After reading Living the Narrative Life this week, I thought about how my parents have talked about the recession in their conversations with me. Of course, the recession is in all our thoughts. How can we avoid thinking about it when the topic is an endless conversation in the media and among politicians that permeates into our personal conversations with others? We're studying autobiographies of the depression in the Autobiography class right now (it's coincidentally time to discuss it in our course schedule), and the personal stories abound from students. And why shouldn't it? We don't have to be economic experts or financial analysts to see what is going on around us. If Fortune Magazine during the 30s had a social conscience and sent numerous well known reporters like James Agee and Walker Evans to find the hardship stories and report the stories in narrative style, then I suppose we might bring business issues to an English classroom and tell these issues in stories.
My father, given his research in the stock market for years, tells his stories through various reports or congressional hearings he's heard on C-SPAN. My father's stories are more logical and clinical in explaining what's happening in our economy, but they're still a series of stories told with all these bits of accumulated and synthesized information in his head. My mother's stories are more like what Gian Pagnucci talks about in his book. They're stories about coming together as a community when the going gets tough--stories about her mother's ways of helping others while still giving them this sense of dignity. My grandmother owned a farm in the depression years. Several town members who weren't doing so well financially came to her and asked if they could fish on her property, where a river ran through it. She said this was fine if they gave her half of what they caught. They did so, and then she would make these wonderful dishes using the fish. Everyone then sat down and had a delicious meal. The same was true with the game. So, my mother tells these stories of the past to advise us on how to manage the present. Both my mother's stories and father's stories seem quite helpful and compatible.
I wonder what happens to academic writing during a recession. Do academic writers want to tell more stories? Will this happen? Do English folks have something to contribute through stories during this time that other folks may want to hear? What are our roles as academic storytellers to our colleagues, our students, our families? I shared with you my tribute to my aunt last session. Are there some connections in our responsibility as writers?
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3 comments:
I wonder what happens to academic writing during a recession. Do academic writers want to tell more stories? Will this happen?
Probably. And where populist sentiment is concerned, I suppose hearing stories of how "the little people" or "the common man" manages to survive day to day during the current period of economic crisis would be of some interest to some people. But I believe that such stories might mean more to us later on, after that crisis has bottomed out. No one is certain as to how the nation will fare in the next 2 years or so. Besides, I feel the economy is just too immediate a concern right now for reflection to provide any meaning.
The mood of the country has turned hostile regarding incumbent leadership. Matters of revising government policy and leveling political blame now override our thoughts and concerns far more than what the future holds in store for us as individuals or communities. I imagine most of us don't want to think about it. Most of us would prefer not to see our own future through the historical prisms of Steinbeck and Agee.
To answer your question, though...yes, the stories will happen. But they will happen later. Yet, a large part of me hopes there will be no need for such stories, that everything will miraculously sort itself out. At the risk of sounding cynical, however, there currently is just too much anger and outrage for reflection based on "inspiring" individual stories to hold much meaning. That part of the cycle hasn't arrived. To use business-ese, the market and the demand just aren't there now.
Economic Depression seems to be something that people never get over. I remember when my great-grandmother moved out of her long-time house in the mid-90's, we found food in her deep-freeze from the late 80's. (It was dated as seems customary for a farm house). I remember her explaining what it was like to grow up during the Great Depression and how you learned to NEVER throw anything away that was usable. Maybe all these "GREEN" people have a point! (I know I am becoming that way!)
I like how you differentiated the narrative styles of your mother and father. Of course, I don't know them, so I can't speak to whether these differences are due to their personalities or not, but it does remind me of our class experiment on gender and how it may or may not affect the way someone writes. Your father's narratives are probably what most people would consider more stereotypical male (logical, data-oriented) and your mother's more stereotypically female (emotional, community/family-focused).
When you step back and think of the multiple modes of storytelling that occur in the course of a day of our lives, it's amazing how many factors go into influencing those narratives. Gender, racial perspective, age, economic situation, personal history, political affiliation, etc. And beyond that, how we then work as narrators to sidestep those factors in an effort to lose any bias, yet we still end up with something tonally unique...like each narrative is its own little snowflake. It's fascinating!
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