JAC Volume 15 Issue 1

This exchange between Maxine Hairston and John Trimbur about the nature of College English--andultimately the nature of English studies--captures the evolution that our profession has recently experienced in the latest battle between Old Guards and New Turks. Stephen Toulmin in his discussion of the evolution that intellectual disciplines and professions undergo notes "a continuing tug-of-war between Old Guards and Young Turks"--between those who represent established thought and those who are proposing Innovation (266). Representing the Old Guards, Hairston continues her complaint: "And I'm very concerned that the process favors the young leftist radicals in the profession and leaves the mainstream behind. I can't help but believe that most of us want clear, thoughtful articles on reading and writing theory and on teaching, not articles that are larded with the fashionable names and terms..." (695-96). With the word "young," Hairston recognizes the generational nature of this current battle and situates Trimbur as a "Young Turk."

Part of Hairston's complaint is directed to the turgid style she perceives in recent academic writing, but a more fundamental concern is postmodernism, specifically the ideological perspective of "leftist radicals"; elsewhere in her letter, she refers to Trimbur and his ilk as "low-risk Marxists" (695). Hairston, who herself participated in an earlier paradigm shift from writing product to writing process in the seventies and early eighties, now finds her place threatened by this new paradigm shift to postmodern inquiry, which is overtly political and highly theoretical.

John Trimbur, in his role as Young Turk, speaks of his own commitment to teaching; however, by reciting the litany of recent theory, "whether feminist, poststructuralist, neopragmatist, or neomarxist" (700), he aligns himself with the new postmodern paradigm. Trimbur thus suggests that English studies, particularly composition studies, has gained important theoretical frameworks, while Hairston suggests that an obsession with postmodern theory has led us to sell our birthright as teachers.

We propose to explore the political implications of this recent paradigm shift by analyzing its traces in our academic journals. As Toulmin in his discussion of the evolutionary nature of intellectual professions observes, "professional forums" (295), such as journals, are sites where the struggle between tradition and innovation are fought. 'Me forums we discuss include College Composition and Communication, JAC, and especially College English and Research in the Teaching of English. Both College English and Research in the Teaching of English are sponsored by the National Council of Teachers of English, the primary professional organization for English teachers, and both journals cut across subareas of English studies at the college level. As the flagship journal of NCTE, College English is an ideal forum to examine ideological changes in our profession, and as NCTE's primary research journal, Research in the Teaching of English reveals important methodological shifts in the discipline.

Investigators today necessarily place themselves within the conversation they interpret. Our position is that of feminists who perceive a relationship between gender roles and power in academic institutions. We believe that this latest paradigm shift represents a power struggle in English studies, a struggle to eradicate the mother voice of pedagogy and to emulate the father voice of scholarship in the humanities. As the exchange between Maxine Hairston and John Trimbur suggests, this change is especially revealing in the field of composition studies which has been inextricably linked to pedagogy. The writing-as-process and postmodern paradigms, as represented respectively by Hairston and Trimbur, reveal complex ironies. Hairston appears to represent the mother voice, yet it is a mother voice that has been co-opted by capitalism and father science. Trimbur wants to free students from the yoke of capitalism, yet he participates in elitist discourse and trades father science for the methodologies of father literature. We do not doubt the sincerity of intellectual commitment in the new voice we hear in postmodernism, but we believe that this voice, which is displacing students from our conversations, should be recognized as a politically astute move to garner power and prestige in a patriarchal academy.

Mother Voice, Father Voice

In English studies as in the, academy in general, there has existed an uneasy marriage between teaching (the classroom) and scholarship (the academy). Teaching has traditionally represented the mother voice of English studies and as such as been devalued in the university. David Bleich writes, "the classroom and the academy are not only separate communities, but separate institutions with different memberships, purposes, and histories" (3). He goes on to rehearse what those of us who teach in universities know full well-tenure and promotion are easier to secure when one's reputation rests on scholarship and more tenuous if one is "merely" a good teacher. Bleich explains why teaching is subordinate to intellectual endeavors by connecting teaching to the female voice and scholarship to the male voice: "And in the university, as is well known, 'real' men write books; women and other low achievers teach. If this description of things makes any sense, then it is clear that the undervaluation of teaching is linked to sexism and individualism in our society..." (x).

Although feminists today shy away from assuming an essentialist position, they recognize that many women and men assume different values and roles which have been socially constructed. Following Bleich's assessment of the university system, women may be more likely to assume the role of teachers because they are not given an opportunity to be scholars; they may also be more likely to teach because they have been taught to value the interpersonal skills often associated with good teaching. Carol Gilligan explains a major difference between socially-scripted gender roles when she writes about the different voices women and men are taught to have: "Male and female voices typically speak of the importance of different truths, the former of the role of separation as it defines and empowers the self, the latter of the ongoing process of attachment that creates and sustains the human community" (156). Thus, females tend to be nurturing and value communal efforts, while males tend to be competitive and value individuation. When this female/male dichotomy is applied to the academy, scholarship is the father voice, representing individualism and authority, while teaching is the mother voice, representing the impulse of connection and nurturing. Al- though women are more likely to assume the female voice and men the male voice, these voices represent polarized power positions in the academy that transcend biological gender.

This father/mother relationship between scholarship and teaching can be extended to the relationship between literature studies and composition studies in departments of English. Discussions of literature in journals and books have a long tradition of being removed from classroom concerns. However, composition, until the recent paradigm shift to postmodernism, has seemed inextricably linked to teaching. W. Ross Winterowd explains the depowering consequences of linking rhetoric to teaching: "Rhetoric, then, was reduced to stylistics and was devalued in English departments since it is an 'applied' art" (267). The link between teaching composition and mother- ing has been inevitable. Susan Miller has referred to "the 'feminization' of composition" (122) and the "cultural associations that link nurturing to teaching 'skills' of writing" (123). Similarly, Elizabeth Flynn identifies the move from writing as product to writing as process as an effort to "replace the figure of the authoritative father with an image of a nurturing mother" ("Composing" 423). The assumption that composition and teaching are inextricably linked is perhaps most tellingly revealed by Gerald Graff when he alludes to "the split between scholarship and composition that would become so typical of English departments down to the present day" (67). "Scholarship" and "composition" seem odd words to juxtapose because they are notopposites until one realizes the unsaid dichotomy Graff assumes is scholarship/Literature versus teaching/composition. Christy Friend similarly notes Graff’s bias when she writes, "His argument upholds a pervasive kind Of Oppression within English departments: the marginalization of composition and rhetoric studies" (278).

Maxine Hairston, as a leader of the writing-as-process movement, has been associated with this mother voice in departments of English. Elizabeth Flynn has specifically described Hairston as one of the "foremothers" of composition studies ("Composing" 424), women who have contributed to the-writing-as-process paradigm which appears nurturing and supportive of students’ welfare. If we can accept Hairston as the spokesperson for the older writing-process paradigm (and her recent essay in College Composition and Communication, "Diversity, Ideology, and Teaching Writing," suggests she is willing to assume that role) and Trimbur as spokesperson for the new pretenders (and his published response to Hairston's essay on diversity suggests he is comfortable with representing the new paradigm), we can see in their own scholarship some of the differences between the Old Guards and Young Turks.

In 1989 while James Raymond was editor of College English, Trimbur  published the essay that angered Hairston, "Consensus and Difference in Collaborative Learning." Hairston's most recent essay in College English is the I t)gl empirical study, "Not All Errors Are Created Equal: Nonacademic Readers in the Professions Respond to Lapses in Usage," published under Donald Gray. Both Hairston's and Trimbur's essays are pedagogical: Hairston, after citing the results of a survey she conducted, discusses teaching mechanics and usage; Trimbur, juxtaposing his views to postmodern theorists, discusses promoting collaborative learning. Although only eight years SePOtate the two articles, differences exist that suggest methodological, topical, and stylistic features of two distinct paradigms. We hope we are not perceived as using Hairston and Trimbur as straw persons; Hairston and Trimbur are recognized leaders in composition studies, and we believe each article, fairly represents the kind of work being published at that time.

The Conventions of Academic Discourse

Hairston, in her response to Trimbur's article in College English, complains about his inaccessible style, and indeed a comparison of his academic disburse to hers suggests that Trimbur's style is exclusionary and may be seen as taking on the characteristics of the father voice of elitism in the aca,4utny. Compare, for example, the concluding paragraphs of Hairston's and Trimbur's essays:

I was not surprised to have the comments indicate that the qualities in writing that business and professional people value most are clarity and economy. I was surprised, however, at how vehement and specific they were about misspellings, faulty punctuation, and what they unabashedly call "errors." I think it is important for us and for our students to realize that this fairly representative sample of middle-aged and influential Americans has strong conservative views about usage. Although there seem to be some signs of change, and on some usage items the public may be ahead of the professions, I think that we cannot afford to let students leave our classrooms thinking that surface features of discourse do not matter. They do. ("Errors" 799)

It would be fatuous, of course, to presume that collaborative learning can constitute more than momentarily an alternative to the present asymmetrical relations of power and distribution of knowledge and its means of production. But it can incite desire through common work to resolve, if only symbolically, the contradictions students face because of the prevailing conditions of production--the monopoly of expertise and the Impulse to know, the separation of work and play, allegiance to peers and dependence on faculty esteem, the experience of cooperation and the competitiveness of a ranking reward system, the empowering sense of collectivity and the isolating personalization of an individual's fate. A rehabilitated notion of consensus in collaborative learning can provide students with exemplary motives to imagine alternative worlds and transformations of social life and labor. In its deferred and utopian form, consensus offers a way to orchestrate dissensus and to turn the conversation in the collaborative classroom into a heterotopia of voices--a heterogeneity without hierarchy. ("Consensus" 615)

The difference between the two styles hardly needs explicit analysis. The average length of sentences in Hairston's last paragraph is 24 words, in Trimbur's 40. Based on Fiesch's reading case scale, which is a scale from 0 for the Most difficult text to 100 for the most readable, the reading level of Hairston's last paragraph is 44 compared to 9 for Trimbur's. Even those who believe reading scales attempt to quantify what cannot be quantified will be struck with the difference in the level of abstraction, even vocabulary. Compare, for example, Hairston's more difficult words--"vehement" and “unabashedly"--to Trimbur's--"heterotopia" and "heterogeneity."

The adversary method, used by Janice Moulton to discuss academic style ill Philosophy and later by Olivia Frey to discuss literary criticism in PMLA, also distinguishes Trimbur's essay from Hairston's. Frey describes the adversary method as one critic establishing his own authority by denigrating the authority of other critics: "It is the 'Critics to date have ignored _________ or the 'Critical opinion about __________  differs considerably, betraying how badly _________ has been misunderstood... (511-12). Using the feminist theory of Mary Field Belenky et al., Frey concludes that this adversary method suggests the masculine "separate knowing," which contrasts to the feminine "connected knowing" (517).

Hairston does not use this adversary method; the only sources she cites are those she uses for confirmation. Early in his essay, Trimbur avoids the worst abuses of the adversary method by stating that his critique of collaborative learning theory is "not to abandon the notion of consensus but to revise it" (603). Nonetheless, as his essay proceeds it becomes increasingly clear that supporting Trimbur's theory entails rejecting the work of other theorists. He finds in Rorty's theory of conversation "something troubling" (606) and "some problems" (607). Later, referring to Rorty's and Bruffee's views, Trimbur suggests we should "abandon the view that abnormal discourse functions as a complement to normal discourse . . ." (608). Still later, Trimbur writes, "both Bruffee and Myers seriously underestimate. . . " and "it can be misleading, therefore, to tell students, as social constructionists do..." (610).

Trimbur reveals a self-awareness of the theoretical assumptions upon which his article rests, discussing Dewey, Bruffee, and Rorty at length. As writers are today, Trimbur appears acutely aware of the notion of intertextuality--that his conversation is part of a larger context and his contributions are to be measured and defined by previous conversations. Although Hairston's article is not a theoretical, she spends little time situating her viewpoint within a larger conversation. She mentions Mina Shaughnessy in one sentence, Anne Ruggles Gere and Eugene Smith in another, Charles P. Kline and W. Dean Memering in another, and assigns Robin Lakoff to a footnote. Shaughnessy's theories on disadvantaged students and Lakoff's theory of gender and power--which would speak to the points Hairston makes in her essay--are not discussed. Although the heavy theorizing seen in Trimbur's essays and other scholarship in recent years may enrich and validate our scholarship, it also limits those who can participate in the conversation. This trend toward theorizing where ideas rather than people are the focus of the text can be seen politically as a way to bring the father voice of individualism and elitism to pedagogy. Trimbur's discussions of Dewey's educational pragmatism, Bruffee's social constructionism, and Barthes' acratic discourse serve to exclude more readers than they include.

Pedagogy implies a concern with connection--connecting teachers to students as well as to other teachers; both Hairston's and Trimbur's essays are ostensibly about such connections. However, while the stylistic features of Hairston's article reinforce this connection, the features of Trimbur's suggest individualism--academics setting themselves apart from others in order to participate in elitist conversations. Furthermore, although Trimbur is committed to helping his students examine "the popular culture of late capitalism and its construction of race, class, and gender differences" (614), critics question if proponents of the liberal agenda are committed more to promoting political ideology than to helping students. Louise Wetherbee Phelps writes, "recent composition theory paves the way for a pedagogy that treats students as vehicles for political action by others who know better than they do what is good for them and for society" (50). 'Mat is, students are not valued for their individual worth but for the role they can play in furthering postmodernist ideals. And this postmodernist zeal, Michael Murphy argues, leads composition studies, once again, into the blind service of institutional goals (e.g., democracy), so that "the composition student is left, once again like the discipline itself, inadvertently but undeniably disabled" (356).

A critique of postmodern pedagogy does not necessarily mean a vindication of the earlier writing-as-process paradigm. Although Hairston's academic discourse is more inclusive and thus more mother-like than Trimbur's, the mother voice is often framed, indeed co-opted, by the father voice of the academy or society. Hairston, as we have seen, objects to Trimbur for politicizing the classroom. One could argue, though, that the difference here is that Trimbur admits to the political implications of his teaching, while Hairston does not. Trimbur alludes to "the politics of collaborative learning" (602) and recognizes that he is "tak[ing] up the left-wing critique" (604). In her 1981 essay, Hairston invokes "administrators and executives and business people" (794) and "middle-aged and influential Americans" (799) as powerholders whose views are to be respected. That Hairston's conservative ideology is in opposition to Trimbur's marxist position cannot be ignored when assessing the differences between the two; Trimbur in fact in his letter in College English suggests that Hairston "comes perilously close to redbaiting" (700).

Unlike Trimbur, Hairston does not acknowledge the political assumptions that she is making, in this case privileging an ideology where capitalism and hierarchy-values of the father voice traditionally heard in American society-are privileged. Teachers and ironically women teachers are complicit in the very institutions that devalue nurturing. Madeleine Grumet in her critique of education and the way women are co-opted to further the cause of patriarchy writes: "We employ many women, even many mothers, as the very agents who deliver their children to the patriarchy" (32). They teach their pupils to embrace individualism and the competitive spirit that accompanies such individualism. In "Diversity, Ideology, and Teaching Writing," Maxine Hairston evokes a mother image when she writes that the teacher is "a midwife, an agent for change rather than a transmitter of fixed knowledge" (192), yet she appears to support the kind of change in students that allows them to join the American business establishment.

In Search of Methodology and Subject Matter

One aspect of Hairston's essay that we have not emphasized is that it is an empirical study, a survey of business executives. As composition emerged, or re-emerged, as a distinct field in English departments in the early 60s, methodology became an issue for defining the field. In 1963, with the publication of the landmark book, Research in Written Composition, RichardBraddock, Richard Lloyd-Jones, and Lowell Schoer set an empirical agenda for composition studies, suggesting that they accepted the standard view of science and accorded the greatest importance to methodology (Burnham 200; Gere 118).

The move toward embracing the methodologies of the sciences can be seen as political because of the enormous power the sciences, especially the hard sciences, have held in society. Richard Rorty suggests that "the natural scientist" has been since the Enlightenment "the dominant cultural figure" (139). If scholarship is a father figure in the university, then scientific scholarship is the grand patriarch. Ironically, then, Hairston's article by being empirical reveals again the frequent reality that the mother voice will not be heard--published--unless it somehow reinforces the values of the empowered. "Not All Errors Are Created Equal" was published in College English in the middle of Gray's editorship, when the journal published its highest number of empirical articles. Approximately twenty-two percent of the articles in volume 43, the volume Hairston's article appeared in, were empirical. In Women's Ways of Knowing, Mary Field Belenky etal. observe that some women embrace the separate procedural knowledge that Carol Gilligan associates with the masculine voice. This separateness leads these Women to use "impersonal procedures for establishing truth" and to apply a “mode of objective analysis" to events (102, 109). A belief in impersonal procedures and objective analysis is the basis for Hairston's and much empirical research.

Empirical studies in English studies can be seen as a failed effort to increase the prestige of pedagogy and composition. At about the same time that empirical research was being encouraged (for example, Diederich's Measuring Growth in English in 1974), the view that composition-indeed all Of English studies-should be addressed in the province of humanism rather than science was being made. Phillip Arrington notes that by the late 70s, “matters of theoretical exploration took precedence over matters of procedure" (379). In 1979, Douglas Park, rejecting the move toward empirical research, argued that "the theoretical foundation of composition studies should be contemplation and critical thought of a quite traditional humanistic kind" (54). James Raymond, in 1982 and before becoming editor of College English, urged members of our profession away from empirical research and toward rhetoric, what he calls "the methodology of the humanities":

Unfortunately, the burning issues in politics, economics, pedagogy, and foreign policy are not the sort that can be conveniently resolved by empirical data, and some of them could not be resolved empirically regardless of the inconvenience, because they are unmanageable by scientific techniques. These are the issues that require humanistic methods, not for resolution (since resolution is often impossible), but for judgment and decision. (782)

John Trimbur's "Consensus and Difference in Collaborative Learning," Published while Raymond was editor, reflects well this turn toward the Methodology of the humanities, as it continues the argument and methodolgy offered by philosophers such as John Dewey and Richard Rorty. Not  surprisingly, considering Raymond’s skepticism about empirical research.

only three percent of the articles published in College English when he was its editor were empirical (during the tenure of his predecessor, Donald Gray, an overall fourteen percent of the articles were empirical).

The move towards the methodologies of the humanities also can be traced in Research in the Teaching of English, NCTE's journal for empirical research (Herrington). In 1978, Alan Purves, editor at that time, noting that RT'P, was publishing fewer experimental studies and more qualitative studies, wrote, "I suspect that we shall have to return to the experimental approach to find out more about the effects of curriculum and teaching practice" (5).  Purves was wrong, though, as RTE participated in and represented the move away from the methodologies of the hard sciences.

In 1987, Judith Langer, co-editor of RTE, tried to soothe those who saw English studies moving away from the methodologies of the hard sciences and toward the qualitative studies of the soft sciences. She noted, "As the role Of the different disciplines becomes clearer, the current debates about quantitative and qualitative methods should give way to an understanding of how different methodologies have helped to answer the different questions that each discipline addresses..."(119). In l988,Langer'sco-editor,Arthur Applebee, addressed again the war between competing methodologies, admitting that experimental research, once the exclusive methodology of RTE, constituted then sixty-one percent of the articles. He further observed that "the distribution of accepted articles closely paralleled that of the submissions"' (240). That is, he and Langer as editors reflected rather than Sh4Ped the discipline. By the end of their tenure in 1991, Langer and Applebee perceived that the war between competing methodologies had died down:

The war between qualitative and quantitative methodologies has abated if not ended. Qualitative research has become an accepted part of our tradition of inquiry and appears regularly in RTE; the obligatory defense of the researcher's decision not to "count" has also disappeared from most other journals, and even from many dissertations. (388)

By the time Langer and Applebee stepped down as editors, quantitative research--if not defeated--was no longer the unquestioned methodology of choice in RTE.

Sandra Stotsky, the latest editor, has continued to shift the emphasis in, RTE away from empiricism. In her initial issue, she writes, "I also welcome both philosophical essays on the English curriculum offering a rationale for new approaches or topics for research as well as exploratory essays on modes of Assessment appropriate for the cognitive, aesthetic, and civic goals of English instruction" (5). With the word "philosophical," Stotsky is clearly aligning the journal with discourse in the humanities. The mission of , Research in the Teaching of English may remain pedagogical (as Stotsky clearly states), but it apparently can fulfill that mission without using empiricism exclusively.

Although an interest in empirical methods has continued (e.g., Lauer and Asher, Composition Research: Empirical Design), the scientific model, particularly quantitative studies, has not enhanced the status of composition for two reasons related to power. First, while the sciences have used empirical research to investigate non-classroom matters from molecules to ecosystems, empirical research has not been empowering in English studies because it has ironically reiterated the concerns of the mother voice by investigating student writing and the classroom. Second, literature has remained the powerholder in English studies, and it has largely rejected the scientific model. If other areas of English studies want to share in that power, then the conclusion appears to be that they must practice the methodologies of father literature rather than father science. Both fathers disdain pedagogy and participate in elitist discourse, but their methodologies are very different. The field of composition studies, as long as it remains housed in English departments dominated by literary studies, may garner more prestige if it is addressed by methodologies employed in the humanities. While the methodologies of the hard sciences are quantitative, humanistic methodologies tend to be historical, hermeneutical, or analytic.

Recently, Reed Way Dasenbrock has called for composition studies to embrace analytic philosophy, which can be seen as both a new methodology and a new subject. Aware of the political implications behind the failed efforts to link composition with empiricism, Dasenbrock writes, "Over the past generation what composition wanted to be when it grew up was a social science, in particular one of the social sciences trying hard to be a real science" (21). Dasenbrock finds this effort to embrace empiricism misguided, believing instead that "the study of writing is fundamentally a field in the humanities, with naturally closer links to other humanistic disciplines than to the scientific models of the social sciences" (22). Dasenbrock recognizes that some composition theorists, because they are hostile to literature studies, have been reluctant to embrace analytic philosophy to which the father voice of literature is strongly indebted. He also admits that analytic philosophy changes the focus of composition studies by displacing the act of writing from the classroom:

It is deeply ironic that composition theorists--after having criticized literature-based composition courses for years for not making writing the central concern of the course--are now themselves displacing writing from the center of attention of the writing course. (30)

In spite of this irony and recognizing the concern of people such as Maxine Hairston, Dasenbrock explicitly sides with John Trimbur and urges a move toward analytic philosophy.

In a statement more polemic than Dasenbrock's, Michael Carter offers a justification for the move away from pedagogy as a subject matter in our professional conversations. Carter suggests that we can do more than displace pedagogy from the center of academic conversations; we can banish it altogether. Recent criticisms directed toward English studies, he believes, have a common concern: "At the root of these criticisms is the expectation that the primary value of scholarship is that it should be instrumental" (309). Carter objects to this perception of our profession, arguing instead that scholarship is inevitably non-functional: "What has happened is that we have now exposed that foundation for what it is and always has been--the rhetoric of display" (310). Scholarship, then, should not be expected to have a pedagogical function. Picking up on the game metaphor used in postmodern theory, he states, "its [scholarship's] essential characteristic is that it is a game played by scholars with scholars"(311). Although the game metaphor recalls the language games described by Wittgenstein, Gadamer, and Bahktin, it also echoes the more Philistine sports metaphor and reveals the inherently masculine perspective of scholarship. Bleich writes, "I think there is something socially and historically masculine in the interest in rules and games, which accounts in part for the strong role of the game idea in (masculine) theorizing about the problems of language" (24). If one accepts Carter's position, then the new game in the late 80s and early 90s has been one of elitism and individualism--and not pedagogy. The kind of articles published in College English reflect this trend. Nine out of ten articles in College English under Gray explicitly addressed pedagogy; under Raymond that number dropped to six out of ten.

The Framework of the Academy

Those who participated in the paradigm shift of composition that moved discussions from writing product to writing process thought the move would empower composition studies. Susan Miller writes, "This paradigm has moved composition from a purely applied, practical set of ways to inculcate propriety to a field claiming equality with other academic fields" (84). Although this earlier shift may have enhanced the reputation of composition studies by providing a theoretical perspective, the claim of equality was difficult to defend. Composition remained subordinate to literature, because the mothering impulse of writing as process, as articulated by Flynn, confirmed the notion that composition is about nurturing and therefore subordinate to the individualism expressed through literature studies. In- deed, as a political move, the writing-as-process paradigm was a failure. It emphasized the wrong subject (i.e., students) and, within the context of the discipline of English studies, the wrong methodology (i.e., empiricism). By contrast, postmodernism appears to be a more politically savvy move, a move likely to garner the prestige people in composition studies have long desired; however, we believe we should also recognize that this move means a further alignment with the father voice in the academy--and all that that voice represents.

Insert Here

with men. As a journal that has, at least until recently, been devoted to methodologies outside the purview of the humanities and that remains committed to classroom concerns, Research in Teaching of English may be viewed in some English departments as less prestigious than journals that specialize in theory and non-pedagogical topics.

A number of reasons have been posed for the gender disparity in publishing practices (Baker and Goubil-Gambrell 435-38). Women, entrenched in teaching-intensive jobs, may have less time to publish than men who are more likely to attain research positions. And the articles these women publish may be more likely to be pedagogical because the teaching-intensive duties lead them in that direction. Also, the connection between teacher and student may be more appealing to those women who espouse values associated with nurturing and connection. Nayda Aisenberg and Mona Harrington further suggest, "in their scholarship, women practice--in their choice of subject matter and methodologies--an inclusiveness that strikes indirectly at habits and practices of social exclusion" (138). These practices may make women's scholarship less attractive to editors and publishers, and women may find the publishing world more hostile to their scholarship in spite of the process of blind reviews.

It is little wonder, then, that the mothering impulse of teaching has long been distorted by its subordinate position within the patriarchal institution of the academy and is now nearly eradicated in much of composition scholarship. Susan Miller, recognizing that mother roles can be used to further father roles in the academy and society, writes about female roles in the teaching of composition:

Consequently, one figure of a composition teacher is overloaded with symbolic as well as actual functions. These functions include the dual (or even triple) roles that are washed together in these teachers: the nurse who cares for and tempts her young charge toward "adult" uses of language that will not "count" because they are, for now, engaged in only with hired help; the "mother" (tongue) that is an ideal/idol and can humiliate, regulate, and suppress the child's desires; and finally the disciplinarian, now not a father figure but a sadomasochistic Barbarella version of either maid or mother. (137)

Miller's denunciation of the power system in the academy is especially strident here, but we share her concern as we are painfully aware of the obstacles facing those who speak the mother voice in a patriarchal system. Many people, for their own political or personal reasons, may choose to reject the values and conventions of the larger academy, but they pay a price. A person who wants to speak only the mother voice in the university is silenced by being denied a tenured position or is ignored as an invisible temporary who teaches too many students at too low a salary so that scholars are free to write. With few exceptions, the mother voice is heard only when it is co-opted by the father voice. One could argue that finding an androgynous voice for academic discourse would erase the female voice/male voice dichotomy and help academicians escape the peril Miller describes. But a truly androgynous voice would be one that values equally separation and attachment, and surely that would create a schizophrenia as debilitating as the sadomasochism Miller depicts.

It is appropriate for the shift to the father voice that Hairston is female and Trimbur is male, but we recognize that the differences in values that we perceive are not necessarily a difference in gender. As we stated early in our essay, gender roles are finally power positions which transcend differences in biology. Some men have found their voices silenced, while some women have embraced the move toward postmodernism. Taking very much the same argument as Hairston, Kenneth Eble has written, "Every year it becomes harder to renew my membership in organizations that deal with what I've supposedly spent my life doing: reading books and teaching English" (933). On the other hand, Louise Smith--two years before she became editor of College English --applauds Raymond's efforts: "I almost always read CE cover to cover; this time [October 1989--when Trimbur's article appeared] doing so was a special treat. So, congratulations" (473). Too, we recognize that we are participating in the postmodern shift that we critique; our article would not be read, perhaps not even written, if publishing opportunities in composition studies and pedagogy had not changed. Power--not simply gender--is at issue in the changes we have observed, as scholars determine how the professional conversations in pedagogy and composition can be shaped to command power in departments of English.

The mother voice communicates about the connections found in teaching, yet historically beneath the genuine concern for the needs of our students has been a willingness to serve the more powerful needs of the male-dominated academic and social institutions. A new voice is being heard in pedagogical endeavors, one that often speaks of dismantling patriarchal institutions, yet this new voice--by using elitist discourse and replacing one set of male icons with another--seems one more version of the father voice. Only a few scholars today (Elizabeth Flynn comes easily to mind) seem able to speak about the value of connection in teaching without furthering Patriarchal values. The first few issues of College English since Louise Smith became editor suggest that the journal is publishing prose that is less turgid and topics that do address pedagogy, but it is too soon to tell if a new paradigm is emerging. As for now, composition scholars who see themselves as scholars first and teachers second (or third) seem to have figured out at long last how to achieve respectability in the academy: suppress the mother voice simply by not talking about our students at all.¹