Big Fat Deal

I guess I don't see it.

We've been "talking"--if that's what the online back-and-forthing can rightly be termed--about the bounds of DA and whether or not they cross with SCIENCE! (cue Thomas Dolby.) I didn't participate much in the discussion because the scrolling ticker in my head flashed "So what? Big fat deal. What's so great about long-held and politically powerful communities of practice anyway?"

You see, I'm not normally combative.

What came to mind was Anne Ruggles Gere's introduction to Into the Field: Sites of Composition Studies. She foregoes the typical "let's fill the gap left by edu psych/psych/etc." metaphor to suggest that Composition Studies (of which some are DA based) is more of a "restructuring" of methods and concepts from other disciplines, not a stopgap.

Gere writes, "The bridge-building metaphor, which has served composition for several decades, can be used to describe much of the history of composition studies. One early intellectual association, between composition and educational psychology, accurately demonstrates composition's unproblemitized adoption of methods and values from another field." Gere suggests "deconstructing received boundaries" to "accommodate a more complicated relation, one that refigures both educational practices and scholarly research" (3-4). Well, so what? What's this blah blah posturing of Composition Studies (of which, I reassert, some are DA based) as a restructuring, not a linking between more "reputable" disciplines mean for us in class?

I'll tell you what:

1. Gere suggests--and I agree--that to call for disciplinary relevance vis a vis established methods and concepts often results in reductive and/or incomplete methods and concepts. BECAUSE THEY ARE OFTEN INCOMPATIBLE SYSTEMS.

2. Therefore, I propose that disciplinary quibbles and whether or not DA (or Composition Studies) "count" as Big-S-Science serve to highlight only the differences between the two paradigms while eliding the commonalities. As such, I'm not sure debating the definition(s) of Science (which are both rarefied and hegemonic) any further is the best course for getting us really debating the intricacies of DA as a method and product of inquiry. After all, if we're so busy clamoring for disciplinary credibility (through our affinity, however scarce, to SCIENCE!!!), we lose sight of the rich methods and methodologies of the field. (And I understand that the word "field" used here, in this way, is ideologically laden, but I'll leave it for now. Maybe we can back-and-forth about it post-prospectus-defense.)

3. Therefore again, I propose that we assume that DA is a Science in its own right, as defined by practitioners in the field (a process very much like the Scientific Revolution, a process of trial and error, disciplinary best-practices establishment, failure, success, etc.) based on its rigor, adherence to common method, and other factors which I cannot recall but should be able to.

**Sigh**

Long post. More later and less obnoxiously.