence scarcely more enviable than that of beasts of the field. Who, then, can doubt that our country is destined to be the great nation of futurity? (241)
- 12.
My understanding of the “Carnival” stems from M.M. Bakhtin’s The Dialogic Imagination.
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Ruiz, I.D. (2016). Historiography in the Writing Classroom: A Case for Teaching Chicanx/Latinx History as an Alternative to Traditional Multicultural Pedagogies. In: Reclaiming Composition for Chicano/as and Other Ethnic Minorities. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-53673-0_8
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