On Mon, 23 Oct 1995, Quetzil Castaneda wrote:
> can you spell out this citation more:
Gail Stygall's "Basic Writing and Foucault's Author Function"
(College Composition and Communication, 45.3, Oct 1994, p. 320)
> I am an anthropologist and am teaching a course on "ethnographic writing and
> field methods" in the spring and am going to my friends in the english dept
> for suggestions on how to structure a (creative) writing focussed class.
> but, this intersection here on foucault and composition has snagged my
> attention. does this combo seek to make the student write as if nameless?
> to learn how better to conceal the individuality of authorship? or more
> cognizant of the way discourse enounciates the writer --- to have Focault's
> author-function thesis become a poststructuralist phrasing of Levi-Strauss'
> "myth makes man" maxim?
>
> for us at least me outside of writing composition class, the use that one
> would be make of f.'s author-function in that setting is not obvious.
I believe the stygall article deals with the idea that basic writers
(students who comprise all developmental writing courses and many
freshmen composition classes) are not granted author status by the
Academy; their words are considered to be 'outside the truth.' The right
to transgress in writing is not extended to these student writers; in
fact, that they are labelled as "basic writers" limits their ability
progress or change (if they do progress well they are often accused of
plagiarizing.
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