Traversing the Democratic Borders of the EssaySUNY Press, 2002 M07 17 - 160 pages Scholarship on the personal essay has focused on Western European and U. S. varieties of the form. In Traversing the Democratic Borders of the Essay, Cristina Kirklighter extends these boundaries by reading the Latin American and Latino/a essayists Paulo Freire, Victor Villanueva, and Ruth Behar, alongside such canonical figures as Montaigne, Bacon, Emerson, and Thoreau. In this fascinating journey into the commonalities and differences among these essayists, Kirklighter focuses on various elements of the personal essay self-reflexivity, accessibility, spontaneity, and a rhetoric of sincerity in order to argue for a more democratic form of writing in academia, one that would democratize the academy and promote nation-building. By using these elements in their teachings and writings, Kirklighter argues, educators can play a significant role in helping others who experience academic alienation achieve a better sense of belonging as they slowly dismantle the walls of the ivory tower. |
Contents
Essaying an American Democratic Identity | 39 |
The Essay as PoliticalCultural Critique in Latin America | 71 |
Achieving a Place in Academia through the Personal | 103 |
The Movement from Mimicry to Spontaneity | 114 |
Ruth Behar and Her Rise to Academic Prominence | 122 |
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Common terms and phrases
acad academia Academic of Color academic writing American Scholar anthropologists audience authenticity Autobiography Bacon believed bell hooks Bootstraps Cicero critique cultural David Thoreau's Walden democracy democratic dialogue discourse dispositio element of self-reflection Emerson and Thoreau English studies essay form essay predecessors essay scholars essay scholarship essay's elements Essays on Henry ethnographic form of writing Freire's Freirian genre Henry David Thoreau Henry David Thoreau's identity intellectual Joel Myerson knowledge language Latin American essay Latin American essayists Latino/a academics Letters to Cristina liberatory literary lived experiences Macedo Montaigne Montaigne's nation nation-building Oppressed Paulo Freire Pedagogy of Hope personal essay personal essayists personal writing Peter McLaren philosophical Plutarch political Pyrrhonian skepticism Ralph Waldo Emerson readers Renaissance Review rhetoric Richard Rodriguez Ruth Behar scholarly sincerity skepticism social society sonal Spanish spontaneity theories tion traditional truth understand Victor Villanueva Victoria Ocampo Villanueva William Gass writing form