Conference Proposal Draft

Proposal, University of Cincinnati Graduate Conference

Anxious Spaces: Constructing, Historicizing, and Contextualizing Images and Stories of Difference and Otherness

Many neoliberal feminists and scholars cheered the use of technology which provided a venue of expression for women in nonwestern countries, implying that these women had no agency prior to technology. Images and stories of these women have bombarded the Internet, and are consumed in a superficial manner that lacks consideration to materiality. Some have even imposed a political or a personal agenda on these materials. In 2009, Time used the photograph of a disfigured Afghani woman accompanied by the line, “What Happens if We Leave Afghanistan,” deliberately eliminating the question mark to manipulate the suffering of Afghani women for a political agenda. The media has helped to construct the image of the “Other woman” while ignoring her lived material conditions. Many transnational feminists, such as Mary Queen, warn that technology is “profoundly implicated in globalized capitalist practices” and is “often perceived, paradoxically, as a technology that connects us to others while it simultaneously remains disconnected from material reality” (473). Echoing this concern, Cynthia Selfe defines new media texts “in terms of materiality instead of digitality” (19). In the teaching of writing about women across cultures, we should question: How can we create a space that goes beyond the binary of “self” and “Other” in the writing classroom? How can technology promote tolerance and acknowledgment of the “Other” rather than alienate the student?

 Although these concerns over technology are legitimate, I believe that incorporating a pedagogy of difference and otherness into the writing class via the creation of and the interaction with multimodal texts can result in a deeper understanding of the “Other woman.” These projects provide our students with spaces that help them historicize and contextualize these images and stories rather than viewing them out of context—a practice that might lead to exoticizing and essentializing them. My presentation introduces a web site that is constructed with these themes in mind. The web site is organized in a way that speaks to human experience by placing images and stories about women across cultures within their historical contexts, which encourages students to acknowledge difference and find commonalities to relate to the “Other.” This provides a dialogical space in which the power structure is horizontal rather than hierarchal—a space where identities are negotiated and renegotiated with the “Other” on equal grounds. 

Equipment needs: Internet access, projector, and speakers should be on.