University of South Carolina Scholar Commons Theses and Dissertations Fall 2018 An Existentialist Approach to Teaching Writing: Anguish, Bad Faith, and Seriousness in Composition Andreas Peter Herzog Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Herzog, A. P.(2018). An Existentialist Approach to Teaching Writing: Anguish, Bad Faith, and Seriousness in Composition. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/5091 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you by Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. An Existentialist Approach to Teaching Writing: Anguish, Bad Faith, and Seriousness in Composition by Andreas Peter Herzog First State Board Exam Universität des Saarlandes, 2006 Master of Arts University of South Carolina, 2010 ________________________________________________ Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English College of Arts and Sciences University of South Carolina 2018 Accepted by Christy Friend, Major Professor Pat Gehrke, Major Professor John Muckelbauer, Committee Member Adam Ellwanger, Committee Member Cheryl L. Addy, Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School © Copyright by Andreas Peter Herzog, 2018 All Rights Reserved ii Dedication To my parents, Peter Herzog and Christine Herzog iii Abstract This dissertation aims at developing a model concept for the teaching of ethics in the composition classroom through the use of existentialism in the writings of Jean-Paul Sartre. Overall, the gap I am trying to fill with my dissertation is a lack of awareness of how much Sartre actually fits rhetorical theory and composition. Ultimately, this dissertation is the attempt to develop an ethic that is universally applicable in the teaching of composition, without the need for a service learning environment or additional resources outside the university itself. To provide an overview of the project, the approach will be illustrated with three case studies that focus on different ethical issues in writing that are central to first-year composition courses. The first case study looks at a conflict between a professor and a graduate student that involved the discussion of heated topics and power relationships in the classroom. The second case study looks at cases of plagiarism on the highest level, in dissertations. Several German politicians had to resign from their offices because their dissertations contained plagiarized passages, and their reactions sparked controversial responses from both the general public, the media, and academic institutions. The third case study looks at service learning and the encounter with marginalized groups – what could be called the encounter with the Other. Students do not always show an authentic ethical reaction to what they experience. The project will conclude with a discussion of how these cases and Sartre's work might be deployed in the context of a first-year composition syllabus with three main thematic units. iv Table of Contents Dedication...........................................................................................................................iii Abstract...............................................................................................................................iv Introduction..........................................................................................................................1 Chapter 1: Seriousness and Conflict at Marquette University...........................................38 Chapter 2: German Politics and the Anguish of Plagiarism..............................................75 Chapter 3: Sartre and the Ethics of Service Learning......................................................112 Chapter 4: A Sartrean Approach to First-Year Composition...........................................135 Works Cited.....................................................................................................................152 v Introduction This dissertation aims at developing a model concept for the teaching of ethics in the composition classroom through the use of existentialism in the writings of Jean-Paul Sartre. I first became interested in Sartre after hearing about Emmanuel Levinas and his idea of the Other. At that time, I was vaguely familiar with Sartre’s reflective consciousness and found his version of the encounter with others very similar. It led to a paper on Sartre and Levinas and their ethics of identity. As I soon found out, Sartre has not been very popular in the realm of rhetoric and composition. Almost every other French philosopher has his own fan club in rhetoric, to put it in a colloquial way. Sartre is one of the few who does not. Yet after studying his writings and the secondary literature on him more closely, I think that his theories are underutilized in composition, and that his ethics can be used as the foundation for a theoretical class. Overall, the gap I am trying to fill with my dissertation is a lack of awareness of how much Sartre actually fits rhetorical theory and composition. Especially in What is Literature, he makes several statements that should appear plausible to any teacher of writing. My case studies will apply Sartre’s concept of bad faith to two current events that involved ethical dilemmas and to the popular idea of service learning. The final chapter is a class concept that can be used for a First-Year English writing class at any institution of higher education. 1 Ultimately, this dissertation is the attempt to develop an ethic that is universally applicable in the teaching of composition, without the need for a service learning environment or additional resources outside the university itself. Through my theoretical foundation and the use of three different case studies, the value of Sartre's existentialist ethical standards will be made clear and put into a modern context, which has not been attempted before in relation to the teaching of writing or First-Year English classes in general. The Teaching of Ethics and the Relevance of Ethics in Composition I would like to start with a brief look at the teaching of ethics. This section will look at different ethical standards, different methods of teaching ethics, and different rhetorical ethics. A current article by John Duffy focuses on ethical choices that students make in writing. Duffy mentions the different domains of choices in writing, “such as the rhetorical, the linguistic, or the aesthetic” (Duffy 2017, 229). But he points out that there is another domain: “I am referring to the domain of ethics and the ethical decisions writers make in the process of composing. Writing involves ethical decisions because every time we write, […] we propose a relationship with others, our readers” (Duffy 2017, 229, emphasis in original). Duffy summarizes that “if we define arguments as the teaching of claims, proofs, and counterarguments, we are necessarily and inevitably engaged, […] in practices of ethical deliberation. To make a claim in an argument, for example, is to propose a relationship between others and ourselves” (Duffy 2017, 238). It is this relationship with the other that comes into play in all of my case studies. How do 2 we respond to plagiarism? How do we react to controversial opinions in the classroom? And how is the encounter with the other an ethical dilemma depending on how it is initiated? We tend to tell students certain standard definitions of what it means to argue ethically, but Duffy also reminds us: “Yet moral ambiguities, as we know, are often the impetus for rhetorical action, and we need rhetoric most when we can discern no rules or certain paths to follow” (Duffy 2017, 240). Existentialism can provide an alternative to what Duffy calls “virtue ethics” (Duffy 2017, 229) in the Aristotelian sense. In Naming What We Know, Duffy writes in his brief section on ethical choices: “To say that writing involves ethical choices is not to suggest that individual writers should be judged as ethical or unethical in the sense of being moral, upright, honest, and so forth.” (Duffy 2015, 31). He specifies: “A writer attempting to communicate an idea or persuade an audience, for example, may write in ways that privilege honesty, accuracy, fairness, and accountability. These qualities imply an attitude toward the writer's readers: in this case, attitudes of respectfulness, open-mindedness, goodwill, perhaps humility.” (Duffy 2015, 32) In other words, we should not judge the writer, but the writing in terms of being ethical or unethical. The qualities Duffy mentions can all be associated with writing in good faith. The task of a composition instructor is to provide a pedagogical space where students can productively grapple with ethical choices and respond to them. In 1980, the Hastings Center published a report, The Teaching of Ethics in Higher Education. It contains a central statement that emphasizes the value of teaching ethics across the curriculum: No one would pretend that a single course in ethics at the undergraduate level, 3 however solid that course, could hope to cover the subject fully. Hence, one might hope that ideally ethical issues would be broached in many other kinds of courses, at least to some degree. Few areas of human study or exploration lack ethical dimensions. (Hastings