Critical Inquiry
LA 101M Wednesday 9.00-11.45am
Office and Hours: Bunting 401; MTW 7-9 am
Telephone: 225-2498    e-mail: mbrottma@mica.edu

Critical Inquiry is a required course for all MICA freshmen. This is the course structure and syllabus for all sections. However, weekly texts and artifacts differ according to section. Be sure to check with your instructor for weekly readings. The weekly readings listed here are for Mikita’s section only.

Books Needed: Lois Tyson, Critical Theory Today, revised edition, Routledge, 2006.
Dave Eggers, ed., The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2003, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003.

 The chief goal of Critical Inquiry is to help students gain an understanding of the intellectual and philosophical content of their own work and the work of others. It is a course that calls for a vigorous investigation into the nature and sources of personal values and the mechanisms by which these values are applied when the art maker creates and critiques. Critical Inquiry also asks students to assess the consequences (in their art and in their criticism) of the value choices they make and apply every day.

 This course also seeks to give students the practical opportunity to sharpen and extend their ability to articulate their critical responses, both in written and spoken form. Thus, Critical Inquiry is designed to aid students as art makers and as art critics by demonstrating the essential link between critical thinking and art making and by showing the powerfully complementary nature of language as a medium of expression vital to the thoughtful artist.

Critical Inquiry asks students to engage in four critical activities:

Respond visually to various artifacts (texts, film, and art).
Examine critically via language (written and spoken) both the text and responses to the text.
Engage in critical dialogue and debate.
Write critically both in an extended, formal manner and in a shorter, more expressive mode.

 In Critical Inquiry, students are divided into four workgroups. Each session, the class as a whole is presented with a text (short story, essay, or film). Students in one of the four workgroups respond visually to the text, using whatever medium or process they think appropriate. There are no prior limits or restraints on these visual responses. Students in a second workgroup respond in written form, fashioning a three to four page formal essay that critically assesses the text and their response to it.

 As with the first workgroup, these written responses are not pre-limited in any way by prior restraints. The point of the course is to encourage students to respond in a wholly authentic personal and subjective manner, but at the same time, work hard to understand the groundwork of individual responses. In Critical Inquiry, students are acknowledged as possessing valid and worthy critical and aesthetic views, but at the same time, students will be asked tough questions about those views and the manner of their presentation. It is literally impossible not to have a critical response to a text but it is possible to refuse or be unable to understand, articulate, or investigate honestly that response. It is this latter unwillingness that Critical Inquiry seeks to overcome.

 Each week, a third workgroup has the specific responsibility of critiquing the visual responses of the first workgroup, and the fourth workgroup presents a chapter from Tyson, and leads the dialogue that ensues. The critique is a pervasive activity in the training of an artist, a staple of the art school experience, and Critical Inquiry provides students with an opportunity not only to engage in the critique itself but to examine the content and process, the assumptions and values, of the critique itself.

 The course is set up so that three cycles of four classes each, during which each of the four groups rotates through each of the four different weekly responsibilities, are completed. This means that each student engages in each of the four weekly activities three time: making the visual response; writing the 2-3 page critical response; critiquing the visual response; and answering theory questions. Twice during the semester we will have movie screenings during the class.

 The final essay may sound like a daunting enterprise when considered before Critical Inquiry starts, but the course work itself: the visual responses, the essays, the one-pagers, the critiques, the research, and the critiques of the critiques -- are all designed to produce the concrete material out of which the final essay is fashioned. By the end of the semester, the research and digging will have been done; all that will remain is the synthesis of that raw material, and in that synthesis lies the potential for deep personal satisfaction at gaining important insights into one’s artistic and intellectual nature, perhaps for the very first time.

Grades

10 1-pagers: 30 points
3 Visuals: 15 points
3 Essays: 15 points
3 Critiques: 15 points
Final Paper: 25 points
Total: 100 points

95-100 =A+ 66-70 = C+
90-95 = A    60-65 = C
86-90 = A    56-60 = C-
80-85 = B+  50-55 = D+
76-80 = B     46-50 = D
70-75 = B-   40-45 = D-


Weekly Schedule

(1) January 23
Course Introduction
Tyson: Introduction

(2) January 30
Text: Ryan Boudinet, “The Littlest Hitler” (p24-32).
Tyson Ch.2:
Group 1: Visuals
Group 2: Long Paper
Group 3: Critique
Group 4: Theory

(3) February 6
Text: Michael Buckley, “The Meticulous Grove of Black and Green,” (p76-96)
Group 1: Theory
Group 2: Visuals
Group 3: Long Paper
Group 4: Critique

(4) February 13
Text: Judy Budnitz, “Visiting Hours,” (p97-115)
Tyson: Ch.4
Group 1: Critique
Group 2: Theory
Group 3: Visuals
Group 4: Long Paper

(5)February 20
Text: Chuck Klosterman, “The Pretenders” (p150-158)
Tyson, Ch. 5
Group 1: Long Paper
Group 2: Critique
Group 3: Theory
Group 4: Visuals

(6) February 27
Movie Screening: TBA

(7) March 5
Text: Movie
Tyson: Ch.6
Group 1: Visuals
Group 2: Long Paper
Group 3: Critique
Group 4: Theory

(9) March 12
Text: K. Kvashay Boyle, “Saint Chola,” p159-173.
Tyson: Ch. 7
Group 1: Theory
Group 2: Visuals
Group 3: Long Paper
Group 4: Critique

SPRING BREAK

(10) March 26
Tyson: Ch. 8
Text: Douglas Light, “Three Days. A Month. More.” P202-210
Group 1: Critique
Group 2: Theory
Group 3: Visuals
Group 4: Long Paper

(11) April 2
Text: Nasdijj, “Touching Him”, p211-221
Tyson, Ch. 9
Group 1: Long Paper
Group 2: Critique
Group 3: Theory
Group 4: Visuals

(12) April 9
Movie Screening: TBA

(13) April 16
Text: Movie
Tyson: Ch. 10
Group 1: Visuals
Group 2: Long Paper
Group 3: Critique
Group 4: Theory

(14) April 23
Text: George Packer, “How Susie Bayer’s T-Shirt Ended Up on Yusuf Mama’s Back,” p224-236
Tyson: Ch. 11
Group 1: Theory
Group 2: Visuals
Group 3: Long Paper
Group 4: Critique

(15) April 30
Text: Z.Z. Packer, “The Ant of the Self,” p237-257.
Tyson: Ch. 12
Group 1: Critique
Group 2: Theory
Group 3: Visuals
Group 4: Long Paper

(16) May 7
Movie: TBA
All Groups: Turn In Final Paper


Critiques

If you can’t think of anything to say during the crit, look at the following list of ideas. Remember, if no-one responds, the artist often gets the impression that everyone hates the piece, so even if you don’t think your comment is brilliant, please share it anyway. It may make an impact, or, at least, inspire other students to speak. Try not to worry too much about being negative. If you have something negative to say, you can always combine it with some constructive praise:

* What are your first impressions of the piece? Does it get your attention? How would you describe the form? Is it concrete or abstract, figurative or illustrative, representational or impressionist?
 
* Do you understand how it relates to the text? If not, say so; other people are probably wondering, too.
 
* How would you describe its structure? Does it illustrate a particular scene in the text, or a particular character, or a particular line? Or is it more of an overall impression of a mood, or a concept, or an idea? Is this mood, concept or idea one you can recognize in the text, or is it subjective to the artist’s interpretation?

* What does the piece remind you of? Why?
 
* What is the major task the piece sets itself? What does it offer to the viewer? Does it complete its promise?
 
* What is your favorite part of the piece? Are you caught up in it, or does it turn you off? Why?

* What is the major task the piece sets itself? What does it offer to the viewer? Does it complete its promise?
 
* What is your favorite part of the piece? Are you caught up in it, or does it turn you off? Why?
 
* What do you like or dislike about the artist’s style, form, and use of materials? How would you change the piece?
 
* How does the piece differ from or resemble your own reaction to the text? What kind of piece would you have created in response to the text? What does the piece teach you about the artist?

* What feelings does the piece leave you with? What have you learned from it?

Sample 1-Page Response to "On Dumpster Diving"

I really enjoyed reading this true-life account of the time Eighner found himself living homeless in Austin, getting his food from dumpsters. I was drawn in right from the start. I've taken things from dumpsters myself -- furniture, a bed frame, and similar items -- but I've never eaten food from a dumpster, and I honestly don't know if I could. Even if my peanut butter jar has a tiny crack in the rim, I throw it all out. How wasteful. But my mother told me that germs can breed in those cracks.
So I felt admiration for Eighner, and wondered how such a smart guy ended up living on the streets. This changed my perspective on homelessness. He's a very thoughtful writer, with quite a careful and old-fashioned style -- again, not what you expect from a homeless person. Many of his observations are very sharp. He talks about how alcoholism and drug addiction are the scourge of many of his kind, how he manages to feed, bathe, and clothe himself, and where he stays and sleeps. He's fair in his observations; never bitter or resentful towards those who have things. This, too, makes me admire him. I'm bitter and resentful all the time, and compared to Eighner, I'm one of the "rat-race millions."
Plus, Eighner appears to be a man of principle. Despite his dire situation, he will not beg, or steal. He doesn't drink, or do any kind of drugs. He always tries to keep himself clean, and he makes great sacrifices for his dog, whom he loves. His experiences living on the streets are described with great humor and wit, and he never blames other people for his situation. The fact that this essay is so well written suggests that Eighner doesn't fit the usual homeless stereotype of being ignorant, uneducated and useless to society. In fact, Eighner mentions having regular job before his circumstances changed. It does make me wonder how many other people are out there who go through similar experiences in life. It made me think carefully about whether this could happen to me, or somebody I know.
Maybe I should stop taking my peanut butter for granted.

Final Paper: Advice

The final 6-8 page paper is your chance to explain your critical perspective -- the way you see the world, the way you make judgments, the values you bring to your own art, and the art (of all kinds) of others.

This semester, in Critical Inquiry, you have produced a considerable record of your critical responses -- 9 one-pagers, 3 essays, 3 visual pieces, and 3 verbal responses to Theory Toolbox chapters. It is here, with this body of work, where you must begin to search for evidence of your critical nature. How have you approached these stories, essays, films and other texts? How have you judged or assessed the events and characters that inhabit them? What patterns of response can you discern? What kinds of critical vocabulary (as outlined in the Theory Toolbox) can you apply to your approach? What was important to you as you examined these works and responded to them? What spoke to you, moved you, engaged you? Why?

If you conduct this investigation thoroughly and carefully, a picture of your critical nature will eventually emerge, although it may not be consistent or uniform. Simply describe what you find, whatever that may be. There is no single, "correct" critical nature, no prescribed value system you must possess. You are what you are. The job of this course has been to help you to understand and articulate that critical identity. As long as you honestly investigate yourself and faithfully report those findings in this final paper, you will succeed, whatever those findings may be.

Again, if you recognize one or more of the patterns of criticism (criticism is simply what we do when we decide what and how things mean, and if they have significance for us; criticism is how we make meaning and significance) that are discussed in The Theory Reader, use that vocabulary to articulate what you've learned about yourself.

Once you have done all this, you may want to go beyond the responses to the 12 artifacts of our course, to examine your responses generally in your life, present and past, as a way of confirming and / or expanding what you have discovered within your work in Critical Inquiry.

As you reflect on your "critical" past and present (that is, on the way you have made judgments, the manner in which you arrive at meaning and significance), you may begin to think about the "roots" of your critical nature -- the reasons why you make judgments the way you do. You may reflect on the influences you might have felt, the forces, events, and relationships that have shaped you and your critical nature. You may wish to describe these influences as part of your essay.

Finally, in this essay, you should also try to articulate the consequences of using the critical approach you typically employ.

If you consistently make moral judgments or engage in formal criticism, for example, what are the advantages and limitations of such perspectives? What do they allow you to see and understand? What kind of world do they invoke? What does making judgments from these perspectives keep you from seeing and understanding?

To summarize:
1: Examine your work in Critical Inquiry.
2: Articulate the patterns of your judgment / meaning making you find there.
3: Consider your life broadly to see how these patterns are present there.
4: Examine and enumerate the influences that have shaped your critical nature.
5: Consider the consequences of your particular critical nature.










Sample Paper by Christopher Shipley, Chair, Department of Language, Literature and Culture.

My Critical Nature

As the designer of the course Critical Inquiry, I assume that students view me and my critical practice in the classroom as deeply "critical," and conclude that my taking apart texts and other sorts of "artifacts," analyzing them and applying various critical vocabularies to their form and content, is as natural to me as breathing. Yet, the fact is, criticism does not come "naturally" to me at all. I have become a "critical" thinker and talker only secondarily, through practice and application. I am not sure that any of us is "critical" by nature, if by the term we mean that we possess an inherent desire not to accept things on their surface and are compelled to analyze and interrogate all that we encounter. I was nudged (sometimes against my will) into "criticism" by the teachers I encountered in the course of my education.

What I started out as (and continue to be, deep down) is a reader and a watcher and listener. I am inexhaustibly curious about almost everything. My innate curiosity (along with a rather calamitous childhood that I'll talk about later) led me at an early age to books, for in books, one can find almost everything under the sun; in books, one's curiosity will never run out of things -- people, places, events, and so on -- to explore. Books led me to college and then to graduate school and finally to my place at the front of the classroom, your classroom.

When one stands at the front of a classroom, one needs to say something. People, like you, have paid a considerable sum of money in part to hear what I say, and let me tell you, that is a weighty responsibility -- to have people really listening to you, to have paid to listen to you. This is where criticism comes in for me -- criticism gives me something to say to you. It gives me the language to enclose, to reveal in an intelligible fashion, what my natural curiosity has shown to me, has taught me.

As I've said, I've always been curious about things; furthermore, I believe that all of us are born with that trait. Some of us, however, for reasons that are not clear to me, seem to either lose or suppress their natural curiosity. Perhaps our educational system has something to do with that, or the madly consumerist nature of our culture. I have not lost my curiosity, but this natural urge of mine, to look and listen, to endlessly poke around, is not being critical. It is, however, the necessary first step to becoming such.

You see, for me, my natural state, when I am watching and listening and reading, soaking up things through my sense and mind, is not one in which thinking are language are prime. In that most primitive and foundational state, I am feeling, not thinking. My mind is engaged, not as an active analyzer but as a tuned-up receiver. I am sensing things, receiving them, allowing them to work their way through me, to be in me. Language, ideas, criticism, all that comes later, as the vehicle to express what has happened to me, what I have been feeling and sensing as the result of my never-ending work of my curiosity. Critical language is the record of what a text, a work of art, a film or a play has done to me. Criticism orders and assigns significance and value to the stream of sense data that my curiosity produces.

This is precisely what I hope Critical Inquiry gives to you -- a means to express what art, of all and every sort, does to you, that it provides you with an awareness of the way each of you sees (and hears and reads) the world. For although I am at base simply curious about things, my curiosity and the the observations that my curiosity leads me to are particular to me as a specific individual. My brand of curiosity is neither neutral nor universal, and it produces information, ordered and made communicable by criticism, that reveals who I am, what my nature -- both critical and primal -- truly is.

As I reflect on the twelve artifacts we have experienced this semester and my critical response to them (that is, how I created language to describe what they did to me), clear patterns emerge. First of all, each of the twelve interested me; I wouldn't have picked them if they didn't. I was curious about each one of them, but the fact is that almost everything interests me, as I've already said, and the diversity of these twelve artifacts is testament to that catholic curiosity of mine.

Second, each of the twelve is, in my opinion, well made; that is, each demonstrates high structural integrity and formal beauty, the sort of beauty that appeals to me, at any rate. That formal excellence is different in each case, however, often due to the difference in medium. For example, I am drawn to the simplicity and directness of Keely and Du, the austerity of its setting and the consistency of its characters, but also to the physical lushness and visual complexity of The Inheritors. What these two works have in common, however, is an almost pitch perfect matching of their forms to their respective content. Moreover, although The Inheritors is is complex cinematically, it is rather simple and straightforward narratively, despite the mysteries its story first presents. Its plot unfolds as a perfectly constructed wooden puzzle might be put together. Nothing is out of place in it; everything fits snugly, a formal quality that the short story, "The Lottery," also stunningly possesses. There is nothing wasted in this story -- it is spare and minimalist: everything counts -- every word and action -- and its simple elegance helps deliver its devestating punch to the gut in the end.

I am not only engaged by simple and elegantly minimal formal structures, however. The messy visual complexity of Menace II Society and the profusion of narrative levels in "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" also beguile me. What I am trying to say is that the shape of these artifacts, whatever it might be, matters to me; I have been trained to pay attention to "design." Before that training (in college and graduate school), design mattered to me, as well, but I did not possess the vocabulary to talk about why and how it mattered, beyond saying such things as "I like the way the story works," or "I like the ending," or "I can't stand not knowing more about the characters." One of the goals of education, and certainly of Critical Inquiry, is to give the learner meaningful ways to express what she or he knows and feels. That's what it has done for me, anyway. Thus, this formal response of mine owes much to "New Criticism," and its methods and vocabublary.

Beyond my formal response to our twelve artifacts, I discover more patterns as I think about their content. In each of the twelve, I find myself siding with the "underdog," with the character who is suffering at the hands of a superior power. Quite naturally, such an identification places me in opposition to the superior power, and I define this power as "the enemy." This kind of response is owing to certain psychological factors in my own make-up, but may also be described as "Marxist," in its orientation and results, since I invariably foreground economic and social class conflicts in the struggle between the weak and the powerful, and align myself, as I read or watch, with the "oppressed."

Accordingly, I endorse Carol against John; Caine, O'Dog and the rest of the gang in Menace against the largely unseen white American upper and middle class; the 1/7 farmers against the rich "full" farmers; Keely against the traditional white male power figure of Walter; Sammy against both Lengel and the aristocratic Queenie; Tessie against her privileged neighbors (they get to live and stone her to death); the "grunts" in "The Things the Carried," against the absent generals and politicians who put these soldiers in harm's way; and Lyman and Henry against a white corporate America that robs indigenous peoples of their birthright and creates the wars that routinely send the poor and the powerless (Henry) to their deaths in "defense" (Vietnam and Iraq were scarcely threatening the safety of America) of a country that mistreats and abandons them.

My Marxist critical tendencies overlap and reinforce sympathies I have with the feminist perspective. Women are an oppressed group suffering at the hands of white male hierarchical, capitalist authority (Keely, Tessie, Connie, Emmie, Bailey's wife in "A Good Man is Hard to Find," and the three young women in "A&P." In this latter case, am confronted with dueling critical systems and the opposite results they sometimes produce. Viewed from a feminist perspective, Queenie is a victim of both Sammy and Lengel (reduced to a commodity, a mere sexual object), but assessed from a Marxist perspective she is a member of the ruling class, a greedy capitalist consumer whose money buys her privilege and ease (herring snacks and the beach) while Sammy and Lengel must sell their labor simply to survive -- no beach or fancy parties for them.

Arriving at different conclusions when applying various critical methodologies and vocabularies to a work of art is a common experience for me, and one that I both enjoy and find valuable. Further examples of this sort of result can be seen in my response to the Hughes' brothers' film, Menace II Society. Viewed through the lens of Afro-American or Postcolonial criticism, Caine and his mates are clear victims of an oppressive colonial power -- white America. Their entire experience -- the poverty, violence, and their overwhelming sense of entrapment, has been dictated by this brutal, indifferent, colonial force, enacting an imperialism that began with the slave trade and that continues today. These young men are just as enslaved in contemporary Watts as their ancestors were on antebellum Southern plantations.

Yet if we change to the feminist lens, we are compelled to see that these young men as almost misogynists, routine abusers and degraders of women. The entire film marginalizes and trivializes women. Even Ronnie is robbed of her femaleness by her odd costuming and, moreover, fails in her many attempts to affect any change in Caine's and her son's lives. Thus, the victims become the victimizers when I switch my critical perspective on this film. One possible way to harmonize these opposing conclusions, however, is to assign the ultimate responsibility for the misogyny of the men in Menace to the effects of white American imperialism, in much the same way that some argue that the violence of the ghetto is a direct effect of decades of racism.

Another change in critical point of view with regard to Menace yields yet another conclusion. While it is difficult to deny that the behavior of Caine and his peers is governed by the dictates of a macho masculinity, promoting a fierce pride and a devotion to physical strength, a lack of fear, and a willingness to use or perhaps even to love violence, a consideration of the film according to the principles of gay and lesbian criticism produces a surprising and quite different explanation of the conduct of Menace's characters. For underneath the breast-beating is a vivid homosocial world of young black men who devote almost all of their time and affection to other young black men. Seen from this point of view, Caine and O'Dog's relationshhip looks almost like a love affair.

The one scene of heterosexual intimacy in the movie, between Ronnie and Caine, is filmed in such a way as to efface the femaleness of Ronnie. The image on the screen could be of two men. Moreover, Caine denies his apparent impregnation of a young woman he picks up, and the act that led to the woman's accusation of Caine is never shown. No act of physical intimacy between Caine and the woman is shown in the film. Caine's unwillingness to acknowledge his possible paternity of the young woman's child is the proximate cause of his death. This suggests that the principal act of heterosexual imagery -- procreation -- is deadly and ought to be avoided. Among these violent young men the homosocial world is where they long to be, a safe haven free of women and their deadly traps.

More of such insights rendered by a Gay and Lesbian critical sensibility are available when examining The Inheritors (Lucas' and Severin's relationship -- recall the mud wrestling scene and the instances where they sleep in the same bed); "The Things They Carried" (Lt. Jimmy Cross renounces Martha for his men); "The Red Convertible" (Henry and Lyman are deeply intimate): and Keely and Du (the title characters are often in one another's arms and wind up rejecting the male overtures of Walter and Cole in favor of their own woman-to-woman relationship).

In structuralist terms, many of the details I use in constructing the Marxist, Feminist, Gay/Lesbian readings that I offer above would be termed surface phenomena or parole, but I wrote my Ph.D dissertation about the development of deep structure in early English drama, so my critical view has also long been influenced by structuralism and the search for seminal narrative structures, or langue, in texts. The cyclical pattern of violence, retribution, and changing fortune in The Inheritors (and in Menace II Society and "The Lottery") are examples of such a deep structure, a fundamental narrative pattern that one can discover in every age and genre of literature. So, too, is the Bildungsroman structure that informs such artifacts as "Where Are You Going...," Pumpkin, and "A&P." Even The Inheritors demonstrates this deep pattern, as we watch the "innocent" peasants being introduced to the adult world or wickedness, greed, and death.

One might also claim that the power struggle in Oleanna -- really a revolution spurred on by the radical Carol against the traditional amle institutional power wielded almost unconsciously by John -- represents a replication of another deep pattern (the young toppling the old; the free outwitting the constrained). Yet Oleanna is not so easily characterized. Like its maddening language, its meanings seem fractured and evasive, able to change along with the specific responses of individual readers. I have my own way of reading this play, one in which Carol, as hateful as she is, remains the hero. Yes, I do feel sympathy for John, especially when Carol has wrested into her own hands the power that was once his. In that scenario early in Act III, my Marxist / underdog tendencies push me toward alignment with John. But that budding sympathy is quickly and completely dashed when John viciously assaults Carol, asserting brute physical supremacy after he has lost every other advantage.

While my reading of the play is specific and constant, I realize that others see the play very differently. In some ways, the play is itself a commentary on the inevitability of inevitable meaning, one of the hallmarks of deconstructive criticism. In Act III, Carol complains of John's touching her, and he replaies that his touch was "devoid of sexual content." But she counters with a perfectly postmodern reponse:"I SAY IT WAS NOT. Don't you being to see ...? Don't you begin to understand? IT'S NOT FOR YOU TO SAY." That is, Carol asserts that meaning is determined by the interpreter within a given historical moment and context. In this case, meaning is determined by the interpreter with the most power, and at this point in the play, that is surely Carol. Thus Oleanna really is about power -- more specifically, it is about who has the power to decide what things mean.

Deconstruction and reader response criticism are seductive for me precisely because these critical schemes decenter the authority to decide what texts mean; they take it away from authors and professional critics ("literary authorities") and give it to me and every other reader of a text. I realize you may consider me just such a one of those "literary authorities"; but I, rather conveniently, I realize, do not think of myself that way. In my mind, I'm just another member of the proletariat, defiantly wrenching the power to decide what things mean from a traditional, priveleged authority figure. I refuse to defer to others -- any others -- as the assigners of meaning. This results partly, I suppose, because of my critical sympathies, which derive from my politics (way left), which have my early life as their point of origin.

As I've suggested, I had a tumultuous childhood. My father died when I was seven and my mother descended into madness shortly thereafter and died in a mental hospital some dozen years later, after suffering through prolonged periods of severe psychosis. I was a desparate child and young man, alternately terrified and defiant, searching everywhere for the permanence and safety of family denied me by circumstances. There is a farily large pool of anger welled up deep in me -- anger at the unfair world of my childhood -- , which I have slowly managed to drain, mostly because I have managed to replace the lost family of my childhood with a loving one of my own making.

There is also a bitter and determined sense of independence in my nature. By the time I was sixteen I was more or less on my own with my older brother, with both of us in possession of little money and less affection from our relatives. By then I had learned the hard lesson of trusting no-one but myself. If a small child cannot depend on his parents being there, what can he depend on? Thus it is no accident that I identify with the weak against the strong; the neglected, the lonely, and the abandoned against those who enjoy good fortune, wealth, and influence. Such identification is simply self-defense.

An examination of my short story, "Some Say the Earth as Fev'rous and Did Shake," reveals these indelible biases of mine. Although I wrote this story unaware of its rather direct applicability to my early life, the parallel is certainly there, as I have discovered after approaching the story as a crticial and "psychoanalytic" reader, not as an author. Bes and Jon's "marked" child is obviously me, abandoned by a dead father and a suicidal mother (my mother nearly died when she attempted to hang herself when I was 12). The child becomes an outcast, ruthlessly condemned by "official authority"; that is, the baby is a victim of powerful forces beyond his comprehension and control, just as i was. Yet he survives, nonetheless, alone and unprotected, just as I have. I did not set out to write an allegory of my own life when I created this story -- I was in no way trying to write an allegory of my own life when I created this story -- I was in no way trying to write autobiographically -- and yet it is now impossible for me not to see the relationship, an outcome advanced by my understanding and use of psychoanalytic theory.

Such powerful prejudices or values (there really is not much difference in my mind between these two terms) allow me to be a vigorous and at times quite insightful critic, sniffing out oppressive classist and sexist behaviors and attitudes in every text I encounter. But such a point of view also blinds me to other critical determinations, however valid. As I have indicated, I cannot sympathize seriously with John in Oleanna and this leads me to endorse Carol wholeheatedly, a position I know is not uniformly defensible -- Carol eventually transgresses the principles of equality and fairness I profess, as poor John beomces a victim of her over-the-top ruthlessness and she takes his place as the oppressor. Yet in class after class when I discuss this play, I find myself stubbornly defending everything she does, no matter how unjustified. I do this, I have come to understand, because my once wounded heart leads me there. Psychically, I need to be Carol, despite my resemblance to John.

Alas, I have come to understand that my thoroughgoing condemnation of John stems not only from my identification with Carol, but from my guilt over my own conduct. As I hope I have made clear, I identify with every literary character and actual person -- blacks, women, gays, children -- who are powerless and oppressed, because I see them as versions of myself. I have also realized, however, that such feelings enclose their opposite, that my hatred for the power that external forces may try to wield over me has embedded in it a desire for my own power. This means that I want the same thing that I loathe. Thus, I desire the same power that John desires, and for very similar reasons. Most tellingly, this is also the same power that Carol desires. This contradiction is something I try to keep in mind, especially in my role as teacher. As I grow older, I have begun to learn to release my desire for power. I may finally be healing those ancient wounds.

I am going to end this essay with a list of my beliefs, an attempt to further reveal who I am and why I see the world (as an endlessly curious and critical creature) as I do. This list is by no means complete, but it may shed some light on the dark terrain of my inner nature. I am convinced that what we believe is what we are, for such beliefs--even if we do not acknowledge them--guide our every step in life. This ending fragment, a scattering of words, so slippery and elusive, so inadequate to the task of defining the mystery of the human heart, seems somehow just the right way to close what is, finally, a hopeless task: to declare one's deep and true identity. Yet I sincerely hope that you too are honestly engaged in just such a vain struggle as this, as you write your final essay.

For as with so many other important tasks in life, it is not the end that matters, but the trying. So here is my list:

I do not like authority other than my own. Yes, this is a contradiction and perhaps hypocrisy, as well, but it remains true for me nonetheless. I value freedom and life: these are founding principles in my interpretive universe. We are all grounded in something, some seminal set of beliefs that serve as the source for all our subsets of beliefs and values, and this is ground zero for me. Thus meaning and value are not relative for me (I do not see how they can be for anyone--everybody believes something, even if that something is nothing. No-one can exist outside of belief). The charge that conservatives make against people such as I, that we have no values, no core, is power-grabbing and power-keeping rubbish. The actual distinction between people who claim to have real values and beliefs, and those, like me, who are characterized as not having any, is that the former believe that they have the beliefs, the right ones, the only ones, while the latter say only that the beliefs and values we have are our own. Other folks might have different ones. We are not so obsessed with the notion of who's got the right ones.

So the freedom and life I value are not only mine, but belong to others, too. This is not an easy truth to live with, for it is difficult to privilege another's life and freedom as much as your own (fear intrudes), especially when the way those other folks act out their freedom and lives is different from the way you do it. But I try. All of my other values spin off from these core beliefs. I believe in civil rights, gay rights, the rights of the disabled, the rights of Native Americans, the rights of women, of children, of students, of the hungry and the imprisoned. I am less interested in the rights of presidents, congress people, parents, corporate leaders, kings, teachers, administrators, priests, wardens, popes, messiahs, cops, or doctors. These latter people are people, I know, and certainly are entitled to freedom and life, but it seems to me they already have more freedom than the rest of us, and, what's worse, their surplus tends to increase our insufficiency, make it even less.

I love underdogs (surprise!), and you surely have seen why by now. i think capital punishment is worse than murder. It's like ritual sacrifice, a gleeful vengeance-filled bloodletting, just for the hell of it, a public holiday of death. On the ohter hand, if somebody hurt one of my kids, I would want to kill that person. I might even do that if somebody didn't stop me (which I think is the real province of the state, not the opposite, to authorize public, social vengeance). I think war is nuts -- male sexual aggression writ large. I once said the map of the world was drawn with a penis-pen.

I believe that love is the answer.



I believe that families are the most families are the most powerful and life-affirming human arrangement on earth. Or at least they should be. They certainly can be.

I think that women (all kinds, shapes, sizes, of varying sexual orientation) are mysterious, irresistable, and profoundly in touch with just about everything. They are deeper and smarter, in the fullest sense of that term, than men.

People aren't wicked but power makes them so. The lust for and the use of power currupts us, turns us away from ourselves and our humanity and isolates us. Power engenders selfishness and a mean kind of individualism. But power is nothing more than an act or a series, a pattern of acts. It is not a thing in itself -- it is a certain kind of doing. If we had the courage we could stop this evil doing any time we wanted, because it is not us, it is something we do.

Money really is nothing more than power, which is nothing more than fear; love is the opposite of fear (and of money).

I think you can get lost, really lost, in sex. This is both a wonderful and a terrible fact.

There is no teaching, only learning.

I have always been drawn to the natural world. Like the transcendentalists, I sense that signs of things beyond truth and value, beyond thinking and time, reside among the forests, in the sea, woven in the frigid northwesterlies that blow across the tundra. I sometimes hum like a tuning fork, resonating at the same pitch with the universe, when I am in a wild place. Deep down I am wild myself -- wild beyond your imagining. So are you.

I am fascinated by my body, which seems both of myself and not of myself all at once. Sometimes, on a long, long run, I experience a sense of perfect union of the physical and the intellectual. I also sometimes vibrate / hum after one of these giant runs.

Silence is becoming more and more appealing to me.

Art (all kinds) is vastly overrated (but still worth making).

Knowing is far less important than being, kindness more important than accomplishment, generosity more important than gain, humility more important than frame. The Sermon on the Mount was right. Freedom and life are bound to the ability to release, to give, to love.

I try to turn the other cheek. I try to accept the blow and not pass it on. I usually fail at this. But sometimes I succeed.


Christopher Shipley
April 27, 2003.

ADA Compliance
In order to provide the highest quality educational experience for every student, MICA is committed to compliance with the ADA and Section 504. Any student who has (or suspects he or she may have) a physical, cognitive, or psychological disability and who wants to request accommodations must immediately schedule an appointment to meet with the Director of the Learning Resource Center, Dr. Kathryn Smith, by calling the LRC Administrative Assistant, Mary Walsh, at (410) 669-3177. The LRC is MICA’s designated department for determining reasonable accommodations based on legal requirements and will provide the eligible student with an official Accommodation Verification letter to the instructor. Each semester the student must formally request accommodations from the LRC each semester, and format of the Verification letters change each semester to ensure currency.

NOTE: Students with disabilities who want assistance during emergency evacuations must register with the LRC within the first week of each semester.

Health and Safety Compliance
MICA has developed policies and practices to ensure a healthful environment and safe approaches to the use of equipment, materials, and processes. It is the mutual responsibility of faculty and students to review health and safety standards relevant to each class at the beginning of each semester. Students should be aware of general fire, health, and safety regulations posted in each area and course specific polices, practices, and cautions. Students who have concerns related to health and safety should contact the Environmental Health and Safety Coordinator.
The Environmental Health and Safety Coordinator, Quentin Moseley, may be reached at 410 225-0220 or by email at qmoseley@mica.edu.