Utah State University DigitalCommons@USU All USU Press Publications USU Press 2008 Literacy, Sexuality, Pedagogy: Theory and Practice for Composition Studies Jonathan Alexander Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/usupress_pubs Part of the English Language and Literature Commons, and the Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons Recommended Citation Alexander, J. (2008). Literacy, sexuality, pedagogy: Theory and practice for composition studies. Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press. This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the USU Press at DigitalCommons@USU. It has been accepted for inclusion in All USU Press Publications by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@USU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. LITERACY, SEXUALITY, PEDAGOGY LITERACY, SEXUALITY, PEDAGOGY Theory and Practice for Composition Studies JONATHAN ALEXANDER UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS Logan, Utah 2008 Utah State University Press Logan, Utah 84322–7800 © 2008 Utah State University Press All rights reserved ISBN: 978-0-87421-701-8 (paper) ISBN: 978-0-87421-702-5 (e-book) Portions of chapters three and four of this work were previously published, respectively, as “‘Straightboyz4Nsync’: Queer Theory and the Composition of Heterosexuality,” in JAC, and “Transgender Rhetorics: (Re)Composing the Body in Narratives of Gender,” in College Composition and Communication. These texts have been revised and are reprinted here with permission. Manufactured in the United States of America Cover design by Barbara Yale-Read Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Alexander, Jonathan. Literacy, sexuality, pedagogy : theory and practice for composition studies / Jonathan Alexander. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-87421-701-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. English language--Rhetoric--Study and teaching--Social aspects. 2. Authorship--Study and teaching (Higher)--Social aspects. 3. Gender identity. 4. Sex. I. Title. PE1404.A44 2008 808’.0420711--dc22 2008001335 For MARGARET M. BARBER and WILL HOCHMAN my first colleagues, a sister and a brother in the art of writing instruction CONTENTS Acknowledgments ix Introduction: Toward Sexual Literacy 1 SITES OF THEORY AND WRITING 1 Discursive Sexualities: Bridging Sexuality and Literacy Studies 33 2 Beyond Textbook Sexuality: Students Reading, Students Writing 75 SITES OF PEDAGOGY 3 Queer Theory for Straight Students: Sex and Identity 101 4 Transgender Rhetorics: Sex and Gender 127 5 Straight Talk about Marriage: Sex and Politics 151 SITES OF RESISTANCE 6 Susie Bright in the Comp Class: Confronting Resistances 177 Notes 210 References 214 Index 221 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS As I was working on this book, colleagues and friends would ask me about the project, wondering how I was spending my sabbatical days. Invariably, and for some shock value, I’d say I was writing a book called “Writing Sex,” one of the original titles for the project. Just as invari- ably, people would hear “Writing Sucks” as the title. I’d patiently cor- rect them and say, “No, ‘Writing Sex.’” Now I must admit that a book entitled “Writing Sucks” sounds intriguing, especially for someone who has taught writing for over fifteen years. But the writing of this book has been anything but “sucky.” Indeed, Literacy, Sexuality, Pedagogy has been a labor of love, and often a sheer delight on which to work. That delight is due in no small part to the many supportive col- leagues and friends I have had during its authoring. First and foremost in my personal world, Mack McCoy, my partner, husband, best friend, and constant companion, has seen me through the many difficult times surrounding the writing of this book. First and foremost in the scholarly world, my editor at Utah State University Press, Michael Spooner, has offered keen insight, diligent support, and firm guidance—when such was needed. He knew precisely how to sift through the anonymous reviewers’ comments—which were always generous, fair, and smart— and focus my attention on what was most important. This book is a far better one for his patient editorship of it. Colleagues and friends at my former academic home, the University of Cincinnati (UC), provided both moral and scholarly support. Early on in my work, my writing group in Cincinnati—dear friends Lucille Schultz, Russel Durst, and Laura Micicche—were encouraging and supportive, providing thoughtful and insightful commentary in the early stages of my writing. Leland Person, my department head at the time, granted me a slightly extended sabbatical, allowing me a very rare opportunity to take my time with this text and mull it over carefully. The UC Faculty Development Council (FDC) provided financial support toward the end of that sabbatical for me to attend the National Sexuality Resource Center’s Summer Institute at San Francisco State University during the summer of 2006, where I met a host of wonderful colleagues x LITERACY, SEXUALITY, PEDAGOGY and friends who not only inspired but encouraged me when I was grap- pling with thorny theoretical material. I thank Wayne Hall for his sup- port and encouragement as coordinator of the FDC. And Kristi Nelson, vice provost for academic planning at UC, provided much-appreciated additional research support in partial compensation for my work as interim director of general education. Two other dear colleagues and friends at the University of Cincinnati, Michelle Gibson and Deborah Meem, were with this book in spirit much of the way. I have worked with both of them on a variety of projects, and Michelle and I were among the first to write about “queer composition”; I owe her much for challenging my thinking, particularly in the material in the last chapter on student resistances. In many ways, my collabora- tive thinking with Michelle permeates this volume, and I include in this book, with Michelle’s permission, some of the work we put together for a conference presentation on teaching Dorothy Allison’s Bastard out of Carolina. But moreover, Michelle, Deb, and I were also working on another book, Finding Out: An Introduction to LGBT Studies, while I was writing and revising this book, and I cannot help but think that Literacy, Sexuality, Pedagogy is a stronger text now because I was working with Deb and Michelle on a project about queer sexuality more generally. At the very least, our work together has provided me with much inspiration, many good times, and the dearest of friendships. Indeed, I miss all of my University of Cincinnati colleagues very much. But perhaps the most importantl inspiration at the University of Cincinnati, where I worked for nine years, were my students, who were willing to talk to me frankly, openly, and probingly about their views on gender, sexuality, sexual politics, and the sociocultural and discursive dimensions of intimacy. Almost all of the pedagogical experiences I describe and analyze in this book come from my work with my students at UC, so I owe them a tremendous debt. And at times, students not my own were eager to participate in my research. My colleague and movie buddy Gary Weissman allowed me to interview him and his students, whose work enlivens chapter 5, and I am most grateful to Gary and his excellent class for challenging my thinking about marriage as both a deeply personal and profoundly complicated sociopolitical issue. Nationally, several colleagues whom I have worked with over the years have offered their scholarly wisdom, intellectual support, and unfailing comradeship. David Wallace, Martha Marinara, Samantha Blackmon, Will Banks, and I were all working on projects at the time of my writing Acknowledgments xi that made me stop, think, and rethink some of my basic claims in this book. Our CCCC 2006 presentation on LGBT content in composition textbooks and readers was crucial in helping me think through this book’s third chapter, and I am grateful for our work together on these topics. David Wallace in particular has become a good friend, and our work on two articles that we wrote near the end of my work on this project came at an important time in the revision process. As always, my dearest friend and nonsexual lifemate, Karen Yescavage, provided constant comradeship and creative rigor in my thinking about sex, sexuality, and queerness. Two other collaborators and friends, Jackie Rhodes and Keith Dorwick, were great academic companions as we worked on other projects during the years I was working on this book. I appreciate their good humor and support, and I’m delighted to now live so close to Jackie, who is among my dearest friends in the larger groves of academe. Many other academic colleagues whom I do not know personally— some I do not know at all—have shaped this work. They are the various reviewers and editors who have published earlier work from which I have drawn some of the material included here. I thank them sincerely for their guidance and advice. In particular, Lynn Worsham, who pub- lished “‘Straightboyz4Nsync’: Queer Theory and the Composition of Heterosexuality,” in JAC: A Journal of Composition Theory (the basis of chap- ter 3), and Deobrah Holdstein, who published “Transgender Rhetorics: (Re)Composing the Body in Narratives of Gender,” in College Composition and Communication (the basis of chapter 4), were both encouraging and appropriately demanding as editors. These texts are reprinted with permission. (Full citations for these texts is in the bibliography.) I also thank Gail Hawisher and Cindy Selfe for providing me with an opportu- nity to explore the world of “gay gamers” in a chapter for their collection Gaming Lives in the Twenty-first Century, and while I ultimately decided not to include that work in this volume, I nonetheless learned a great deal about queerness online from working with that project. Three book reviews I wrote were also influential in prompting me to think about two texts I ultimately found to be very important in my work.