Best of the Independent Journals in Rhetoric and Composition 2012, The. Группа авторов

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      One day in my e-mail I was surprised to see

      That someone actually wanted to interview “little ‘ole me”

      The young lady was a student and was working on her PhD

      So, in the interest of education I thought “why not me?”

      Anna’s hobby and talent explains some rhetorical aspects of her recipes, which exist as entries in a hand-written cookbook she is at work compiling. Anna laments the loss of some artifacts, including recipes and housework instructions she wrote for her daughter many years ago: “My daughter has been out of college for over ten years so [the recipes] that I wrote for her are long gone.” Therefore, Anna has re-written what she calls “the college recipes,” including the one pictured here for Tuna Noodle Casserole.

      The influence of Anna’s creative writing is evident in this example, as the recipe tends toward narrative form rather than practical instructions. As well, its presentation is attractive, centered on the page and written in pretty handwriting. Since she doubts that her daughter actually cooked this meal in the dorm, Anna writes the recipes to commemorate her daughter’s coming-of-age and not necessarily to keep the recipe in circulation as a cooking practice. In handwriting recipes out again, Anna revives the memories for both of them. Of the cookbook project, Anna says: “It’s still in the works…not very accessible right now. It needs to be organized,” highlighting the presentation of the document, its suitability to be considered a “book,” rather than the recipes’ potential for their typical use in the kitchen. The writing of this cookbook out of Anna’s own collection of recipes, which may have once guided her cooking practices in this kitchen, but don’t now, is a contribution to her writerly identity and legacy in her family.

      Finally, Donna also regards the importance of literacy in terms of writing; however, her recipes are directed toward an audience not only outside the kitchen, but also outside her family. As a member and former president of several community groups—a women’s church group, parent volunteer committees at her children’s schools, and a local hospital committee—Donna participated in compiling, publishing, and selling cookbooks as fundraisers for four different community organizations over the years, a fairly common fundraising activity. As I have described, Donna’s literacy efforts have been directed largely toward education: her children’s literacy learning, her own career training, and her continuing education in Women’s Studies coursework. Therefore, despite her impressive cooking literacies, Donna notes that the recipes themselves were not her main contribution to these projects. Instead, she emphasizes other elements central to the cookbooks’ production, including tasks that drew on her own and other group members’ professional skills:

      Jamie: Did yours or the other women’s professional experience lend a lot to [the cookbook]?

      Donna: Yes, we were very organized. All the women in one capacity or another worked outside the home. One woman especially, who was another RN, was definitely an advantage. She knew how to find a publisher to keep the cost reasonable and still be able to turn a profit. That [committee] was more structured, more direct. It took three or four months with a firm deadline. Others I’ve seen took over a year.

      Donna’s late 20th century education and professional life are evident in her praise of the committee on which she served, especially the importance of organization, collaboration, and follow-through. Here, Donna aligns her work with “recipes” not with the domestic duty of cooking, but with her professional experience and knowledge. This corresponds with Donna’s underlying motivation in the creation of her original recipes—her value of education. She is proud of her contribution to the projects not as an authority with recipes, but as a commodifier of them, taking advantage of recipes’ material value in support of communities built on traditional Literacy. Perhaps it is not so surprising that committees such as Donna’s consider a book a worthy item to help maintain institutions of literacy such as schools and churches. I find it ironic, however, that given the strength of resistance to cooking and housework among the women in the study, of Donna’s generation and demographic, the committee would choose to sell cookbooks. Yet, Donna describes these projects as successful. The communities surrounding these institutions may not use the recipes for cooking literacy; however a book represents Literacy in its traditional form, and is therefore worth the community’s money, time, and respect. In undertaking projects for which recipes serve a public function, Donna sees the community groups she served as sites for which the process of writing and her expert literacies are more appropriate and impactful than in her home.

      Dee, Anna, and Donna’s experiences acquiring professional literacies during second-wave feminism have shaped their views on what forms of literacy matter—writing and reading—as well as the limiting effect the “domestic” can have on those forms. Accordingly, since the women have little interest in the notion of cooking, or any chores they consider housework, as a set of practices worth their time and attention, recipes are mainly valuable to them when their purposes are other than simply practical and their audiences are located outside of the kitchen. In these capacities, recipes have provided each woman with an opportunity to leave a mark on her family and/or community, audiences far wider and far more important to these women than a single cook—especially if that cook is meant to be her. The women’s rhetorically diverse use of recipes as family histories, self-sponsored writing, and community service projects reflect Dee, Anna, and Donna’s commitment to and appreciation for the goals and contexts they see as most appropriate for Literacy.

      A Case of Bifurcation?

      Perhaps the most striking account of the women’s struggle between literacy and housework in this study is articulated by my participant Emme, the Queen of the Red Hatters, a single mother who put herself through college while caring for her two children. While Emme’s main contribution to the study concerns her leadership role in RHS outside of this account of recipe use, a brief story she shared with me speaks volumes about the home/work dichotomy present in the data. Balking at the idea that housework could be a priority for her while pursuing a career by way of a college degree, she says: “My housework consisted of opening a can of food up for the kids, dropping them at the babysitter, going to class, and then coming home to pick them up sleeping and lug them up the stairs.” A former military reservist, Emme has a reputation as the most fun-loving and “wild” Red Hatter. If Emme’s priority is to have fun and let loose, it is not only to escape from “various responsibilities at home and in the community,” as the Red Hat society mission statement suggests, but also to counteract a work history that, like the other women’s, pulled her in many directions and made housework a laughable non-issue (Red Hat Society).

      One way to understand the strength of the women’s anti-housework conviction is the concept of bifurcated consciousness, which may account for the women’s simultaneous undervaluing of housework and their pitting the domestic against the professional, even when their commitment to a variety of literacy-rich pursuits is evident. According to rhetorical scholar Mary M. Lay, “a bifurcated consciousness potentially affects a woman’s ability to appreciate her own experiences and to interpret their meaning outside the gender role assigned to her” (Lay 85). For example, in her study of midwives’ arguments for their practice’s legitimacy in public policy, Lay asserts that the spokesperson for direct-entry midwives (as distinct from certified nurse midwives) was forced to leave out of her argument the fact that midwives rely often on their instincts and feelings, which comprise a strong knowledge base and successful practices. The reason for the omission was not only because experience-as-knowledge wasn’t “scientific” enough for her audience, but also because even when such instincts and experience work well, midwives have often downplayed their authority as knowers and therefore examples of their success are not powerful enough for a public policy argument.

      In one instance, an apprentice midwife prevents a baby from bleeding to death simply by checking on him, but doesn’t give herself credit for saving his life: “I don’t like to think СКАЧАТЬ