[Vwoolf] Compulsory Able-Mindedness, the Listserv, and Teaching

Tue Mar 13 19:20:42 EDT 2018

HI All— this conversation made me suddenly remember this poem I wrote years ago! It’s from a manuscript collection I never finished called, “A Portrait of Women In Words.” I made sonnet-poems to the many women I was studying at the time, like Plath & Wharton & Mansfield & Janet Flanner & Alice Dunbar-Nelson and on and on. The last line in this poem I think speaks to the ambiguities we’re addressing……..maybe?……Laurie (I hope this is readable; I’m not great with computers and attaching things….)

> On Mar 13, 2018, at 4:06 PM, Clark, Hilary via Vwoolf <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu> wrote:
> 
> Hi Ann!
> It might come from "compulsory heterosexuality" (Adrienne Rich's essay "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence") but I think "compulsory" has been paired over time with new terms. Right now, turning 63, I'm preoccupied with compulsory youthfulness.
> 
> Hilary Clark
> 
> From: Vwoolf <vwoolf-bounces at lists.osu.edu <mailto:vwoolf-bounces at lists.osu.edu>> on behalf of Martin, Ann via Vwoolf <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu <mailto:vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>>
> Sent: March 13, 2018 2:15 PM
> To: vwoolf at lists.osu.edu <mailto:vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>
> Subject: [Vwoolf] Compulsory Able-Mindedness, the Listserv, and Teaching
>  
> To follow up on your comments/questions, Laurie: yes.  Two weeks ago in my grad course, Modernism and the Fashioned Self, I was setting up a move from Woolf (Mrs Dalloway) to Hemingway, and one of the first queries that was posed had to do with Hemingway's biography and his mental health. The listserv discussions of Woolf, bipolar disorders, and the classroom were immensely valuable in my follow-up the next day; as a direct result, a student is now working on compulsory able-bodiedness in The Sun Also Rises and Timothy Findley's The Wars.  
> 
> While I'm here: they're wondering, Madelyn, if you (and Brenda?) coined the phrase "compulsory able-mindedness," or whether it has another provenance. It's such an appropriate and productive term: any information on that front would be most welcome.
> 
> With best wishes,
> Ann
> 
> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2018 13:04:02 -0700
> From: Laurie Reiche <lauriereiche at gmail.com <mailto:lauriereiche at gmail.com>>
> To: "Brenda S. Helt" <helt0010 at umn.edu <mailto:helt0010 at umn.edu>>
> Cc: Woolf list <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu <mailto:vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>>
> Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] Woolf bipolar
> Message-ID: <1114039E-BF9E-4D35-9E96-13D75CEEFC45 at gmail.com <mailto:1114039E-BF9E-4D35-9E96-13D75CEEFC45 at gmail.com>>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
> 
> Yes; yes. I think this is so spot-on. We/I have veered off track from your original question! It is such a hot/passionate trigger-issue! I don?t have time for much of a lengthy response except to say you might share with your students this exchange that you?re having with Woolf scholars (don?t share the emails, but share it as a verbal story)- share with them how hard, it is, indeed, even for scholars and professors to separate things we know about Woolf and can?t not know, can?t unknow; and ask them if they have any suggestions?.. But also, I?m interested to know if this knowing a person?s psychological history etc., is a gender thing. For instance, does knowing Hemmingway shot himself in the head impact our reading of his work or have people just put it aside, so to speak. Why does it come up for Plath and not Berryman or Nerval? I?ve noticed this in classes, people have forgotten Hemmingway killed himself, at least when reading his work it hardly seems to become an issue, 
>  and it kind of makes me fume a little! Again, this is a hot distracting topic!!!!
>         cheerio!
>         Laurie
> 
> Laurie Reiche
> lauriereiche at gmail.com <mailto:lauriereiche at gmail.com>
> www.laurie-reiche.squarespace.com <http://www.laurie-reiche.squarespace.com/>
> 
> Dr. Ann Martin
> Associate Professor and Undergraduate Chair
> Department of English | College of Arts and Science | University of Saskatchewan
> 420 Arts Tower
> Saskatoon SK  S7N 5A5  Canada
> 306.966.5527
> 
> Our Department acknowledges that the land on which we gather is Treaty Six territory and traditional Metis homeland, and we acknowledge the diverse Indigenous peoples whose footsteps have marked this territory for centuries.
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