My Academic Life Form Linguistics to Literature
Menia Almenia
Dr. Lothian
ENG 985
Assignment # 3
5 November 2013
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My life as a graduate student changes my vision of the world we live in it today. As a matter of fact, I spent most of my life living in a small town in Saudi Arabia until I got the chance to complete my post-graduation studies in the United States. As an ordinary man living in the third world country my major concerns during my BA studies was to get a job right after graduation. My bachelor degree was in English language and translation and the focus was more on the linguistics than literature. The only literature courses I studied were three classic British genres: a novel, a collection of poems, and a play. Since I received my bachelors’ degree in English at Qassim University in Saudi Arabia, I was lucky to be hired as a teaching assistant with a condition of being majored in Literature and to complete my postgraduate studies in the United States and to serve back these years at the university. lacking the faculties majoring in literature was the big need for the English department at Qassim University and I was asked to take the challenge to be the first faculty member who will be a graduate student majoring in literature. In fact, lacking a solid background in literature and critical theories has always been a threat of failure for me. It is my fear of failure that requires an extra effort in order to achieve the goal and to fill the gap that my English department asks me to be the one of those who will fulfill it.
My optimism is the key toward success and to confront my fear of failure. In The Queer Art of Failure, Judith Halberstam refers to what Ehrenreich said that, “If optimism is the key to material success, and if you achieve an optimistic outlook through the discipline of positive thinking, then there is no excuse for failure” (3). Therefore, I kept telling myself that you can do it as long as you work hard for it. Being optimistic was one of the major elements that encouraged me to take the challenge and work hard to achieve my goal. This optimism is what Halberstam call, “the ideology of positive thinking insists that success depends only upon working hard and failure is always of your own doing” (3). In my mind, my fear of failure always pushes me up and even during the failure moments, it is a healthy feeling that keeps me working hard toward my goals in this life.
Since I came to United States in 2010 in order to pursue my master degree in literature, I started to build myself through an extensive reading of a variety of literary texts. As a matter of fact, it was not really an easy task for me. As for my graduate classmates, they were familiar with most of the texts we read, which are all new for me. It is common among my English professors that most of the second language students to be majored in linguistics or TESOL and I was the only non-native speaker in the MA English program in Murray State University. This experience has increased the fear of failure in my mind and I was thinking of what is my position among my classmates and how my voice can be heard here?
I had the chance to take a class in minority and Multi-Ethnic literature in the second semester in my master program. Many of the questions and inquiries in my mind found the right answers. Placing my identity to those multi-ethnic authors has opened the chance for me to have my voice being heard. I realized the value of the Multi-Ethnic literature especially for my English department in Qassim University. I situate myself to those marginalized authors who were able to present their identity to the world and speak about their nations. The majority of the multi-ethnic writers carry several messages in their texts and most of them represent the oppression that their nation suffers from legacy of the colonizers’ domination in their countries. This field of study finds my most interest and I start reading a lot of literary texts written by multi-ethnic writers. At that time, I questioned myself why Multi-Ethnic literature is not taught at many English departments at several universities in Saudi Arabia and this field exists in most of the English departments in the American Universities?
Today in the postmodern world of literary studies, the focus is not only on British or American literature. However, a change in many English programs in the American university occurred about 40 years ago. This change was part of the equality in literature studies where a variety of American multiethnic texts have been considered in the canon and appeared in English programs in American universities as well. Therefore, I thought about my role as professor of English, as my profession, is to consider the advantages of teaching Multi-Ethnic Literatures in the American university English class.
In the 21st century, English professors and teachers are having a responsibility to portray the significant role of Multi-Ethnic literatures as an important part of the English Literature. Part of their obligations is to consider that multi-ethnic literature studies is one of the important fields today that give students a valuable knowledge of the ethnic diversity and a wider vision of different concerns among different cultures. At many American Universities today, students can improve their skills in reading and interpreting multiethnic cultures concerns from different ethnic groups like: Native American, African American, Hispanic American, Asian American, Arab American, and American Eskimo. The inclusion of multi-ethnic literature to the literature program has proved that it is helping students to identify the notion of being American, what does it mean to be American, and what is scarified when another culture engage with the idea of being American? Through reflecting on the multiple ethnic and racial cultures that individual draw upon, students will be able to identify the power of the United States. In addition, they will be able to see what struggles and choices that individual men and women made in order to address the prejudice of the U.S. and how these choices varies between gender. The Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States (MELUS) is providing a substantial role for the Multi-Ethnic Literature studies over the last four decades, and today we see the significant change exists at the English department at the American university. Therefore, teaching Multi-Ethnic literatures have shown a positive impact among literature studies at the American university.
Based the historical facts and the great impact that was made by inclusion of the multi-ethnic literature at the English department at the American university, I thought that it is important to identify the implications once applied at the English department at Qassim University in Saudi Arabia. Producing knowledge is part of universalism in my profession at the English department that urges me to contribute this positive impact to my own university in my country. However, multi-ethnic literature studies is still not existing today at most of the Saudi Arabian universities. Most of the English departments there are providing the traditional studies of the British and American literature studies without considering the role of the multi-ethnic literature in the English classroom.
Today, I am furthering my studies as a doctoral of philosophy student at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. I am in advanced step toward my project of change and liberation. People in the third world countries like my home, Saudi Arabia, need my support for the change to gain the valid knowledge. University today is the place of change and the call for justice. Therefore, it is unjust to have only canonized classic British and American literature studies at most of the Saudi universities without any reference to the Multi-Ethnic literature studies. Works by many multi-ethnic authors are part of the revised canon today and such works have essential messages that should be discussed at the English classroom. My role is to establish a change in my university by considering their works at the English classroom at Qassim University. I believe that teaching multi-ethnic literature gives the students the opportunity to see the complications of a given society. This cannot be possible unless we modify the criteria by which we classify works and authors as canonical. Multi-ethnic writers are to find their place in our ‘standard’ anthologies and that is how we start incorporating them in our curriculum.
Since we lack the experienced faculties in many English department who are majored in literature, part of my obligations when I go back is to describe the advantages of the needs of being exposed to Multi-Ethnic Literature studies and how that will result in different perspectives and different understandings. That is always uncomforting but always educational. Students get to learn the experiences of the minorities with their history and, therefore, that can change the way we perceive United States or England, or any other nation. Another advantage is to be conversant with the English studies around the world, which, although not a priority for undergraduate students, reflect the vigorousness of English studies in the West. In addition, students will be able to understand how foreigner authors are looking at the English or American cultures. Different cultures would create some new viewpoints that even American and English citizens would be interested in different themes that foreign authors from other cultures are offering. Most importantly, studying Multi-Ethnic literatures can help students to realize that different writers who are coming from different races and ethnicities can write their own works in English language. This means that the students would realize that they could be English writers without being English/American natives.
In this critical memoir I am driving my thoughts from Kosofsky Sedgwick’s “A Dialogue on Love”. Sedgwick as an academic scholar in the field of queer theory and her most critical writings support the field of queer studies. Considering her own hetrosexual life and her interest to reinforce the queer performativity makes me think of my own identity as a non-native speaker majoring in literature. As we might get from reading sedgwick, we see the she encourages her readers to displace their heterosexual identity in reading through the queer lens. For this matter, I made my decision to write this critical memoir that portrays the challenges and obligations that the encountered in my academic life. The big shift I made in my life, to take the rout of Literature instead of linguistics, has given me the critical philosophy, through which I am able to see the world with different critical lenses and I am able to see the whole world more clearly.
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Work Cited
Judith Halberstam, The Queer Art of Failure. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2011.
On the one hand, I envy you the experience of approaching the canon with fresh eyes. On the other, it seems like an insurmountable amount of work to do so, and that you can have. In fact, I know it is an insurmountable amount of work because I’ve been making inroads into this crap my whole life, and they still only amount to piddling goat-trails. I admire how you have transformed your initial position in regard to literature (coming at it from the margins) into a formal approach, both theoretical and pedagogical which will be of value to your students as you continue on your educational career.
I understand the uses of the fear of failure as a motivator to spur yourself on to greater efforts, greater success, and I’m not about to try to talk you down from that. Academic competition mirrors competition we see inherent in the economies upon which our lives really do depend (no joke). That said, I trust that Halberstam had some effect in helping to offer perspective on defining the failed as another area of marginalia that links into your own area of concentration.