In Trimbur’s “Taking the Social Turn,” Trimbur articulates anxiety about where certain theorists might “end up” if followed to their logical conclusions. He says, for example, that “Spellmeyer winds up, ironically enough, in the same place the process movement did, back in the belletristic tradition of the thoughtful non-specialist writing for an educated public” (Trimbur 114). George Pullman articulates another result of the composition models pre-process as “genres rather than as strategies to be employed differently within different contexts” (Pullman 17). We have in recent weeks discussed how genre fits within composition studies (and pedagogies), but given that pre-process theory was modeled as genre (if we believe Pullman) and that the process theory model puts us back into the “belletristic tradition” of the same pre-process model (belles lettres being a key component of composition in the late 19th century), alongside what we’ve said about the merits of genre and its responses to/constructions of certain situations and constraints, I wonder two things:
1.) Are we returning to a pedagogy in which genre is the motivating force for strategy (given that we have loosely defined genre as responses to common contexts or situations in class)? And if we are, what implications might this have for theory and/or pedagogy?
2.) Would Trimbur be critical of post-process theory because it “ends up” where both process and pre-process models did? (I say “would” simply because his reviews were published before Post-Process Theory.)
Unrelatedly, I’d like to ask about the form of Clifford & Ervin’s “The Ethics of Process.” It’s written in a somewhat expressivist mode (that is, personal and generically memoire-ish) and seems to align with the description of the essays in Schlib’s article immediately following their article. Why might Clifford & Ervin have chosen this particular form for their article? What effects does this particular product have on their discussions of process? Where does the argument “end up”—if it “ends up” anywhere at all?
(I ask these things because I found it particularly poignant given its location in the anthology, its subject matter, and in relation to the questions posed above, and I wonder if anyone else had thoughts on the product, especially as it discusses the process theory model.)
Finally, given the trajectory of the entire Post-Process anthology: What is the purpose and/or benefit of theory for theory's sake? Mary Elizabeth once asked why composition studies is always couched in pedagogy, and I think this--more than any other--is the time and place in which to be asking and attempting to answer that question.
1.) Are we returning to a pedagogy in which genre is the motivating force for strategy (given that we have loosely defined genre as responses to common contexts or situations in class)? And if we are, what implications might this have for theory and/or pedagogy?
2.) Would Trimbur be critical of post-process theory because it “ends up” where both process and pre-process models did? (I say “would” simply because his reviews were published before Post-Process Theory.)
Unrelatedly, I’d like to ask about the form of Clifford & Ervin’s “The Ethics of Process.” It’s written in a somewhat expressivist mode (that is, personal and generically memoire-ish) and seems to align with the description of the essays in Schlib’s article immediately following their article. Why might Clifford & Ervin have chosen this particular form for their article? What effects does this particular product have on their discussions of process? Where does the argument “end up”—if it “ends up” anywhere at all?
(I ask these things because I found it particularly poignant given its location in the anthology, its subject matter, and in relation to the questions posed above, and I wonder if anyone else had thoughts on the product, especially as it discusses the process theory model.)
Finally, given the trajectory of the entire Post-Process anthology: What is the purpose and/or benefit of theory for theory's sake? Mary Elizabeth once asked why composition studies is always couched in pedagogy, and I think this--more than any other--is the time and place in which to be asking and attempting to answer that question.
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