Statement of Interest:
For my research project, I am interested in queer theory, because combating the cisnormative and heteronormative society that has existed for ages in academia is one of the things I am most passionate about. People in the queer community have been constantly oppressed, not only by the social system, but homosexuality has only been made legal in the past hundred years. However, even though it’s made great strides in the legal system, the social system still has a severe lack of acceptance and consideration for queer people. Even in the modern times, there is still an issue with representation of all voices, not just in the queer community, but every minority group. One would think that identity is redundant in the world of academia, but educational places are not exempted from the need to be inclusive and considerate. On the contrary, schools are a place to be educated on how to think critically, so social issues should not be disregarded in the classroom (and equivalent academic centers).
Queer theory is primarily a learning theory, which encourages people to read and analyze texts with a kind of “queerness” in mind. It’s focused on being inclusive of all genders and sexualities that have been typically ignored by the majority of society when it comes to representation. Lots of history and literature has been “straight-washed” because being queer hasn’t often been as accepted as it is today. However, even with queer people being more widely accepted, there’s still an issue with accurate representation and inclusivity. Queer people have more legal rights, but social rights are a whole different category. A lot of LGB people (lesbian, bisexual, and gay) are able to “pass” as straight, but the people who don’t fit into the socially constructed roles of “man” or “woman” have to put up with a lot more harassment in public places. A lot of people have adopted the habit of introducing themselves with their pronouns. I say just pronouns (and not “preferred pronouns”) because using the one “preferred” implies you would “prefer” them, rather than they are just your pronouns. I think this is an extremely beneficial and considerate habit that everybody should do, because it’s a way of making non-binary or gender non-conforming people not feel singled out by their uses of “they/them” pronouns. I think academic institutions having any policy to combat the assumption of gender would be good, and it could be something emphasized in the Writing Center.
I haven’t entirely nailed down what in Queer Theory I exactly want to do my research on, but I think this will come down to survey-based research, and seeing how queer people feel when they go to the writing center. I haven’t had any personally bad experiences, but I’ve heard from other queer friends of mine that they’ve had some very poor interactions with some professors on campus making ignorant/homophobic comments. While I think a majority of the campus is very accepting and inclusive, I think the writing center should strive to be better than the rest of campus, because of how many tutors are students as well. Peer tutoring implies equality, and I think the writing center should continue striving toward being an open space for all identities.
Reich, Nicolas. “Queering the Air: Increasing LGBTQ+ Inclusivity in the Writing Center.” The Peer Review. Spring 2018. http://thepeerreview-iwca.org/issues/relationality-si/queering-the-air-increasing-lgbtq-inclusivity-in-the-writing-center/
Nicolas Reich writes this article for The Peer Review to discuss the ways that writing tutors can help all queer students feel more included in spaces like the writing center. Reich himself is “ a cisgender, white, educated, middle-class male full up with the privileges those markers entail. But… also gay, a less privileging marker.” (pp.5) He discusses how the traditional social oppression of queer individuals has had a lasting influence on their ability to be open and honest about themselves in any space. Something that his writing center does is have the writers who come in to be tutored fill out a form asking for the general name, major, coursework, and preferred pronouns. This is generally seen as a compassionate and considerate question used to normalize the not-assuming of genders. However, people who were not raised to consider more than the gender binary that society has forced on us (such as “Mark” from the article) may scoff at a question like this. This then raises a broader question of how queer inclusivity can affect a learning environment, such as the negative effects of things like verbal harassment of queer individuals by someone in a position of power. However, in a writing center, “peer review and collaborative processes are of higher order than debate” (pp.16), meaning that there doesn’t have to be an agreement about any social issues within a session as long as there’s a mutual respect between student and tutor.
I feel this article could be beneficial to write about in my research because it’s centered around the societal issues that minority groups such as the queer community must face in their every day lives. There is a problem in most social areas that lack the representation of queer individuals, but this also happens to be an issue in academic areas. However, the writing center should be considered a place where identity should be incorporated into writing, and not just a redundant factor of a tutoring session. In addition, there should be a mutual agreement that the personal beliefs of the tutor and student don’t have to agree, as long as there can be respect for one another. Since I want to focus on how being queer can affect a student who comes to the writing center, this would be a great source to reference in my personal research.
Rihn, Andrew J., Sloan, Jay D. “‘RAINBOWS IN THE PAST WERE GAY’: LGBTQIA IN THE WC.” Praxis: A Writing Center Journal. http://www.praxisuwc.com/rihn-sloan-102?rq=queer%20theory
Rihn and Sloan address many of the previous articles that have examined queer theory in the writing center to further discuss the issues that a non-dominant identity like being queer can cause a person. This article title comes from a “reader’s comment”, in which the reader uses a lot of words that can be seen as queer: “the rainbows in the past were gay”. To a modern reader, that would be a queer statement calling “rainbows” (one of the symbols of the queer community) “gay” (as in, queer). However, funny enough, the statement had nothing to do with the queer community in actuality. “‘Rainbows,’ in the context of the quote, refer to the multi-colored paper on which the WLN was originally printed,” and “the term ‘gay’ has multiple potential meanings: happy or pleasant on the one hand.” (Rihn & Sloan pp.7) There are often two or more different perspectives when it comes to reading and writing: the cisnormative and hetereonormative perspective, and the queer perspective. This can also apply to any minority group that isn’t included in the dominant group of society. In a writing center, the authors write about the need to combat homophobia, increase inclusivity, and queer the traditional binary in academia.
This article is a great one to use for my research because of how many external sources are used, so it’s like I get all of them along with this one. It very clearly lays out the issues that need to be solved in the writing center: the still-existent homophobia, the lack of inclusivity, and the problematic binary that has plagued our society. Since queer theory is something I’m very passionate about, I am definitely going to focus on ways of being more inclusive and making sure every voice is heard equally in all settings. Queer theory focuses on having all perspectives and voices heard, but focuses on the historically marginalized group, the queer community, and ensures that they’re accurately represented in all areas. This article would be a great source to cite because of how well it describes and goes into detail for all of the issues that I’ve discussed can make a queer student less likely to utilize the writing center.
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