Scholarly Writing Retreat

SCHOLARLY WRITING RETREAT

August 2-7, 2008

Portland, Oregon

This year's writing retreat will build on the successes of past retreats. Most participants will
arrive Friday, August 1. The retreat is five full days, beginning Saturday morning and
ending Wednesday afternoon. The purpose of the retreat is for participants to arrive
with a project partially or fully drafted and leave with a manuscript prepared for submission
(to a professional conference, an academic journal, an advisor, a granting institution, etc).
This may include everything from scholarly research articles to grant writing to finishing
that last chapter of your thesis, dissertation, or book. Whatever your project, if you are interested in building a writing community with peers in your and related fields in a supportive atmosphere while improving your writing and research skills, then the Scholarly Writing Retreat is for you.

Early Registration: $350.00 per person
Early Registration Deadline: June 1, 2008

Registration Includes: Structured discussion seminars, editorial support, reading materials,
basic writing materials (paper, pens, pencils, printer, etc), breakfasts and lunches.
What You Need to Bring: Paper/Project in progress, research materials, laptop or some
other word processor (we have access to a limited number of laptops for those who need them).

Location: Lewis & Clark College, 0615 SW Palatine Hill Road, Portland, OR 97219

Phone: (503) 768-7188

Directions: Here are directions from the Portland International Airport. If you are not flying to
Portland I would recommend Google Maps or Mapquest.

Accomodation Suggestions: 1.Pioneer Square is a popular downtown Portland location, close to Powell's Books, and offers several hotel options such as the Vintage Plaza or the Mark Spencer or the Hotel Monaco that would provide excellent accomodations. You can also search for hotels near Pioneer Square on expedia. In addition, Lewis and Clark College has special rates with many hotels near pioneer square. Just click here to get a list of hotels. When you contact the hotel simply ask for the Lewis and Clark College rate. 2. University Place: This is a bit of a walk to Pioneer Square, but it offers moderate prices for accomodation within walking distance of downtown Portland and Powell's Books.

Transportation: It is the participant's responsibility to arrange transportation. Lewis & Clark College is approximately 6 miles from downtown Portland, but there is no public transportation between downtown and Lewis & Clark during the summer months. Carpooling has been arranged in the past. Please contact me if you are interested in carpooling.

For more information please contact:
G. Mitchell Reyes, Ph.D.
Department of Communication, MSC 35
Lewis & Clark College
0615 SW Palatine Hill Rd
Portland, Or 97219
503.768.7619
mreyes@lclark.edu

What's Left "Old School" Writing?

I created a LiveJournal account recently in hopes of using it to study for comps; however, I’ve rarely used it since I’ve been taking notes and writing by hand—the “old school” way. LiveJournal doesn’t really appeal to me anymore because journals seem to be more about intimacy and remains a tool which serves to give an individual the right to enjoy and secure their privacy.

So what benefits have I received by writing long hand? Lots of hand cramps! There is a lot of pain but also endurance. As I write numerous notes, ideas and fragments for evidence from readings, I’m struggling with my poor left hand, who hasn’t given up on me yet. Yes, I’m a Southpaw. All throughout my years as a student in public schooling, I struggled with desks designed for right handed students. Talk about being isolated!

Even though I choose to struggle with my left hand, I always have a sense of accomplishment writing by hand. I feel free with my ideas and a blank page. I can scratch, draw and erase. I can do and undo. I can see all of my notes and drafts as a journey toward that last draft. Because of this sense of freedom, I now write in my journal by hand. I draw and paint. I’ve even used a black marker to scratch out portions that I want out forever. I censure myself. I revise myself. All of this writing is coming from my instrumental hand which cannot function the same way in typing. Writing using a laptop is nothing like playing the piano. It’s not artistic like writing by hand. Yet, writing by hand is more troublesome. It’s more disruptive. It’s an act of hard work…stemming from the physical not technological.

So, at this point, I have written all of my papers by hand. I am writing for comps by hand. I write in my diary by hand. I guess you could call me “a Southpaw on overdrive.” Writing cannot surface by punching those stubborn keys on the board, it has to come through those fingers in unison working to shape that letter, word, image giving me some voice that I sometimes worry is dangerously formulaic. The audience is too close when I am in front of a laptop or computer screen. I can evict the audience when I am in front of that blank page. I can just ask as many questions and complicate things as much as I want while my hand dances across the page. When did I come to this realization? Hmmm…let me think…I guess when I started writing in a journal shortly after entering college.

Please don’t think that I want to romanticize or idealize writing in a journal. Journals often stress me out with those dictating lines across each page. Those lines want to direct me too much. I want them erased so I can write in slant or draw backwards. In other words, they cut into my creativity. But not creativity in terms of creative writing, creativity in terms of drafting an essay or term paper. This has nothing to do with psychology; it has to do with ritual.

There may be no lines on LiveJournal but the final product, after being posted, shows up in neat and linear lines for an audience. My writing is put into a linear box with lines that don’t understand the messiness of all my thoughts. Same goes for eblogger (thanks for the rigid margins, y’all!)

So with more thoughts, come more blank pages. With more blank pages, my left paw keeps going…energized….with hand soreness and all.

Hasta la proxima.

Writing as Collaborative

“I believe that all writing is collaborative. No matter what you’re doing, even if you’re sitting by yourself at your computer you’re collaborating with somebody, something you’ve read, or some voices you’ve got in your head, or your friends, or something, there’s some kind of collaboration going on.”

Andrea Lunsford, in "How I Write" Interview

I wanted to share the following link to Andrea Lunsford's course titled "Gender and the History of Rhetoric" at Stanford. You can download the syllabus and check out some very interesting reading assignments. For example, students are asked to read combinations such as Frederick Douglass' "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and My Bondage and My Freedom" with Nietzsche's "On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense”.

Interesting, verdad? My most radical move was writing a short paper comparing Nietzsche's "On Truth" and Sarah Grimke's "Letters on the Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of Woman". That was beyond radical!

Derrida's Fear in/of Writing

Check out a clip from the 2002 film about Derrida, who talks about the act that keeps most of us alive.

(Who knew the degree of anxiety, fear and caution that possesses Derrida when writing?)

"Memorias del Silencio" Proyecto

I commend the following project for their outstanding and brilliant effort for our local communidad. Check it out.

"Memorias del Silencio: Footprints of the Borderland"

"The project Memorias del Silencio is the result of a collaboration between El Paso Community College, Community Education Program and BorderSenses. The objective of the project has been to offer creative writing workshops to GED courses for migrant farm workers and their families, with the idea of improving their writing and written skills. The writings that have emerged from these workshops, have been published in two volumes of the book Memorias del Silencio: Footprints of the Borderland. Besides generating new opportunities and a space for the voices of this sector of society, the project Memorias del Silencio wants to show the condition of immigrants who arrive to the United States to work in the fields."

Gloria E. Anzaldua on Writing Teoria

"What is considered theory in the dominant academic community is not necessarily what counts as theory for women-of-color. Theory produces effects that change people and the way they perceive the world. Thus we need teorías that will enable us to interpret what happens in the world, that will explain how and why we relate to certain people in specific ways, that will reflect what goes on between inner, outer and peripheral 'I's within a person and between the personal 'I's and the collective 'we' of our ethnic communities. Necesitamos teorías that will rewrite history using race, class, gender and ethnicity as categories of analysis, theories that cross borders, that blur boundaries-new kinds of theories with new theorizing methods. We need theories that will points out ways to maneuver between our particular experiences and the necessity of forming our own categories and theoretical models for the patterns we uncover. We need theories that examine the implications of situations and look at what's behind them. And we need to find practical application for those theories. We need to de-academize theory and to connect the community to the academy. 'High' theory does not translate well when one's intention is to communicate to masses of people made up of different audiences. We need to give up the notion that there is a 'correct' way to write theory."

Gloria E. Anzaldua, from Making Face, Making Soul: Haciendo Caras