January
11, 2002
Writing
Outside the Academic Box
"A lot of people
are scared of science. For those of us who can't think of being
anything but a scientist, it's hard to know how to convey to lay
people the joy and excitement of discoveries in the lab,"
said Rachel Fink, associate professor of biological sciences,
who specializes in cell movement within embryos. "The films
I post on the Web are one way to communicate that excitement;
writing is another." Fink was one of fifteen Mount Holyoke
faculty from across the disciplines who began meeting in spring
2001 to discuss issues surrounding nonacademic writing in Writing
beyond the Academy, a monthly seminar sponsored by the Weissman
Center for Leadership.
Weissman Center codirector
and English professor Christopher Benfey, a respected scholar
of twentieth-century literature who writes for both academic journals
and the popular press, came up with the idea for the seminar.
Benfey often pens pieces about subjects other than literature,
regularly publishing essays about art, fashion photography, architecture,
and travel for publications ranging from Travel + Leisure to the
New Republic and the New York Review of Books. He and English
department lecturer Sven Birkerts cofacilitated the meetings of
Writing beyond the Academy, inviting participants to share in-progress
writing and hear from guest speakers about writing to convey scholarly
ideas to broad audiences using precise but not exclusive language.
Birkerts is the author of several books of literary criticism,
as well as numerous essays and reviews for such popular periodicals
as the New York Times Book Review, Harper's, Atlantic Monthly,
and Esquire.
Like Benfey and Birkerts,
seminar participant Martha Ackmann is well known both in and beyond
academic circles. An Emily Dickinson scholar and founding coeditor
of Legacy, an academic journal of American women writers, the
senior lecturer in women's studies also writes columns about women
in history, politics, and sports for such widely read daily newspapers
as the Chicago Tribune and the New York Times. "I was becoming
frustrated with the language of much academic writing. It was
graceless, filled with jargon, aimed at an increasingly small
audience and having limited effect on conversations about issues
in the world," said Ackmann of her decision to expand her
writing. "I wanted to become part of the larger discussion
outside academic journals."
Guest speakers who
talked with the group about writing outside their academic specialties
and reaching readers through the popular press included author
Susan Sontag, who discussed the writing process and offered hints
about keeping a journal and lists of words often used in spoken
but not written English; author Barry Werth on writing narrative;
Smith professor and American Scholar editor Anne Fadiman on first-person
writing; Ilan Stavans, specialist in Latin American studies at
Amherst College, on "think pieces"; Mount Holyoke's
associate director of communications Kevin McCaffrey on op-ed
pieces; and, most recently, New Republic editor James Wood on
book reviews. Wood joined the group for its final meeting in December,
sharing his writing process and two recent pieces of writing:
a book review on V. S. Naipaul for the New Republic and an essay
for the Guardian about the effect of the September 11 attacks
on the American novel.
"To simplify
an argument is to do an injustice to a book," Wood told the
group, which represented departments ranging from economics and
earth sciences to art and anthropology. "But complex arguments
can be made without complex language and in words not used everywhere
else," he insisted, encouraging the group to write on any
subject without using specialized language. Wood has practiced
his own advice for many years, writing pieces that balance clear
language with complex arguments and appeal to both specialists
and general readers. He has even written for general audiences
about traditionally "academic" subjects, such as the
literary giants Herman Melville, Knut Hamsun, Jane Austen, T.
S. Eliot, D. H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, Matthew Arnold, and
others—all subjects of his book of essays The Broken Estate
(New York: Random House, 1999).
The success of Wood,
Birkerts, and others undermines the unspoken rule in academia
that writing for a large audience outside the scope of one's specialty
may represent a simplification, and therefore falsification, of
ideas, says Benfey. As Benfey and Birkerts wrote in their invitation
to participate in the seminar: "Many of us lament the dwindling
away of a common intellectual culture and feel marooned in our
specialties, but there are plenty of writers showing that it's
possible to reach readers ‘out there,' both an academic audience
outside one's own discipline and a nonacademic audience, without
‘dumbing down.' "
Participants gleaned
a wealth of new ideas from the seminar meetings. "The seminars
were wonderful, a rare privilege to talk about the writing process
and about communicating complex ideas in a clear, elegant style,"
said Ackmann. "I took away a lot of ideas about approaches
to writing, about techniques for envisioning and engaging larger
audiences, about not simplifying ideas but articulating them clearly."
Professor of anthropology
Debbora Battaglia said, "Writing can be such a solitary activity
that it was very interesting to see how other writers—both
the guest speakers and seminar participants—approach their
craft. I think that the close examination of writing done by scholars
on very challenging subjects for broader audiences was rewarding;
it provided a superb opportunity for all of us to look at our
scholarly writing from new angles."
Fink found that seminar
participants offered valuable feedback on both her professional
and personal writing. She sought their comments on a translation
of a scientific paper that she hopes to share with students and
other nonscientists and on several essays about being an adoptive
mother. "The feedback helped legitimize the writing I do
outside my professional life," said Fink, crediting the seminar
for the courage to read one of her personal essays on public radio
in August.
Professor of philosophy
Thomas Wartenberg also appreciated comments from faculty he rarely
sees outside of faculty meetings. "I got useful feedback
on a piece that I'm writing that is more personal and less academic
than other things I have done," he said. "I wouldn't
have felt comfortable sharing it in a context that was less intimate
and supportive. I think people took risks in sharing their more
personal writing, and that was really great."
Praising the scope
and organization of the seminar, as well as the range of outside
speakers, professor of anthropology Lynn Morgan said, "It
was inspiring and liberating to hear about and investigate so
many ways of writing. Learning about the different dimensions
of writing and publishing was practical and useful. The seminar
will have a real impact on my ability to write for publication
in nonacademic venues." Morgan has authored numerous scholarly
articles and books on such issues as access to public health and
the social construction of the fetus; she has also written op-eds
that have been published in such newspapers as the Los Angeles
Times.
Karen Remmler, associate
professor of German studies and codirector of the Weissman Center
for Leadership, gained a heightened awareness of her own writing
and says she hopes to instill in her students a greater "sense
of wonder about the writing process, which can be a way for students
to take risks and to recognize their own particular style as they
are learning to express and support ideas." Remmler will
work with Benfey and Birkerts to offer three workshops this spring
on teaching writing in the classroom,
all taking their inspiration from the Writing beyond the Academy
seminar.
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