CARNIVAL UTTERANCE, CARNIVAL BODY, CARNIVAL PEDAGOGY: USING BAKHTIN TO WORK TOWARD A THEORY FOR CREATING LIBERATORY, INSTITUTIONAL SPACES FOR MALE STUDENT WRITERS
CARNIVAL UTTERANCE, CARNIVAL BODY, CARNIVAL PEDAGOGY: USING BAKHTIN TO WORK TOWARD A THEORY FOR CREATING LIBERATORY, INSTITUTIONAL SPACES FOR MALE STUDENT WRITERS

Summary/Abstract: As much as rational, muscular ‘hegemonic masculinity’ presents itself as an exclusive standard for manly being-in-the-world, there is in fact a wide range of masculinities available, reflecting differences in race, class, ability, orientation, and nation (Connell, 1995). These forms are related, too, in that each deviates from the hegemonic ideal and is performed by males before males. In this article, I propose that a carnival approach to teaching male student writers connects the multiple masculinities present in post-secondary academic writing classrooms and centers. Turning to Bakhtin, I establish the theoretical foundation for this pedagogy by arguing that his utterance and grotesque body are germane, linked phenomena. In what follows, I deploy the utterance-speaking grotesque body to describe male student writer identities as inter-related, hybrid constructs engaged with the world. To ground my claims, I turn to related Composition/Rhetoric research, including examples of male student writers’ oral stories of composing drawn from my own qualitative, phenomenological research on first-year university male students. Finally, turning to the same evidence to validate my claims, I suggest what a carnival pedagogy liberatory to males should feature.

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