Response+Paper+3

I would primarily like to respond today to Diane Davis' //Breaking Up [at] Totality//, because I definitely have some questions. The first one being: what in the world is writing for writing's sake? I'm just not sure I get it. Or, it doesn't really make sense to me. Davis suggests that by flipping the hierarchies we are staying inside the boundaries set by the hierarchies, which rationally makes sense, but I'm not sure how Davis' rhetoric of laughter does much with the hierarchies at all. I find her claim that we cannot create change by simply shifting power from one gender to the other, but instead need to change the structure completely, to be extremely compelling. However, Davis' conclusions don't suggest a change in the structure to me. Instead, they seem to be an attempt to escape the structure, transcend the structure, for those who are enlightened enough to do so.

If writing is always already political, which Davis admits that it is, then how can there be writing for its own sake? Sure, our discourse leaks, its full of (w)holes, but how does embracing those leaks change the system? .....

A few quotes I want to ask about:
 * "a writer in this space would put her/himself(s) into the service of desire in language, into the service of finitude: writing would respond to its own call, which is the call of community, Being-in-common" (246).** This raises two questions, first as to what writing's own call would be, and secondly to the notion of community, Being-in-common. Earlier in the text, Davis tells us that a focus on community is limiting and exclusive //because// it represents a false being-in-common, a common mythology that is not really common to everyone. So what is she trying to get at here?


 * "Authority would not be renounced; rather, it would be performed in a way that would expose its illusoriness: it would become laughable. It would be enacted, but it would not/could not be seized" (241-242)**. Why could this authority not be seized? And if it could not be seized, how is she suggesting that it would be enacted? Temporarily? What is a seizing of authority beyond a prolonged or sustained enactment of it?


 * "It would, rather, be about inviting the affirmative decision to "let everything go" (Lyotard, Libidinal Economy 259), to let loose the writing in you and watch it move, feel its brilliance crack your shell, blow your mind" (240)**. This sounds an awful lot like an Elbow-esque expressivism. And the teacher (not) supposed to know sounds quite a bit like the teacher-less writing class. What are the differences here? I know that expressivism often gets attributed to the 'true authentic voice' movement and so is classified as representing a unified subject, but reading Writing Without Teachers, I'm not sure if Elbow really bought into the unified subject either. So what's new about this? What is Davis offering beyond encouragement of the student to "play with the excess"? Further, how is that not simply authoritarianly advocating for her own political ideology? The CTR teacher wants a linear paper that progresses in a certain way, the radical pedagogue wants a piece that critiques the establishment, and someone who follows Davis wants a paper that plays with excess. If she's arguing that the first two are the same because they both impose upon students, why is her desire different? Why is this not also "pedagogical tyranny"? (224).