Academic Work as a Conversation

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Academic Work as a Conversation

• entering into a conversation about ideas
• done in response to what someone else is doing

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Academic Work as a Conversation

• You come late. When you arrive, others have long
  preceded you, and they are engaged in a heated
  discussion, a discussion too heated for them to
  pause and tell you what it is about. You listen
  for a while, until you decide that you have
  caught the tenor of the argument then you put in
  your oar. Someone answers you answer him
  another comes to your defense another aligns
  herself against you. The hour grows late, you
  must depart. And you do depart, with the
  discussion still vigorously in progress.
• Philosopher Kenneth Burke

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Letter from a Birmingham Jail

• You deplore the demonstrations taking place in
  Birmingham. But your statement, I am sorry to
  say, fails to express a similar concern for the
  conditions that brought about the demonstrations
• It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking
  place in Birmingham but it is even more
  unfortunate that the citys white power structure
  left the Negro community with no alternative.

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They Say/I Say

• I like to think I have a certain advantage as a
  teacher of literature because when I was growing
  up I disliked and feared books.
• Gerald Graff, Disliking Books at an Early Age.
• What or who is the they say here?

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They Say/I Say

• Exercise
• Read the op/ed piece I have given you
• And write down
• Who and what is the they say?
• What is the I say?
• Are you convinced by the authors argument
  (yes/no)?

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Questions on Ogborn

• Identify the they say in Ogborn
• What is the I say?
• How does Ogborns idea of networks differ from
  Wallersteins understanding of the globalized
  world?
• How does the story of the East India Co. support
  Ogborns argument?
• How does the experience of workers complicate
  Wallerstein?
• What is significant about the life of Olaudah
  Equiano?