Mair's Reading Responses

1. Freeman, Mark. Chapter 5: Autobiographical Understanding and Narrative Inquiry.

Freeman sets out to deliver an historical understanding of the origination and development of autobiographical narratives and then consider how the work of narrative inquiry may ultimately provide a more comprehensive and integrated understanding of the “human realm”. He deploys autobiographical narrative as a way to decrease the dichotomy of science and art, a methodology that may perhaps illuminate what is missing in the separation. Situating his subjectivity and lens as trained toward the Western, more individualistic, male-dominated understanding of “self”, he works from Gusdorf’s essay “Conditions and Limits of Autobiography”. The representation of self through memory and personal viewpoint not only provides insight on an individual level but allows for a perspective on the culture of society.


“Precisely because there cannot be a full disentangling of ‘I’ and ‘me’ of subject and object, the resultant story is bound to be permeated by one’s own irrevocably personal view” (128)

Quote by Weintraub: “The essential subject matter of all autobiographic writing is concretely experienced reality…”
~I am interested in the overlaps of dance choreography as a story of self and the tools utilized in autobiographical narrative

“there is a search for ‘unity’, the resultant product being an expression of the innermost dimensions of self. The idea and ideal of authenticity loom large”
“For men, personal agency is emphasized. For women, on the other hand, there emerges a tradition of writing that ‘conceals agency, concentrating on inner life, but leaving them largely ‘disembodied’ (Conway) (131)
-Focus on interiorization of life

From modern to post-modern..Gusdorf’s idea that the “second reading of the experience” is “truer than the first because it adds to experience itself consciousness of it

Narrative confers a meaning on the event: “postulating of a meaning dictates the choice of the facts to be retained and of the details to bring out” (133) Gusdorf
~by understanding how we make meaning, what we choose to remember or what point of view we take, it is then possible to make transparent our subjectivity in all that we do. This is of particular interest to me coming full circle trying to understand the world from a creative place, to engineering and the scientific-quantitative-objective realm to qualitative and ‘experimental methods’.

“Perhaps the aim of the autobiographer or memorist is simply to write, as interestingly and artfully as possible. This would not only spare the (illusory) burden of somehow discovering and disclosing the (real, authentic) self; it would allow for the possibility of creating, through writing, a new self all together.” (134)

2. Check, Ed. “My Working-Class Roots in an Academic War Zone: Creating Space to Grieve and Honor”. Journal of Cultural Research in Art Education, Vol 24, 2006, 23-35


Check uses autobiographical inquiry through the lens of standpoint theory in order to situate his cultural experiences and his personal artwork in academe. Given the marginalization of his working class status and queerness, he is interested in interrogating the marginalization of his academic and activist work by demonstrating his way of knowing the world and specifically how this informs his art, research and teaching.

I appreciate this article as it resonates with the nature of research and art activism I am engaging in. In addition to the critical engagement with issues in academe, he also touches on issues related to the dichotomized relationship of practice and theory, something I bump up against regularly. By integrating them in his work with a layered approached, he brings to the forefront the entangled and inseparable relationship and subsequent knowledge production that comes from the engagement.

“I demonstrate how first-person narrative, truth-telling is essential for respectful learning and social justice” (33)

“She demonstrates how we as teachers can facilitate complex and changing identities of students in relation to genders, sexualities, and social class positions” (32)

“My pedagogy in art is simple: Take care of students’ physical and emotional needs and the intellectual needs will take care of themselves” (31-2)

3. Garland-Thomson, Rosemarie. “Shape Structures Story: Fresh and Feisty Stories about Disability” Narrative, Vol.15, No1 2007

“How can we maintain a continuous sense of self as our bodies change over time?” (113)
Between time and human materiality...
I will begin discussing this article from the perspective of my work. This article was pivotal in providing me with a way to frame identity and the body and the changes that contribute to one’s different understanding of self. Identity is now understood to be shifting and multiplicitous but the relationship to the embodiment and changes in embodiment is a key element to my research but I had been unable to articulate it in such a clear way as did Garland-Thomson.
“The configuration and function of our human body determines our narrative identity, the sense of who we are to ourselves and others” (113)
Bynum “Shape or body is crucial, not incidental, to story. It carries a story; it makes a story visible; in a sense it is story. Shape (or visible body) is in space what is in time....Identity is finally shape carrying story.”
What is particularly of interest to my research is the idea of transition, as the body changes our understanding of the world and interactions with people change. This can be sudden or it can be over time. Garland-Thomson goes on to suggest that a “cultural fantasy” we carry is the predictability and stability of the body (114). One of the aspects of training and working as a body educator is my understanding of constantly shifting awareness that occurs in actively listening to the body, an awareness that confirms the constant shifts and changes. Taking her discussion on the normative approach of story structuring shape, we can see the ways in which the standardized body has led to much difficulty and health problems. Based on media and current beliefs about the body, we can see how the concept deviation creates discord, particularly among women. Deviation then, is seen to be an anomaly when it is actually the norm. “Thus, we use the cultural story that we call normalcy to structure our shapes.”

4. Tierney, William G. “Get Real: Representing Reality”
Tierney presents an argument for narrative methodologies that “explicitly locates the author in the text”. By employing these strategies, social scientists may open up the way we portray the live of participants in research (385). However, Tierney warns that researchers and grad stents are not adequately prepared to engage in creative writing with any skill since we are primarily trained to write abstracts and scientific methods: “how to write dissertations and research articles” (390). As an educator, he teaches his students how to critically approach and understands various methodologies in texts..how the author positions herself reflexively.
This article resonates with my experience trying to author an autoethnography as a social scientist and the lack of preparation I had received. My creative training as an artist gave me quite a bit of skill and understanding. At this point in my writing career, Tierney’s article provides great insight into the integration of art and academics in research methods.
“concerns with three central elements of these methods: the nature of writing, the readers of a text, and the purpose of the research act” (389)
Here Tierney sums up critical issues in my creative choreographic process as well as my research process.
“Just as I was once concerned with the unreflexive absence of the author from the narrative, I am equally concerned with the unreflexive insertion of the author into the narrative” (391)
The concern of “a movement away from trying to understand the world of the ‘other’ and toward a more cathartic psychological agency of the self” (392).......this is well stated as one of the major critiques in the interpretive methods.
“If we are to embrace experimental writing then the narrative voice needs to break the stranglehold that linear temporality currently has on our way of constructing reality” (396)….here, a good example of art education and creative training rationale.
“A focus on the author’s voice enables individuals to see how they think of their connections to the Other” (396)
5. Ely, Margot. “In-Forming Re-Presentations”, Chapter 22

Ely examines forms and styles of writing and discusses “their functions in final narrative research reports” (568). After discussing the layered meaning of the word “representation”, she provides examples leading to the understanding of “persona” in texts. Presentation becomes not only a signature but gives meaning to the work. Here, as in dance, I understand my work to be all that is there…the frame and form provide meaning in often subtle, subversive ways. Our presence as people on stage is not overridden by “performance” and must be considered. With some training in visual design, I have always considered the information architecture and visual communication within my decision making as an artist. This article is especially helpful (and I will likely cite it in my future work) as foundation for understanding the architecture of writing and articles.

6. Eisenhauer, Jennifer. “Writing Dora: Creating Community through Autobiographical Zines about Mental Illness”

Eisenhauer examines Zine writing as a form of community for mental illness and also uses the space of the academic research article to convey her personal narrative experience with mental illness. By focusing on the political implications of community building through writing, Eisenhauer highlights the silencing experienced with mental illness through the “construction of discursive space through which to challenge dominant cultural narratives” (3) .
This becomes “a critical practice at the intersection of consumption and production of popular culture” (2).

“They are told through a wounded body.”
Arthur Frank: “The body sets in motion the need for new stories when its disease disrupts the old stories. The body, whether still diseased of recovered, is simultaneously cause, topic, and instrument of what the new stories are.”

“Cultural re-marking of the body and a form of healing as cultural critique” (8)
“Reproduce popular media and through that repetition interrogate the mechanisms of stigma from within dominant popular discourses” (8)
“Words become something that can unsettle objectification rather than reinforce it” (9)
**”When understood through theoretical frames and feminist third spaces, the blurring of consumer/producer boundaries become central to our understanding of zines as a practice and culture” (12)

Amazing article….interrogating dominant narratives and drawing on her position of power as a professor and researcher in order to effect change.

7. Newman, Jenny. “Redrafting and Editing”
Newman offers that “real writing is rewriting” which absolutely rings true. As a graduate student operating with many papers due at the end of a quarter, I find that I don’t allow for the time necessary to rewrite. I have found recently (and have been encouraged by professors supporting the phd path) that starting with a draft and then rewriting it for the course provides the time and energy necessary to make a strong paper.
Revising for Meaning
Most involved
Revising for character
“So many writers depend on stereotypes” (158)
Revising for pace
“Fiction writers now many methods—such as description, or the use of retrospect—of slowing the pace. …vary rhythm, by focusing for example on atmosphere or character development.” (159)
Revising for Style
Telling vs. showing (160)
Revising for Accuracy
Importance of punctuation (not unlike Ely’s form and presentation article), check facts


8. Newman, Jenny. Short Story Writing
What I appreciated most about this chapter was the overlapping techniques and forms for the choreographic work I do. I see dance pieces I make as short stories, vignettes that are expressed in the form of movement. Upon making this clear connection in this reading, I began to look at the tools Newman suggests in her chapter as possible tools for my methodology in dance making. Of course, dance can be something beyond “story” and one has to be mindful of the trite conventions in narrative dance.

V.S. Pritchett says “The novel tends to tell us everything, whereas the short story tells us only one thing, and that intensely” (53)
The short story writer has “a unique and exact way of looking at things, and on finding the right context for expressing that way of looking” (53)
Character: “those who live at odds with the so-called mainstream” (54)
Point of View: “lens through which your reader looks at the world you create”…this could be particularly interesting to consider in the context of dance…
Dialogue: relationships
Plot: obstacles…traditionally 3 in number (61) shows the antagonists power, build tension, form the story’s climax
Ending: Oates-“signal a tangible change of some sort; a distinct shift in consciousness, a deepening of insight” (62)
9.
Friel, James. “Writing a Novel”
This chapter began to sketch out for me a possible approach to my dissertation in considering narrative inquiry. While I may not use it directly, it was certainly helpful in outlining a large scale project. Additionally, I am curating-creating a program of art installation and dance at the Urban Arts Space and given the enormity of the project, I am thinking this way of approaching a project with a through line may be of great help.
The Outline
Foreshadowing
Plotting
Point of View
Beginnings (and Endings too)
Characterisation
Dialogue
Progressing
Drafting
Animating Prose
Expressing your theme: “writing a secret agenda give a prose a pulse—a hidden but very real sense of animation” (117)
“to show how people are imprisoned in relationships” (118)
The Habit of Work
Revising!!!