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1998 Convention of the Modern Language Association
Conference Review

Rewriting the MLA: A Review of the Composition-Literary Studies Connection

by Jessica Yood, SUNY Stony Brook

In late February, I logged onto my email to find 236 messages from the two listservs I am a member of, the WPA (Writing Program Administrators) and WCenter (Writing Center). Most of these messages concerned the upcoming 4C's conference, with discussions ranging from what to wear at the conference to predictions on what would be the "most controversial" panel. Amid this flurry of electronic conversation, I posted the following announcement, about another conference I thought relevant to writing scholars. It read: "Call for Papers for Second Annual Writing Center Panel for the December 1999 MLA Convention. Topic: "Emerging Knowledges in English Studies: Perspectives from Writing Centered Theory/Practices."

One list member responded to the call-with a question. Paula Gillespie of Marquette University wrote, ". . .How many of us [composition/writing-center scholars] actually belong to MLA? When I'm trying to locate people, I look in the MLA directory, but can find almost none of us there. . . I'd love to hear input from the rest of you about how we relate to MLA. Or how we should."

What is the real connection between writing centered work and the literary/cultural studies community? Certainly a question I thought worthy of debate on the composition listservs, and so I posted my position on this issue. Here is an excerpt from my message: "I believe strongly in bringing Writing Center innovations into English Studies. We know that resources--institutional and intellectual--for the humanities are shrinking. We know that literary studies and "Theory" is under fire not only from deans and taxpayers, but from educators too, who as Kurt Spellmeyer puts it, want to see English be about "the particulars of everyday life." What we do in WCs is as particular, cultural, *and* theoretical as any current, or, maybe, future academic discourse or discipline. This is a moment of change in the construction of knowledge and of 'what counts' in higher education and perhaps it's a good idea to spread our word(s) and not become an isolated space/discourse...."

If this were sent postal mail, it would be labeled, "dead letter"--there was no one to pick up this post; the writing community just did not see a viable connection between the MLA and composition work, or, worse, did not even care to consider this connection. If literary studies once ignored our work as basic, compositionists are starting to disregard literary knowledges as banal. We are becoming indifferent to difference in language learning. And such indifference, I believe, can ultimately destroy our work in writing centers, composition classrooms, and literature or cultural studies seminars. Our so-called social theories of language are made immaterial if we don't bear out the philosophy in collaborative practice. Oddly enough it is the MLA, the organization seen as the literary center of English Studies, that has, most recently, proven an interest in boundary crossing among our fields. What follows here is a review of the 1998 MLA held in San Francisco from December 27-30, where I saw evidence of fruitful connections among writing centered and literary studies scholars.

Of the 888 panels at the MLA, I presented a paper at one session, chaired another, and attended seven panels. Four out of eight of the sessions were explicitly "Composition and Rhetoric Panels." They were: "Ordinary Rhetoric and Writing in Academic Life III," "The Composition Requirement," "Postprocess Theory in the First-Year Composition Curriculum," and "Graduate Programs in Rhetoric and Composition: The Job Market, The Future of Our Profession." The other three were of more general literary, theoretical or professional interest, including, "New Directions in Response and Receptions Criticism: From Practice to Theory," "Literacy, Access, and Elitism in Higher Education," and "Poetics Out of Bounds." The common issue among these different panels was this: how can our social theories of language and knowledge make productive change in the conditions of study in English at the university?

In the composition panels I attended, two questions resurfaced as significant for all communities affiliated with the MLA: What are the ways to bring more life into our internal structures of knowledge making in the academy? How can we re-construct our structures of knowledge in the academy to make more viable practices in language knowledge? Here were some suggestions scholars came up with:

  • Continue to bring composition programs, such as electronic writing classrooms, mentoring and shadowing programs, WAC and writing center initiatives into the university's graduate undergraduate disciplines and into community college curricula (Jessica Yood, Patricia R. Webb, Brenda Jo Bruggeman);
  • Broaden out the role of the English department faculty, thereby creating a wider faculty-based composition-literary studies department (Jonathan Levin);
  • Change the focus on theory as the dominating rhetoric of professionalism in favor of studying the literacy of "subcommunities" (David Bleich, John Schilb);
  • Reorganize the structures of disciplinary labor practices entirely (Joseph Harris, Deborah Holdstein, Richard Miller, Theresa Enos).
As for the three literary panels, they had little in common with each other but much in common with the "straight" Composition panels. In the "Response and Receptions" Panel, one speaker proposed a reconception of rhetoric as the branch between "theory" and "culture," two hot buzzwords in literary studies. In "Poetics Out of Bounds," the audience discussed "non traditional ways of reading progress in culture," using metaphors from evolutionary biology to understand the recursive nature of knowing. And in "Literacy, Access, and Elitism in Higher Education," several of us stayed late to debate such issues as "the hiring practices of community college versus university professors" and the "top down" nature of many so-called WAC or learning community programs. What I realized in this session was that there is indeed much overlap among literary and writing scholars at the MLA. What we had in common was the philosophy of praxis--we felt that something needed to be done about connecting the theory of change in our field with the reality of collaboration among persons who can see that change become progress in English education.

Which brings me to the writing center panel I chaired. This panel, awkwardly but insistently titled, "How the University Writing Center Can Revitalize Literacy Work in English Studies" was placed in the program at the 9:00-10:15pm time slot, when "revitalization" is not paramount in most people's minds. But at the start of the panel there were almost forty persons--of all ages and levels in the audience--who were ready for action and conversation. As I was about to begin the session with the typical "Chair's introduction," I was interrupted, even before reaching the podium, by a literature professor who remarked how "writing center tutoring can be enriching--a great way to learn theory." A graduate student then recognized one of the speakers and asked if her "work on collaborative learning" included graduate students. And so the panel began, and by way of getting at these questions, the panelists read from their papers--the first by Carol Peterson Haviland and Alice Gillam on "Problematizing Collaboration and Intellectual Property through a Writing Center Lens," the second by Herbert Shapiro who introduced "Adult Learners as Change Agents: Peer Tutors in the Writing Center" and the third by Irene Clark, who discussed "Implications of Genre Theory For the Writing Center."

The session ended like it began--with issues the audience brought to the topic and suggestions for answers and actions that emerged from this talk. One audience member suggested creating a network among us to strategize for more "practical theory" sessions at future MLA meetings. Another participant asked about "grants for writing in literature departments." I suggested we might put a book together, to be used as a guide for English Departments looking for common questions, concerns, and solutions to issues in language studies.

When a panel introduction and a question/answer period becomes a "strategizing period" for further panels, for possible workshops, for new edited collections, for expanding writing programs, for literacy and writing center improvement at local institutions, something happens to the usual and useless hierarchies of literature-composition-writing center: they are traded in for experimental connections and innovations. The panelists and the audience understood questions to be knowledge initiatives rather than antagonistic doubts. We debated theories to make practice, and located problematics, polemics, and politics in the everyday acts of reading, writing, speaking, and critiquing. In short, the panel ran collaboratively, spontaneously, and synchronically: it ran like a writing center. What happened in this small space was not revolutionary, but it was a small step toward making meaningful change among language workers in our fields.

And so ends my re-vision of the MLA--and I think it could be but one draft among many--if we continue the conversation at our conferences, in our classrooms, and on and off line.


vol. 4 Iss. 1 Fall 1999