Towards the end of the book, Banks makes the claim that “composing in everyday and academic contexts is far more multimedia and multimodal than it has been at other times in our history” (154). Originally I read this (and I think quoted it) without questioning it. However, I think it was Logan who, in our first reading group discussion, pointed out the inadequacy of this statement. Logan made the valid point that composing has always been multimodal. Sure, our available modes have changed, but composing itself is inherently multimodal. A printed text, for instance, incorporates the modes of alphabetic writing and layout; a spoken text, as another example, calls upon the modes of speech and gesture. (What would mono-modal composing even look like?)
This is something that I’ve continued to think about since our first reading group discussion, and the groups’ blog post this week led me to consider one potential way for reframing Banks’ claim. Perhaps a more accurate statement would be that “composing in everyday and academic contexts is far more PUBLIC/SOCIAL than it has been at other times in our history.” In other words, today’s composition classroom is inevitably linked to non-academic spaces beyond classroom walls. (Just FYI: I think we could also make the claim that the academic/social binary has always been a false one…but that might be too much for this single post.) For instance, as Molly live tweeted the reading group discussion, she moved the in-class discussion beyond the walls of the Common Room. Even though I wasn’t physically present in last week’s reading group discussion, I could have followed the discussion via Twitter. Not only that, but I could have also participated in the discussion, as could anyone with a Twitter handle. Furthermore, as a Digital Griot, Molly exerted control over the specific public she invited into the discussion. That is, while anyone with a Twitter handle could potentially participate in the discussion, the hashtags Molly includes within her tweets potentially shapes the public that forms. The hashtags include #FSUGriot #digital #conversationspaces #4C14 #mixtape #remix. The #FSUGriot is probably the most limited in terms of the public audience it initially invites (Only Bret and Molly have used this hashtag regularly on Twitter; however, Adam Banks picked up on this hashtag, tweeted it himself, and then the public grew…). A search for #remix on Twitter reveals tweets about music, SoundCloud, and Vine, so a larger public is invited into the reading group discussion when Molly includes this hashtag.
Additionally, Banks tells us that digital griots are those who use “digital writing and technologies to build and sustain community through flow, layering, and rupture” (162). We can see this act of “sustaining” in the tweets, for not only did the live tweeting move the discussion outside the Common Room walls, but it also serves to sustain the conversation. That is, I can now go back and reread those tweets whenever I want; I can also choose to retweet them whenever I want, now or tomorrow or in a few weeks want (as a matter of fact, I just retweeted Adam Banks’ tweet and it is March 31), in a sense picking the discussion back up and continuing to engage in it long after the reading group itself has ended.
"The beauty of the remix as trope is that in its focusing on renewed vision, on re-vision, those doing the remixing never discard the original text. The antecedent remains an important part of the next text, the next movement; ancestors and elders remain clear, and even central, to the future text" (156).
For me, this is perhaps the most unique claim that Banks makes throughout his book; one that finds a voice throughout the various chapters. His focus on the original text in remix is powerful in my estimation--this is how I understood the role of the digital griot. The digital griot is tasked with remixing for future generations; however, as Banks notes, "The antecedent remains an important part of the next text" (156). Hence, remix operates to connect generations, histories, legacies, etc.
Since the practice can be a contentious one for some people, I feel as if Banks' emphasis on the antecedent text is crucial. He appears to view remix not as borrowing, "stealing," or lacking originality; instead, remix operates as a constant revisionary process of various texts, all of which form the cultural history of the group. This connection of the past and the present, of old school vs. new school, is a powerful way of viewing remix--it affords space for everyone, even those less digitally inclined and/or from older generations--to be involved in telling the story, in sharing the history.
For this week's blog post I would like to take up our digital griots' three-part question: "To what degree is this book designed for African American rhetors, to understand African American digital rhetoric, or for use in every composition course?"
To me, the short answer is all of the above. However, of course, I must also address why I think each audience/purpose identified by our DGs (and Dr. Fleckenstein) is part of Banks' exigencies for constructing his text as he did.
For the first potential audience, African American rhetors, Banks' project attempts to indicate a productive way forward for African American rhetoric studies, plainly stating that “Therefore, a second (implied) argument throughout this book has been that we must imagine an African American rhetoric 2.0, as a digital humanities project" (155). This futuristic projection is both already happening, as Banks' numerous shout-outs attest, and in some aspects already has happened, which is one of the reasons why Banks uses the metaphor of remix so frequently: “The beauty of the remix as trope is that in its focus on renewed vision, on re-vision, those doing the remixing never discard the original text” (Banks 156).
For the second purpose mentioned, "to understand African American digital rhetoric," I think Banks' argument has a dual focus: 1) to guide those who are immersed in and deeply committed to African American rhetoric in seeing how technologies intertwine with these discursive practices, and 2) to awaken those who are generally unfamiliar with African American rhetorical traditions to an awareness of how African American tropes and practices have already informed composition studies' tropes and practices, to call for a sustained recognition of those connections, and to encourage the development of composition pedagogies that draw more deeply from African American tropes and practices in ways that are honoring to the cultural traditions in which they emerge and evolve.
Finally, for the third possible purpose, "for use in every composition class," Banks unequivocally states that “Pedagogically, it means a firm commitment to build from the truths and tropes of black experience in writing curricula, courses, assignments, evaluation, feedback, and teacher stance and delivery – not just for black students but as a part of the education all students receive” (165). Banks' forthrightness about the need to incorporate African American rhetoric into the classroom for all students makes it also clear that he is not interested in gestures like incorporating a few token African American authors into the required reading, or the avoidance of prescriptive grammar instruction since students have a right to their own language; his agenda is not just to inform, but to transform the classroom. This transformational approach calls into question and presses to reveal the lingering racist views and assumptions that may inform the resistance to this agenda that could be hidden amongst more legitimate hesitations/criticisms. I think that as teachers of composition it causes us to (or should cause us to) reflect on the narratives that our assignments, evaluative practices, daily classroom interactions, and assigned readings tell our students and our nation about the kinds of discursive practices that we value. To close with Banks' words, his project “means mix, remix, mixtape. Access and transformation. Healing, celebration, self-examination, and critique. Community. Flow, layering, rupture. Innovation, vision, quality, tradition. Afrodigitized. Word” (165).
I was interested in the use of repetition in the mixtape of our last discussion. It reminded me of Gertrude Stein's "A rose is a rose is a rose." Each time the word/phrase is repeated, it takes on a different meaning the the one before. For example, "How you define the problem" was juxtaposed with different statements and questions throughout the mixtape. Each time the listener can question how the statement is defined and whether there is a problem in that statement. This juxtaposing then can encourage analysis that may not have occurred if the statement happened been match with "How you define the problem."
Moreover, repetition in the mixtape was a way of emphasizing importance. The phrases that were repeated the most often are the phrases I remember and the phrases to which I give the most value. This makes me think about the number of times I've told students not to repeat themselves in their papers. I am starting to question whether I should stop doing that. Instead, I am now asking myself: What might it look like if we engage in discussions of repetition, its uses, its limitations as well as how it may be perceived by different audiences?
I’d like to think through the first question posed by the DGs this week (“How does the text position us?”) and think with Christine through her post. I think Christine makes an interesting point in her revision Banks’s claim. I did, indeed, take issue in the beginning of the semester with Banks’s assertion that communication today is more multimodal than it once was, because that’s just not true. All communication is always already multimodal, like Christine reminds us. However, I would revise Christine’s revision of Banks from composing is now more public/social than it once was to composition is now MORE VISIBLY social, public, multimodal, etc. The technologies, media, modes, and remix practices that Banks maps out in his book render visible facets of the composing process that have always been true: it has always been social; it has always been a practice of remix; it has always been multimodal. This raises the question for me: what does Banks add to that knowledge? For me (and this is how I see the text positioning me), he adds African American literacies, practices, and epistemologies to our understandings of multimodality, providing us with a different way to theorize remix and what multimodality means overall. A lot of what I read about multimodality and multiliteracies focuses on the limitations and affordances of modes and materials. That scholarship suggests that those limitations and affordances are socially and culturally shaped, but none of them go into detail into what that actually means. Banks’s book proves that multimodality does not have to be just theory or just practice, but that it can also be praxis: African American ways of knowing shape how limitations and affordances are worked with and against, the way that materials are engaged through acts of remix, and the ways that communities of created and reinforced through both. That praxis, that culturally-specific yet still robustly theoretical way of conceiving multimodality is how the text positions me and what Banks asks of me as a teacher-scholar.
First of all, guys, nice work. I was able to follow the tweets from my living room as I was watching over a sick Nora Claire, and I really dug the remix of the conversation--cool stuff. I, too, want to consider the questions that you raised about audience.
Though I confess I'm getting kind of tired of the "remix" idea (I’ll come back to this), I like the metaphor of the DJ well enough, and I think the connections Banks makes (digging through records for research; shout outs for citations; etc) are clever extensions of it. For that matter, clearly hip hop culture is not only African-American, but culturally diverse. Even a 37-year-old white guy like me, if he were to make the right moves, might be welcomed into it. The culture of hip hop is not so obscure as to be incomprehensible, and as Janelle pointed out, I could always do the research to understand the metaphors, the shout-outs, the culture. But was it designed for me? I don't know.
I guess you could make the case that Banks wants to press non-AA rhetors to dig into AA rhetoric, especially as it relates to multimodality. Though I’m rather tired, as I said, of remix as a concept, I’ve not seen better treatment of it than in his chapter, where he does an excellent job of incorporating the oft-neglected canon of memory into the discussion, and I could see that being productively applied in any rhetorical situation. This is because the “back in the day” trope is not limited to AA culture, but extends across countless cultures.
His insistence, in the “Mixtape” chapter, that we use technology to enact social justice is compatible with Carmen Kynard’s claim that all teaching is a kind of activism, so I could see that being useful in many situations, including the composition classroom.
To be sure, this is not a cookbook for a composition course: add black people and multimodality, stir gently, and serve. It requires a little digging to get at what can be operationalized from a praxis standpoint (thanks, Logan). And I certainly felt lost at points—I was clearly not the primary audience here. But was I part of the audience? Yes, I think so. At least, I can stand in the doorway.
In addition to participating in this reading group, I’ve been taking Dr. L’s African American Literacies class this semester. It’s impossible to ignore the conversations the courses have created with each other. Always, I feel like I’m caught in the middle, trying to leave one conversation out for the benefit of my colleagues who are not in whichever class I’m trying to participate in. Today, friends, I abandon that charge. In AAL, the conversation often turns to the role theories and histories of African American Literacies play in the academy and how they are positioned (the texts and the people behind them) continually at the margins. All too often, when course schedules are made, African American-authored texts are included…. In the second to final week before classes are over, often lumped in with the other Others in a diversity week extravaganza. I’ll admit that, sometimes, this is the best we can do. Sometimes it is better to discuss race (or gender, or sexuality, or class) on one day in week 13 than not at all. Sometimes we don’t have the time and energy that these topics not only require but deserve. But most of the time, this really just isn’t enough. As we’re wrapping up with Banks and we’re confronted by the question of audience and purpose of the text, I can’t help but feel like we are falling into the diversity day trap. To say that this book is geared toward rhetors and researchers of color removes many of us, myself included, from its target audience and absolves us of the discussion. I think that’s missing the point it a big way. Logan did some beautiful work in describing Banks’ contributions to with DG. Per Logan, we come to see literacy praxis with a cultural foundation and historical root and tradition. If we take Logan’s point to be true (and I totally do), then what’s at stake here is not just a how-to for African American rhetors, but a deepened understanding of cultural and multimodal rhetorics, an understanding that I would argue brings us as scholars closer to a more accurate and nuanced understanding of storytelling, multimodal composition, digital rhetoric, AND African American literacy practices and can bring our students closer to understanding how culturally situated communication patterns/rhetorics/texts are and how we might go about interrogating, understanding, and appreciating the cultures that produce texts and vise versa. All this to say, for me, the question is not whether or not this is a how-to, a comp text, or a primer in African American digital rhetoric, the question is: how do we incorporate this work and others like it to make a more inclusive cannon with a more comprehensive understanding of a variety of rhetorics and how do we incorporate that in our own research and teaching?
The audience question posed by the DG group presents three options to address: a text designed for African American rhetors, a text whose purpose is to help readers understand African American rhetorics; and a text for use in every composition class.
Like Heather, I disagree that the text is designed for African American rhetors since, as she so eloquently put it, “to say that this book is geared toward rhetors and researchers of color removes many of us…from its target audience and absolves us of the discussion.” I would argue that the book’s audience is much wider so as to engage compositionists in a discussion about the role that remix and African American rhetorics can – and perhaps should – play in the composition classroom. Many of us have commented throughout the semester that much of the material is new to us or that many of the references are unfamiliar. Rather than viewing these difficulties as evidence of a specific audience, it might be more productive to view them as invitations or as calls to explore remix and African American rhetorics, allowing the books to serve as a way for some of us to - as David put it – listen at the doorway a bit before we jump into the conversation.
Thus, I would argue that the book at least partially serves to help readers understand African American rhetorics – or at the very least requests that we do so. In that respect, the text perhaps inhabits a middle ground. On the one hand, its overall purpose seems to be to provide an additional lens through which to conceptualize multimodal writing. On the other hand, it also provides an introduction to African American rhetorics as it explains that additional lens. Admittedly, some of the explanation and introduction requires work on the part of the reader. The section on Black Theology, as we discussed in class, is not at clear as it might be. Again, though, this lack of clarity can viewed as an invitation as much as an oversight. When dealing with a subject matter in which you are not entirely familiar, it can sometimes be difficult to tell the difference.
Finally, in terms the text’s relationship to the composition classroom, I would agree with the group in their assessment that the text doesn’t quite give strategies for implementation; however, Banks does provide a way to operationalize his remix/DJ metaphor. He writes that “every course we teach is a mixtape, a compilation of others’ texts and ideas compiled, arranged, and combined with our own in various critical gestures we hope will inform and challenge our students” (138). In casting composition instructors as DJs – and perhaps more importantly in indicating that we already are DJs to some extent – Banks provides an indication of how we might put his metaphor into action as both instructors and authors.
To respond to the question, "To what degree is this book designed for African American rhetors, to understand African American digital rhetoric, or for use in every composition course?" I would begin by saying, no I don't think this book is designed only for African American rhetors, but I do think it serves different functions for African American rhetors as opposed to other audiences. As we discussed on the first day of class, Banks makes many references to African American hip hop rappers, DJs etc., and people who are not familiar with these references (people outside of this community of practice) may have a difficult time fully grasping the ideas being conveyed. So in this sense, African American rhetors (who are familiar with these hip hop references), may gain a fuller understanding of the book or perhaps the meaning of the book would be more significant since African American world views have not always been valued in the field of rhetoric and composition.
This is not to say, however, that Digital Griots is designed to legitimize African American informed ways of doing to white audiences. Banks brings his text to readers from a standpoint in which AA literacies have already been legitimized. His book doesn't argue that African American informed practices need to be valued because they have a history of being marginalized. Instead, Banks shows audiences how these practices for digital production inspired by African traditions are valuable because they are innovative and creative methods for shaping composition studies.
We can see that Banks's theory led to many original and creative compositions in our reading group. Each week, the digital griots composed in different ways that combined oral, print, and digital productions. This week's griot group did a really cool job of creating a mix tape of our session. The audio version was a pretty literal mix tape as it "imposed order on the chaos through particular cuts and blends and arrangements" (116). The live tweet seemed like it incorporated aspects of the mix tape as well since the group decided which narratives or tracks were going to be linked and circulated out of the personal class space into a wider public conversation on Twitter.
I'll try to stay a little more on top of the question this week: To what degree is this book designed for African American rhetors, to understand African American digital rhetoric, or for use in every composition course?
I guess my answer needs to be "I'm not entirely sure." Having also come off the heels of Palmeri's text also building on the remix metaphor and trying to tie it into the history of multimodality in our field, it's almost impossible not to make comparisons. Whereas I think that Palmeri's text (to the extent that I have my issues with it, namely the lack of cohesion to his suggestions beyond "wouldn't it be cool if we did _____ in class?") felt more clearly applicable to the classroom and field at large, I don't get that same sense from my reading of Banks so far. It doesn't feel very pedagogically focused, which is fine, but does raise the question of how this can enter our classrooms as more than inspiration in many cases, and suggests a larger audience outside of simply "people wanting to integrate multimedia into courses to reach an African American audience."
By default, then, I think the answer needs to lie more in the field of the former. Not being an African American rhetor myself, I can't quite speak to the effectiveness of the text for this purpose, but Banks seems to draw on a lot of helpful history and examples that seem to suggest his audience is somewhat specific, and that some of us may fall outside of it. I nonetheless found it both interesting and compelling as something of an outsider, but in many cases, I didn't feel a clear connection or personal opportunity to enrich my own pedagogy... again, not that it needs to, but in the context of this question, I can only say that I didn't view it as a primarily pedagogically-focused text in contrast to something like Palmeri's that both discuss the same metaphor.
Towards the end of the book, Banks makes the claim that “composing in everyday and academic contexts is far more multimedia and multimodal than it has been at other times in our history” (154). Originally I read this (and I think quoted it) without questioning it. However, I think it was Logan who, in our first reading group discussion, pointed out the inadequacy of this statement. Logan made the valid point that composing has always been multimodal. Sure, our available modes have changed, but composing itself is inherently multimodal. A printed text, for instance, incorporates the modes of alphabetic writing and layout; a spoken text, as another example, calls upon the modes of speech and gesture. (What would mono-modal composing even look like?)
ReplyDeleteThis is something that I’ve continued to think about since our first reading group discussion, and the groups’ blog post this week led me to consider one potential way for reframing Banks’ claim. Perhaps a more accurate statement would be that “composing in everyday and academic contexts is far more PUBLIC/SOCIAL than it has been at other times in our history.” In other words, today’s composition classroom is inevitably linked to non-academic spaces beyond classroom walls. (Just FYI: I think we could also make the claim that the academic/social binary has always been a false one…but that might be too much for this single post.) For instance, as Molly live tweeted the reading group discussion, she moved the in-class discussion beyond the walls of the Common Room. Even though I wasn’t physically present in last week’s reading group discussion, I could have followed the discussion via Twitter. Not only that, but I could have also participated in the discussion, as could anyone with a Twitter handle. Furthermore, as a Digital Griot, Molly exerted control over the specific public she invited into the discussion. That is, while anyone with a Twitter handle could potentially participate in the discussion, the hashtags Molly includes within her tweets potentially shapes the public that forms. The hashtags include #FSUGriot #digital #conversationspaces #4C14 #mixtape #remix. The #FSUGriot is probably the most limited in terms of the public audience it initially invites (Only Bret and Molly have used this hashtag regularly on Twitter; however, Adam Banks picked up on this hashtag, tweeted it himself, and then the public grew…). A search for #remix on Twitter reveals tweets about music, SoundCloud, and Vine, so a larger public is invited into the reading group discussion when Molly includes this hashtag.
Additionally, Banks tells us that digital griots are those who use “digital writing and technologies to build and sustain community through flow, layering, and rupture” (162). We can see this act of “sustaining” in the tweets, for not only did the live tweeting move the discussion outside the Common Room walls, but it also serves to sustain the conversation. That is, I can now go back and reread those tweets whenever I want; I can also choose to retweet them whenever I want, now or tomorrow or in a few weeks want (as a matter of fact, I just retweeted Adam Banks’ tweet and it is March 31), in a sense picking the discussion back up and continuing to engage in it long after the reading group itself has ended.
"The beauty of the remix as trope is that in its focusing on renewed vision, on re-vision, those doing the remixing never discard the original text. The antecedent remains an important part of the next text, the next movement; ancestors and elders remain clear, and even central, to the future text" (156).
ReplyDeleteFor me, this is perhaps the most unique claim that Banks makes throughout his book; one that finds a voice throughout the various chapters. His focus on the original text in remix is powerful in my estimation--this is how I understood the role of the digital griot. The digital griot is tasked with remixing for future generations; however, as Banks notes, "The antecedent remains an important part of the next text" (156). Hence, remix operates to connect generations, histories, legacies, etc.
Since the practice can be a contentious one for some people, I feel as if Banks' emphasis on the antecedent text is crucial. He appears to view remix not as borrowing, "stealing," or lacking originality; instead, remix operates as a constant revisionary process of various texts, all of which form the cultural history of the group. This connection of the past and the present, of old school vs. new school, is a powerful way of viewing remix--it affords space for everyone, even those less digitally inclined and/or from older generations--to be involved in telling the story, in sharing the history.
For this week's blog post I would like to take up our digital griots' three-part question: "To what degree is this book designed for African American rhetors, to understand African American digital rhetoric, or for use in every composition course?"
ReplyDeleteTo me, the short answer is all of the above. However, of course, I must also address why I think each audience/purpose identified by our DGs (and Dr. Fleckenstein) is part of Banks' exigencies for constructing his text as he did.
For the first potential audience, African American rhetors, Banks' project attempts to indicate a productive way forward for African American rhetoric studies, plainly stating that “Therefore, a second (implied) argument throughout this book has been that we must imagine an African American rhetoric 2.0, as a digital humanities project" (155). This futuristic projection is both already happening, as Banks' numerous shout-outs attest, and in some aspects already has happened, which is one of the reasons why Banks uses the metaphor of remix so frequently: “The beauty of the remix as trope is that in its focus on renewed vision, on re-vision, those doing the remixing never discard the original text” (Banks 156).
For the second purpose mentioned, "to understand African American digital rhetoric," I think Banks' argument has a dual focus: 1) to guide those who are immersed in and deeply committed to African American rhetoric in seeing how technologies intertwine with these discursive practices, and 2) to awaken those who are generally unfamiliar with African American rhetorical traditions to an awareness of how African American tropes and practices have already informed composition studies' tropes and practices, to call for a sustained recognition of those connections, and to encourage the development of composition pedagogies that draw more deeply from African American tropes and practices in ways that are honoring to the cultural traditions in which they emerge and evolve.
Finally, for the third possible purpose, "for use in every composition class," Banks unequivocally states that “Pedagogically, it means a firm commitment to build from the truths and tropes of black experience in writing curricula, courses, assignments, evaluation, feedback, and teacher stance and delivery – not just for black students but as a part of the education all students receive” (165). Banks' forthrightness about the need to incorporate African American rhetoric into the classroom for all students makes it also clear that he is not interested in gestures like incorporating a few token African American authors into the required reading, or the avoidance of prescriptive grammar instruction since students have a right to their own language; his agenda is not just to inform, but to transform the classroom. This transformational approach calls into question and presses to reveal the lingering racist views and assumptions that may inform the resistance to this agenda that could be hidden amongst more legitimate hesitations/criticisms. I think that as teachers of composition it causes us to (or should cause us to) reflect on the narratives that our assignments, evaluative practices, daily classroom interactions, and assigned readings tell our students and our nation about the kinds of discursive practices that we value. To close with Banks' words, his project “means mix, remix, mixtape. Access and transformation. Healing, celebration, self-examination, and critique. Community. Flow, layering, rupture. Innovation, vision, quality, tradition. Afrodigitized. Word” (165).
I was interested in the use of repetition in the mixtape of our last discussion. It reminded me of Gertrude Stein's "A rose is a rose is a rose." Each time the word/phrase is repeated, it takes on a different meaning the the one before. For example, "How you define the problem" was juxtaposed with different statements and questions throughout the mixtape. Each time the listener can question how the statement is defined and whether there is a problem in that statement. This juxtaposing then can encourage analysis that may not have occurred if the statement happened been match with "How you define the problem."
ReplyDeleteMoreover, repetition in the mixtape was a way of emphasizing importance. The phrases that were repeated the most often are the phrases I remember and the phrases to which I give the most value. This makes me think about the number of times I've told students not to repeat themselves in their papers. I am starting to question whether I should stop doing that. Instead, I am now asking myself: What might it look like if we engage in discussions of repetition, its uses, its limitations as well as how it may be perceived by different audiences?
I’d like to think through the first question posed by the DGs this week (“How does the text position us?”) and think with Christine through her post. I think Christine makes an interesting point in her revision Banks’s claim. I did, indeed, take issue in the beginning of the semester with Banks’s assertion that communication today is more multimodal than it once was, because that’s just not true. All communication is always already multimodal, like Christine reminds us. However, I would revise Christine’s revision of Banks from composing is now more public/social than it once was to composition is now MORE VISIBLY social, public, multimodal, etc. The technologies, media, modes, and remix practices that Banks maps out in his book render visible facets of the composing process that have always been true: it has always been social; it has always been a practice of remix; it has always been multimodal. This raises the question for me: what does Banks add to that knowledge? For me (and this is how I see the text positioning me), he adds African American literacies, practices, and epistemologies to our understandings of multimodality, providing us with a different way to theorize remix and what multimodality means overall. A lot of what I read about multimodality and multiliteracies focuses on the limitations and affordances of modes and materials. That scholarship suggests that those limitations and affordances are socially and culturally shaped, but none of them go into detail into what that actually means. Banks’s book proves that multimodality does not have to be just theory or just practice, but that it can also be praxis: African American ways of knowing shape how limitations and affordances are worked with and against, the way that materials are engaged through acts of remix, and the ways that communities of created and reinforced through both. That praxis, that culturally-specific yet still robustly theoretical way of conceiving multimodality is how the text positions me and what Banks asks of me as a teacher-scholar.
ReplyDeleteOh, Logan. Always challenging me. Always making me think more in-depth. :)
DeleteFirst of all, guys, nice work. I was able to follow the tweets from my living room as I was watching over a sick Nora Claire, and I really dug the remix of the conversation--cool stuff. I, too, want to consider the questions that you raised about audience.
ReplyDeleteThough I confess I'm getting kind of tired of the "remix" idea (I’ll come back to this), I like the metaphor of the DJ well enough, and I think the connections Banks makes (digging through records for research; shout outs for citations; etc) are clever extensions of it. For that matter, clearly hip hop culture is not only African-American, but culturally diverse. Even a 37-year-old white guy like me, if he were to make the right moves, might be welcomed into it. The culture of hip hop is not so obscure as to be incomprehensible, and as Janelle pointed out, I could always do the research to understand the metaphors, the shout-outs, the culture. But was it designed for me? I don't know.
I guess you could make the case that Banks wants to press non-AA rhetors to dig into AA rhetoric, especially as it relates to multimodality. Though I’m rather tired, as I said, of remix as a concept, I’ve not seen better treatment of it than in his chapter, where he does an excellent job of incorporating the oft-neglected canon of memory into the discussion, and I could see that being productively applied in any rhetorical situation. This is because the “back in the day” trope is not limited to AA culture, but extends across countless cultures.
His insistence, in the “Mixtape” chapter, that we use technology to enact social justice is compatible with Carmen Kynard’s claim that all teaching is a kind of activism, so I could see that being useful in many situations, including the composition classroom.
To be sure, this is not a cookbook for a composition course: add black people and multimodality, stir gently, and serve. It requires a little digging to get at what can be operationalized from a praxis standpoint (thanks, Logan). And I certainly felt lost at points—I was clearly not the primary audience here. But was I part of the audience? Yes, I think so. At least, I can stand in the doorway.
In addition to participating in this reading group, I’ve been taking Dr. L’s African American Literacies class this semester. It’s impossible to ignore the conversations the courses have created with each other. Always, I feel like I’m caught in the middle, trying to leave one conversation out for the benefit of my colleagues who are not in whichever class I’m trying to participate in. Today, friends, I abandon that charge.
ReplyDeleteIn AAL, the conversation often turns to the role theories and histories of African American Literacies play in the academy and how they are positioned (the texts and the people behind them) continually at the margins. All too often, when course schedules are made, African American-authored texts are included…. In the second to final week before classes are over, often lumped in with the other Others in a diversity week extravaganza. I’ll admit that, sometimes, this is the best we can do. Sometimes it is better to discuss race (or gender, or sexuality, or class) on one day in week 13 than not at all. Sometimes we don’t have the time and energy that these topics not only require but deserve. But most of the time, this really just isn’t enough.
As we’re wrapping up with Banks and we’re confronted by the question of audience and purpose of the text, I can’t help but feel like we are falling into the diversity day trap. To say that this book is geared toward rhetors and researchers of color removes many of us, myself included, from its target audience and absolves us of the discussion. I think that’s missing the point it a big way. Logan did some beautiful work in describing Banks’ contributions to with DG. Per Logan, we come to see literacy praxis with a cultural foundation and historical root and tradition. If we take Logan’s point to be true (and I totally do), then what’s at stake here is not just a how-to for African American rhetors, but a deepened understanding of cultural and multimodal rhetorics, an understanding that I would argue brings us as scholars closer to a more accurate and nuanced understanding of storytelling, multimodal composition, digital rhetoric, AND African American literacy practices and can bring our students closer to understanding how culturally situated communication patterns/rhetorics/texts are and how we might go about interrogating, understanding, and appreciating the cultures that produce texts and vise versa.
All this to say, for me, the question is not whether or not this is a how-to, a comp text, or a primer in African American digital rhetoric, the question is: how do we incorporate this work and others like it to make a more inclusive cannon with a more comprehensive understanding of a variety of rhetorics and how do we incorporate that in our own research and teaching?
The audience question posed by the DG group presents three options to address: a text designed for African American rhetors, a text whose purpose is to help readers understand African American rhetorics; and a text for use in every composition class.
ReplyDeleteLike Heather, I disagree that the text is designed for African American rhetors since, as she so eloquently put it, “to say that this book is geared toward rhetors and researchers of color removes many of us…from its target audience and absolves us of the discussion.” I would argue that the book’s audience is much wider so as to engage compositionists in a discussion about the role that remix and African American rhetorics can – and perhaps should – play in the composition classroom. Many of us have commented throughout the semester that much of the material is new to us or that many of the references are unfamiliar. Rather than viewing these difficulties as evidence of a specific audience, it might be more productive to view them as invitations or as calls to explore remix and African American rhetorics, allowing the books to serve as a way for some of us to - as David put it – listen at the doorway a bit before we jump into the conversation.
Thus, I would argue that the book at least partially serves to help readers understand African American rhetorics – or at the very least requests that we do so. In that respect, the text perhaps inhabits a middle ground. On the one hand, its overall purpose seems to be to provide an additional lens through which to conceptualize multimodal writing. On the other hand, it also provides an introduction to African American rhetorics as it explains that additional lens. Admittedly, some of the explanation and introduction requires work on the part of the reader. The section on Black Theology, as we discussed in class, is not at clear as it might be. Again, though, this lack of clarity can viewed as an invitation as much as an oversight. When dealing with a subject matter in which you are not entirely familiar, it can sometimes be difficult to tell the difference.
Finally, in terms the text’s relationship to the composition classroom, I would agree with the group in their assessment that the text doesn’t quite give strategies for implementation; however, Banks does provide a way to operationalize his remix/DJ metaphor. He writes that “every course we teach is a mixtape, a compilation of others’ texts and ideas compiled, arranged, and combined with our own in various critical gestures we hope will inform and challenge our students” (138). In casting composition instructors as DJs – and perhaps more importantly in indicating that we already are DJs to some extent – Banks provides an indication of how we might put his metaphor into action as both instructors and authors.
To respond to the question, "To what degree is this book designed for African American rhetors, to understand African American digital rhetoric, or for use in every composition course?" I would begin by saying, no I don't think this book is designed only for African American rhetors, but I do think it serves different functions for African American rhetors as opposed to other audiences. As we discussed on the first day of class, Banks makes many references to African American hip hop rappers, DJs etc., and people who are not familiar with these references (people outside of this community of practice) may have a difficult time fully grasping the ideas being conveyed. So in this sense, African American rhetors (who are familiar with these hip hop references), may gain a fuller understanding of the book or perhaps the meaning of the book would be more significant since African American world views have not always been valued in the field of rhetoric and composition.
ReplyDeleteThis is not to say, however, that Digital Griots is designed to legitimize African American informed ways of doing to white audiences. Banks brings his text to readers from a standpoint in which AA literacies have already been legitimized. His book doesn't argue that African American informed practices need to be valued because they have a history of being marginalized. Instead, Banks shows audiences how these practices for digital production inspired by African traditions are valuable because they are innovative and creative methods for shaping composition studies.
We can see that Banks's theory led to many original and creative compositions in our reading group. Each week, the digital griots composed in different ways that combined oral, print, and digital productions. This week's griot group did a really cool job of creating a mix tape of our session. The audio version was a pretty literal mix tape as it "imposed order on the chaos through particular cuts and blends and arrangements" (116). The live tweet seemed like it incorporated aspects of the mix tape as well since the group decided which narratives or tracks were going to be linked and circulated out of the personal class space into a wider public conversation on Twitter.
I'll try to stay a little more on top of the question this week: To what degree is this book designed for African American rhetors, to understand African American digital rhetoric, or for use in every composition course?
ReplyDeleteI guess my answer needs to be "I'm not entirely sure." Having also come off the heels of Palmeri's text also building on the remix metaphor and trying to tie it into the history of multimodality in our field, it's almost impossible not to make comparisons. Whereas I think that Palmeri's text (to the extent that I have my issues with it, namely the lack of cohesion to his suggestions beyond "wouldn't it be cool if we did _____ in class?") felt more clearly applicable to the classroom and field at large, I don't get that same sense from my reading of Banks so far. It doesn't feel very pedagogically focused, which is fine, but does raise the question of how this can enter our classrooms as more than inspiration in many cases, and suggests a larger audience outside of simply "people wanting to integrate multimedia into courses to reach an African American audience."
By default, then, I think the answer needs to lie more in the field of the former. Not being an African American rhetor myself, I can't quite speak to the effectiveness of the text for this purpose, but Banks seems to draw on a lot of helpful history and examples that seem to suggest his audience is somewhat specific, and that some of us may fall outside of it. I nonetheless found it both interesting and compelling as something of an outsider, but in many cases, I didn't feel a clear connection or personal opportunity to enrich my own pedagogy... again, not that it needs to, but in the context of this question, I can only say that I didn't view it as a primarily pedagogically-focused text in contrast to something like Palmeri's that both discuss the same metaphor.