New Birth Stories Project

I haven't written much since I've been back to school, mostly because I have plenty of writing to do elsewhere, but also because my mind is all filled up with thoughts about rhetoric, writing, teaching, and the like. Today, I was doing some thinking about a new research project I am contemplating, and it occurred to me, "Why not do some of my thinking out loud on my blog?" So here goes.

I am interested in birth stories (as well as birth preparation manuals, but that will have to wait). Right now, I am just beginning to form some questions about them. I've done a little research, and there is very little academic work done on birth stories. What there is, I don't have access to, but I'm getting it.

Why do women tell birth stories? They certainly do it a lot, as any baby shower or mom's night out participant can tell you. It's amazing how much women talk about this. Who else tells personal narratives with this kind of fervor? Soldiers telling war stories? Religious testimony?

Why do some women choose to write these stories down? What is different about writing the story and telling it? Why do some women make these stories public on the internet? Who is actually reading these stories? Other moms, pregnant women? Who is the audience that these women are writing for?

Are there archives of birth stories I can find and use? Do I want to look only at written birth stories or include oral storytelling as well? Can I find birth stories by men? What are they like? Birth stories by birth attendants? Birth stories by family members or friends?

What will I find in these stories? Some things to look for:

1. agency - Who is in control in the stories? Do birth attendants appear as the subject of the sentence more often or less often than the mothers? Look for explicit references to choices, to deliberation, to the process by which decisions are made (both before the birth and in emergency situations). Are the stories themselves an act of control?

2. language about the body - How do women talk about their bodies? Will I find everyday or technical body descriptions? How do birth attendants in the stories talk about or treat women's bodies?

3. isolation - How isolated is the mother in the story? Birth stories strike me as a way of making our inner lives open to the outside during a very important life event. Is this correct? Are the stories showing women who are alone in their heads? Or are the women connected, during the birth, to the people around them? Are the birth stories themselves an attempt at connection?

4. community - How do the writers of the stories talk about other women, their partners and families, their birth attendants, their babies? Are these birth stories communal stories or very individual stories?

I'd love to hear any feedback you have about these questions, or anything else about birth stories that you find interesting. Also, if you have a birth story that you would like to be included in my research, email it to me at kellyelmore79 at gmail.com.

Why I am Taking Anthropology in the Fall

No, I haven't changed my degree program. I am still booking along toward my master's degree in rhetoric and composition. My schedule for fall includes Enlightenment Rhetoric and Writing and Research Methodology. I am hoping to present on using positive discipline in college pedagogy at a conference, and I am planning a paper on classical rhetoric in Ender's Game. I am right on track with all that English department goodness.

But, I am also signed up for Intro to Anthropology. It doesn't have one bit to do with my degree. It has nothing to do with my academic background. It's just fun.

Every semester, I try to take a class just for fun, a class that I am interested in for it's own sake, a class that is new and exciting. I like to take languages; my last semester fun class was Latin. This semester, I also considered a math class and Ancient Hebrew.

I consider learning different and exciting subjects as one of the great benefits of being in a university setting for most of my week. Everywhere I go, there are professors and students who are engrossed in studying subjects I know nothing about. The library is full of books about things I never imagined. The schedule is packed with courses I would love to take, majors I would love to have, if only I had all the time in the world.

The cool thing is that right now I do have a lot of time. I definitely have time for the workload of one undergraduate course. And for that little bit of extra time I put in, I get the feeling of branching out, of integrating far flung subjects into my mental picture of the world. I get the excitement of learning the basics of a new subject. I get the chance to be a wanderer in the university, not a provincial citizen of one department, but a globe-trotter.

Rhetoric: Who Needs It?

This post was inspired by a conversation at our Ender's Game reading group when we were discussing Ender's leadership abilities and the ability to manipulate people. To the person who disagreed with me, I hope you don't feel attacked. I think this is a terribly interesting topic, and I'm glad to have a chance to clarify my thoughts about it.

The person basically said that she didn't like it when people used their skills/people manipulation/rhetoric (though she didn't use that word). She wishes that people would just be honest and basically tell the flat out, unbiased, neutral truth. She was a little appalled that I would intentionally arrange situations to bring people together or keep them apart at a social gathering.

The thing is, I don't believe there is a flat out, unbiased, neutral truth in human communication. By choosing words, gestures, tones of voice, and body language, we choose connotations. It is impossible to strip human communication of connotation. We can't make it neutral because we can't strip the human out of the communication. Even in writing, word choice and syntax carry connotation.

Some people are better at using these forms of rhetoric than others. Some can choose their words and tones and gestures (usually subconsciously, I think) to give their ideas the connotations they intend. Some can smooth social situations so that everyone has a better time by manipulating the situation. Some can make truth easier to hear or easier for a specific person to understand. These people do this by using rhetoric.

Rhetoric does not mean lies. It means constructing the content and form of the communication in the most effective way for both the communicator and the audience. People do use it for bad, lying purposes. But pedophiles lure children into vans with puppies (at least in the movies); that doesn't make puppies deceitful.

I believe that there are two kinds of people: ones who use rhetoric effectively and on purpose and ones who use it accidentally and (usually) ineffectively. It's like Ayn Rand's essay "Philosophy: Who Needs It?"; you can consciously choose your philosophy (and the way you communicate) or you can do it subconsciously. But no one can keep clear of a philosophy, just as no one can tell the flat-out, unbiased, neutral truth. We cannot escape the fact that language is connotative.

It's also my wish that we could get rid of a disdain for socially-skilled people, along with the idea that rhetoric is inherently deceitful. Without the kinds of things these people do--smoothing over awkward social situations, making connections between people who would like each other, seeing that people who dislike each other aren't forced into contact, and cementing groups together by tying themselves to lots of individual members--,social groups wouldn't function nearly so well. Businesses, organizations, teams, and groups of friends would fall into disrepair.

People with really good social skills who work a room or manipulate situations (when they use their powers for good) are not being deceitful or dishonest. They are using rhetoric and making the most of human communication.