Dan Colson, "Teaching in the Panopticon"

Sunday, April 4, 2010

posted under , , , , by Unit for Criticism
[Each fall the Unit for Criticism provides travel grants to select graduate student affiliates, inviting awardees to publish a post on Kritik about their paper. Below Dan Colson, a grad student affiliate in English, writes about conference paper he delivered in fall 2009.]

Teaching in the Panopticon

Written by Dan Colson (English)



Last fall I had the opportunity to present a paper on my experiences teaching an upper-division literature course in a medium-high security prison. I used my experiences in this unique teaching environment (defined in part by distinct racial, class, and gender formations) as the starting point for a discussion of my continued efforts to develop an effective pedagogy (for both a prison classroom and a University of Illinois classroom).

I started with some guiding questions that attempted to conceptualize the overlap of the university campus, the prison, and approaches to teaching through the institutional and disciplinary powers that structure both.

What is the role of transgression in teaching or learning? What do the knowledges we teach transgress against? Is it possible to teach transgression as a skill and how might I teach this skill in different settings? While I recognized that such a position might make some uncomfortable, I argued that transgressing discourses of legality is not entirely distinct from transgression against other knowledge regimes. Put differently, the value placed on “critical” thinking in the university, especially in the humanities, is an effort to teach students to transgress against–and hence transcend–other ideological formations. We encourage the ability to consider multiple ideas beyond provincial and static modes of thought, to weigh them against each other, and to choose the most reasonable, humane, and effective option. In many cases, this requires teaching students to transgress against inherited knowledge or, at the very least, to allow for the possibility that new knowledges can transgress against, and eventually replace, received wisdom.

Understanding power not as emanating from a recognizable monolith, but as a series of overlapping discourses and social relations–that is, exploring Michel Foucault’s concepts of discipline and governmentality–suggests that criminality is only one example of transgressive resistance. The discourse-power dyad that Foucault theorized may be inescapable, but counter-discourse and localized transgression of strategic power formations are still possible.

Though I admit that teaching in a prison is much different from teaching in a university, it raises the question of transgression or disruption as a pedagogical goal. The prison-classroom contains transgressive subjects subsequently inscribed as “criminal,” while the university contains potentially transgressive subjects who wish to be inscribed as “educated persons.” What to do with this lesson in these two settings is a persistent challenge.

In the traditional classroom, issues of politics, academic freedom, and the scope of humanities education all complicate the goal of teaching a nebulous “skill” that cannot be reduced to the apolitical professional knowledge that some advocate. Once we admit that learning and the advance of thought are inherently transgressive--or at least potentially so--we must ask: what knowledges do we want our students to transgress?

In prison, the questions are quite different. Is it appropriate to theorize learning as transgression in a setting where the consequences of criminality are all too visible? How do I teach intellectual transgression within an institution where transgression is met with severe reaction? At the conference, I confessed that I don’t have answers to all of these questions, but I do argue that it is worthwhile to explore the possibilities of what I call a pedagogy of criminality, a politicized orientation to institutional education from which I argue that transgression is valuable as such.
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Are You Now or Have You Ever Been Political

Monday, October 6, 2008

posted under , by Unit for Criticism
Written by Dan Colson (English)

In my literature classes, I teach authors like John Dos Passos, Michael Gold, Jack London, and Jack Conroy. We talk about socialism, communism, fascism, and democracy and invariably someone in the class (myself or one of the students) draws a comparison between the events and ethos of the pre-WWII United States and our present situation. The idea of teaching the literature I study without discussing politics is comic: “Students, please skip the last section of Native Son, do not ask me to define words like ‘proletarian,’ ‘fellow-traveler,’ or (to be safe) ‘fascism,’ ‘democracy,’ and ‘war,’ and also ignore the time period in which all of these texts were written...in fact, let’s just pretend they were written during the Jurassic Period so we don’t have to touch on the complications of industrial capitalism and American democracy.” Recently, however, this humorous exercise in avoidance has become a looming reality.

Those of you at the U of I recently received an email outlining “prohibited political activity,” and you may be aware of the various responses by faculty and graduate students.* The university’s clarification of state law (it remains to be seen if their interpretation is tenable or not) raises serious concerns about free speech and academic freedom. But perhaps more importantly, these events reveal a floating definition of “political” speech/activity that can restrict what we teach and how we teach it. As a graduate student, I’ve been struck by the harsh truth of working for a public institution and I’m scared. The state seems to want to redefine the nature of the university and there are those locally and nationally who would go even farther.

Over the last week, I have repeatedly expressed my concern that extending the “prohibited political activity” restrictions to all university property places a special burden on graduate students: we move in and out of our roles as employees and students throughout the day. The Ethics Office’s guidelines, however, draw no distinction. So long as we are on campus, we are employees. Thus, when we take classes, meet with other students, or write portions of our dissertations in the library, we must censor our political expression. Clearly few of us will be writing “vote Obama” in our dissertations, but what counts as “political?” I posed this very question to ACLU attorneys and was disturbed by the answer.

We used the graduate seminar as our test case and the attorney claimed that any “electioneering”–that is, any support of a candidate, a party, or a referendum–should be suppressed by the instructor. In other words, it is the faculty’s responsibility to police the classroom and be sure that no inappropriate “political” content is aired. Presumably the same would be true for teaching assistants in their classes. Most of us carefully monitor our class discussions, being vigilant so no one is attacked or discriminated against, but now we must be even more controlling.

This restriction is frightening enough in itself, but the ACLU attorney was evasive when I pressed him on issues that I consider “political,” but that may not lend themselves to electioneering. Are there issues so intimately tied to party platforms that expressing a view on them would imply support of that platform? No real answer. Do issues of equality, human rights, social justice count as political? Maybe. I received no definitive answer, but I will cite one chilling example: if there comes a day when Illinois or the nation must vote for or against the rights of gays and lesbians to marry, we will not be able to express an opinion in our classrooms. LGBT studies? Good luck. And, if these laws are taken to their extreme logical conclusion, graduate students should be wary of using university resources (property, computers, etc.) to write papers that support or oppose any overtly “political” issues. Don’t expect the line to ever be overt, either. The ethics laws (like many academic freedom issues) function on a complaint basis: you’re free to express yourself, until someone takes offense.

I would rest easier if our vocal detractors were our only opposition. While they may be a larger part of American culture than I care to admit, I can dismiss critics like those who respond on the Daily Illini’s comment board. “Dough Boy” says,
“...as an Illinois taxpayer I pay your salary and God knows what other untold benefits, I do not want you using your time and MY MONEY to spread your own political thought. Were it up to me, all of those who participated in yesterday's protest [the Barack Obama rally / free-speech protest held on Thursday, October 2] would be fired, period. They knew what they were getting into before they gathered and they should suffer the consequences of their stupid actions....SHUT UP and TEACH!”
I suppose we will always face this argument: “you are paid to teach, and politics have nothing to do with your subject matter [regardless of the subject matter].” But it is not only the proprietary taxpayers who should concern us.

Perhaps everything is politics, but few beyond the academy believe so. Who gets to define politics? The university says that support for John McCain is political, yet support for anarchism is not. The Office of the Executive Inspector General [the state agency responsible for executing the Ethics Act] claims that everyone, even students, are prohibited from political expression on campus, but they do not define politics. Even the ACLU–which has been supportive in our recent battle–has trouble drawing the line between political and apolitical subjects. Reproductive rights? Gay rights? Human rights?

I will soon write a dissertation that I find unquestionably political; I continue to teach classes in which politics are unavoidable; and I believe in social justice that is politically at odds with large swaths of American culture. I don’t know if any of these “activities” are prohibited, because I don’t know who in my uncertain future will define the “political.”

*On Thursday, October 2, graduate students organized an on-campus Barack Obama to protest the free-speech restrictions. On their own time, grad students and faculty wore Obama buttons, attended a political rally, and distributed campaign materials, all of which are prohibited to employees on university property. [Chicago Tribune] Read more

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