transcending normativity

David Wallace's piece in the new CE ("Transcending Normativity: Difference Issues in College English) interests me very, very much, as I've been writing--when I'm not digging in the Reuther archives--about race-class intersections here in Detroit (the identity politics of local garage bands, memoirs like Made in Detroit, the iconography of the D's mayoral archetypes, etc.).

Wallace's project is odd and, heck, I dig odd stuff. He really 'takes on the field,' a la Steve North back in the day, suggesting we haven't recognized the "limits of our subjectivities" or made "understanding systemic difference a foundational part of our scholarly and pedagogical practice." This, Wallace says, despite our theoretical allegiance to difference issues. He looks at three volumes worth of CEs and finds little explicit, authorial identification (beyond "shallow identification") with specific race, class, religious, sexual identity, etc. groups. Likewise, Wallace finds "spotty" references to those same identity issues in the subject matter of articles.

Wallace's project is quantitative, and he actually counts references to sex, race, class, etc. (an average of 4.26 references per page, for those keeping score at home). Here, too, coverage of difference issues is "shallow," in Wallace's analysis.

My concern is that Wallace subscribes so enthusiastically to the existence, stability, and usefulness of familiar identity markers. No mention of post-identity theories. Likewise, little attention to intersectional analysis as a critical lens. Wallace ends up with a thesis (because of both the materiality of privelege and the limitations of subjectivity, compositionists "need" to transcend normativity by attending to identity in our representations of self and others) that says DO MORE. More identity.

If the field's attention to identity politics has been weak (and I agree with Wallace: it has), why not look at identity differently? I'm puzzled by the argument (especially an argument about difference!) that says DO MORE instead of DO IT DIFFERENTLY. Let's look more at materiality. Let's look at how the familiar markers have failed us in various ways. Let's look at intersections (more on this if I ever finish that essay on Detroit). Let's look at venues, texts, and practices that suggest identity is not only socially constructed but socially obsolete and socially/materially ineffectual.

These reactions to Wallace's article are all pretty half-baked--just thinking out loud. Again, this is not to dismiss Wallace's article, which was interesting and useful.