The CEA Forum

Winter/Spring 2007: 36.1

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Book Review:

Julie Jung. Revisionary Rhetoric, Feminist Pedagogy, and Multigenre Texts. Carbondale, IL : Southern Illinois U P, 2005.

by Angela Zimmann, Bowling Green State University

In the epilogue to Revisionary Rhetoric, Feminist Pedagogy, and Multigenre Texts, Julie Jung explains why she has written the book in the way that she has: “I wrote it like this because I want you to feel invited into this discourse in such a way that you cannot write about me and my work without being conscious of your own tendency to reduce it, to latch on to some part of it, and to use that part of it to represent its whole” (158). Indeed. Jung goes on to challenge her readers: “I invite you to summarize cleanly this epilogue for someone who has not read it. Can you do it? If not, is that because it is poorly written or poorly read?” (157).

As the person who, in reviewing this book, accepts the challenge of offering some sort of summary of not simply the epilogue but the entire volume (in 1200 words or less), I feel compelled to answer Jung's question: no.

I cannot cleanly summarize the epilogue, much less the book, without committing “synecdochic understanding” (Jung's term for “using part of something to represent the whole”), omitting vital portions, condensing sections that are irreducible, and, perhaps most unforgivably, failing to accurately reproduce the energetic and hopeful voice of a teacher, a scholar, a human being who believes that “writing is a process of making room for love…revision is a process of making room for pain” (161). The standard format for a book review hardly seems to do justice to what Jung, an assistant professor of English at Illinois State University, works to accomplish in this 196-page volume, which is a thoroughly effective and enjoyable blend of poetry, prose, personal narrative, philosophy, rhetorical theory, classroom practice, students' voices, sample assignments, feminist pedagogy and scholarly research. Fortunately, along with her challenge, Jung also offers affirmation: lest I become paralyzed because I cannot write the “perfect book review,” Jung reminds me, as she reminds her students, that “writing doesn't lead to perfect Truth… it simply leads to more writing” (151). Therefore, I write here with the hope that this review will lead to more reading–this is a book not to be missed!–and more writing, as the discourse continues.

The overarching theme of the book is “revision,” particularly the concept of revision within a feminist framework. The volume is divided into five chapters, along with a preface, a poignant epilogue, two appendices, several pages of notes, an extensive works cited list, and an index.

In the preface, Jung explains how she came to the subject of revisionary rhetoric–all of her life she has been “energized intellectually and personally by the disruptions that result when I put to ‘wrong' things together,” (xi). In the opening chapter, “Writing that Listens,” Jung defines revisionary rhetoric as rhetoric that is “committed to listening to those voices which are too easily silenced” and “concerned with the hard work of (re)reading to hear those perspectives that are easily ignored” (13). Revisionary rhetoric, according to Jung, “advocates writing in ways that facilitate rhetorical listening… demands both to be heard and responded to” (13). Chapter Two is dedicated to establishing the position of rhetoric and composition within the English Department. Jung urges the members of her field to consider how better listening and a closer reading can help “forge new ways of listening, new strategies for cross-boundary discourse” (55). The remainder of the book is devoted to providing readers with a revisionary viewpoint from which to both examine the field of Rhetoric and Composition and teach within it.

Having established the validity of multi-genre work as a location in which revision can take place, and listening can happen, Chapter Three revolves around the description of a multi-genre reflective narrative assignment which Jung gave to her senior English majors. Appendix A includes the assignment, which involved revising a writing–of any genre–from a previous course.

In Chapter Four, Jung deals with the difficulty of “hearing the impossible”–where and how silences can occur in writing–particularly student writing. In this chapter, Jung details her own experience with struggling to listen to silences: to see what is left unsaid. She provides her response to the essay “Thinking and Writing like a Man” by Robert Connors, and explores not only what she writes, but what is left unwritten. A draft is included in Appendix B.

Chapter Five is a case-study from a graduate seminar taught by Jung, based on the concept of revising in a feminist setting. Interestingly, as Jung recounts her experience with the class and the practical implications of what she has so far theorized, Jung does not hesitate to offer self-criticism or to laugh at her own foibles. In fact, she gives the various dimensions of her teacher-self names, such as “the Hard Ass,” “the Martyr,” “the Process Goddess,” “the Equalizer” and “the New Prof/Orphaned Grad Student” and then goes on to point out when each of these “selves” emerges and what happens as a result (124-25). Jung also includes excerpts written by students in the class, responding to their experiences.

In the classroom and the world of Julie Jung, it is perfectly acceptable to make “mistakes” and to experience joy in the making of them. It is accepted–expected, even–that a poem might appear juxtaposed with a scholarly article, that the one line in a paper which seems to be a misfit becomes the crux of the argument. Listening to silences, paying attention to the anomalies and remembering that, as the Buddhist Monk told Jung, “not everything he teaches today “ must be remembered in order to benefit from the teaching–this is the spirit of Jung's book. Perhaps the best book review for this text would have been a poem:

On Writing a Dissertation and Reviewing Books, In Three Scenes

Scene 1:

Chapter 3 is done now -

- Maybe not. My little daughter wants me to push her in the swing

I push return and leave it

Unsatisfied, gnawing at me, that last paragraph, only one source?

Too vague and then there's the book review to do on top of it all

Revision, how dull, who wants to read it, Julie Jung, never heard of her

– I won't be paid, no paycheck here, a line on the Vita

Have to pay to join CEA, who can afford it? My son outgrew his shoes again –

Push, creak, push, creak, push.

Scene 2:

Hard bleachers at the gym, gotta read this book now

Why did I agree to this??

“Mommy, mommy!” Little hands wave.

Open the book.

Okay. Here we go.

Wait a minute. She's writing about food fights . Hey. This is good!

This is freedom. This is – writing! Oh yes! This is what I love!

Scene 3:

At the keyboard again.

Write a book review. Of this? How can I? 196 pages. Five chapters.

How can I say – flying? Laughing? Mis-taking? Listening? No lack? Inviting fear? Bitch pedagogy? Mothering?

Can I write a poem? Better write a review. Better make it good. Better have quotes. Other references?

Oh well.

I'll find Janine Utell's email and send it. One way or the other – Julie would get it, I think.

And: thank you.

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