"The Dynamics of Interbeing and Monological Imperatives in Dick and Jane: A Study in Psychic Transrelational Gender Modes."


This Calvin and Hobbes cartoon from 1993 is one of the most reproduced cartoons I've ever seen -- it found its way onto the doors of faculty offices all over the place. I tried to track it down to answer one of Dr. Wendy's questions about the exact wording of the title that Calvin chose, and I found this link to a paper on interdisciplinary discourse and education. It's a challenge to read the whole thing -- it's pretty dense, although some of the names and ideas ring bells for me (Bakhtin and dialogism from a reading group we started in graduate school). The following quote is from the body of the article where the C and H cartoon is described:

Dialogic literacy and learning suggest similar directions for writing programs across disciplines and for writing in multicultural classrooms. Students are commonly oriented to disciplinary academic discourse in two ways, both of which have been illustrated in Calvin and Hobbes cartoons in recent years. Students may see--and may be encouraged to see--disciplinary discourse as a mode of meaning completely cut off from their everyday concerns, as in a cartoon in which Calvin, getting an arithmetic lesson from his father, "cannot" successfully add eight cents and four cents because, as he says, "those four" (the ones his father asked him to give him to add to the eight cents already on the table) "are mine." As long as he refuses to separate the abstract mathematical principles from the reality of his economic situation ("you're the one with a steady paycheck," he says to his father), he will not be able to learn his lesson. In contrast, students may see--and be encouraged to see--disciplinary discourse as a means of exercising power. In another cartoon, Calvin explains to Hobbes that "with a little practice, writing can be an intimidating and impenetrable fog," and hands Hobbes his book report entitled "The Dynamics of Interbeing and Monological Imperatives in Dick and Jane: A Study in Psychic Transrelational Gender Modes." Both of these orientations depend on a "monologic" view of academic discourse as a system that does not change in response to the "ignorant" or "naive" uses students--or other "outsiders"--make of it but instead acts to exclude them until they accede to its demands. The same monologic view of disciplinary discourse inhibits interdisciplinary research and makes too much academic scholarship and research incomprehensible and thus nearly useless to anyone outside a particular discipline or outside academia."(emphasis mine)

I absolutely love this, for a couple of reasons. First, I think she's right -- the power of academic writing (or any specialized writing) is, in some ways, derived by the ability of the writer to assume that only a select portion of the audience will actually understand the ideas. Experts in topic A like to talk to other experts about topic A and will attempt to bring other conversations around to topic A. My expertise in this area distinguishes me from the non-expert, and the lack of understanding helps to cement that difference.

But second, and more importantly, this whole essay is a wonderful example of exactly the kind of thing she is talking about -- making writing an "intimidating and impenetrable fog." HOLY COW - we're talking about a cartoon here! I used to use C and H cartoons in my classes all the time, because Bill Watterson its creator is obviously a very intelligent guy with a passing knowledge of lots of different areas (a true renaissance cartoonist, I think).

But nothing kills a funny cartoon more completely than a scholarly discourse about it. Hoofa.

posted by MT at 1:11 PM |