Date: Sun, 4 Feb 1996 16:46:54 -0500
From: CPeebles-AT-aol.com
Subject: Re: French Fem. syllabus


I'd like to thank those who responded to my post regarding the difficulty of
teaching Irigaray on the undergraduate level. I agree with "lwender" that
teaching her more involved texts (say Speculum) is unfair to both students
and to Irigaray, and I like Kathleen O'Grady's suggestion about teaching from
shorter essays, which I will certainly do in the future. Much of my
difficulty also stemmed from the fact that my course drew students from
different departments -- some of whom were taking it primarily to fulfill the
university's "writing requirement," and so I didn't have Ryan's experience of
a group of students whose background and interests were very well suited to
the kinds of thinking required. 
Trudy Mercer's observations are very valuable, I think, and I thank you for
them, and for your encouragement. I do think that such material does require
a certain amount of leeway -- the "not getting it all, but nevertheless..."
you were talking about, and some of my students, I know, were very
enthusiastic about the material and have gone on to continue exploring it. 
I hope also, that I am not heard to be saying something like, "Undergraduates
just can't get this -- it's not worth trying!" (It seemed to me that Ryan may
have heard this.) Far from it, I'm simply looking for better ways to approach
the material without doing any injustic to it. So, Trudy, I won't give up
teaching French feminism (!) -- that would not be possible for me. I do
myself remember being an undergraduate and being gradually introduced to
Irigaray, Lacan, and Kristeva mostly, and getting just enough of it to know
how to continue. Mastery is not what I'm after, and certainly not a desire I
would want to instill in students. 
Thanks again to all of you who responded. I  appreciate your thoughtfulness.
--Catherine Peebles