March 8 synthesis
Prashant Patel Synthesis- Unit Two ENC 6712 March 4, 2021
I. Introduction
Throughout the span of unit two of our course, we have learned how the dynamics of literacy, economy, and power help determine a new conceptualization of long-standing principles within the literary analysis. One such principle that has been discussed extensively within the text that has served as a primary source for this unit is Deborah Brandt and her concept of Sponsorship. In her words “sponsors are any agents, local or distant, concrete or abstract who enable, support, teach, model, as well as recruit, regulate, suppress, or withhold literacy-to gain an advantage” (161).
From this quotation, a student of literary studies can understand that a sponsor can range from being a specific individual to a complex and sophisticated system of networks that either facilitate or hamper how one can gain access to literacy information and resources. The scholars whose writings comprise the text, Literacy, Economy, And Power: Writing And Research After American Lives, are seeking to reconceptualize Deborah Brandt’s notion of sponsorship in both methodological and practical terms. Essentially what the authors are attempting to do is establish a connection between sponsorship, methodology, and application. This is done out of an effort to show that sponsorship is aligned with the philosophies and teachings of Postmodernism.
II. Analysis/Application
Postmodernism is a conceptual and theoretical paradigm that constructs meanings of objects and individuals from a position that values different perspectives which are designed to highlight how the individual or person operates and behaves without direction from hierarchical institutions. Postmodernism is essentially a perspective that takes into account how Epistemological Truth, is shaped and formed by how a person perceives and defines their place within a structure. Epistemological truth is the search for how the world can be understood in terms of the way society either structures words or systems that are meant to keep a minority group in an inferior status. On the other hand, the search for philosophical truth can also be contextualized as an investigation for a transcendent truth that explains how literacy can shape a philosophy that takes into account all things in the universe.
The central focus of my synthesis will be an analysis and demonstration of the ways that certain chapters that are part of the main text for this unit highlight a tension between these two concepts of epistemology. This tension can be understood through a discussion and of how the authors of the compendium frame their arguments around the literacy concept of sponsorship. The first chapter in which this tension can be identified is in the chapter that is titled: Testimony As A Sponsor Of Literacy: Bernice Robinson And The South Carolina Sea Island Citizenship Program’s Literacy Activism. The central argument in this chapter is that Bernice Robinson behaves in such a way as a sponsor that permits the testimony of her students to come forth and serve as an overarching truth in the way that the students as individuals construct their literary experiences.
This can have a significant influence on the role of sponsorship and its connection to epistemology. One example is that you can make the concept of truth relative by blurring the lines between the Sponsor and the Sponsored. Within literary studies, there is the argument that sponsorship has undergone a metamorphosis in those distinctions that have traditionally been made delineating between the sponsor and those that they sponsored is becoming indistinguishable (136). This is because there is an element of Reciprocal Sponsorship that is inherent within the relationship (138).
This is because identifying how a person practices literacy within a sociological context is providing a researcher an avenue to understand and conceptualize how they practice literacy within the day-to-day context. At the same time, the scholars are bringing their expertise and resources to this relationship to place a correct interpretation on how a person practices literacy. Reciprocity is also an important factor in determining truth this is because if the truth is reciprocal then it can also be incongruent in the context in times in which it is meant to be applied.
For example, if true this conceived to mean an evaluation that leads to a construction of truth on an individual level then reciprocity can blur or confuse how truth comes about because of the function of the other individual. This is because a person can become confused in which truth to follow because of the absence of lines demarcation between those that are sponsored and the sponsor.
III. Reflection
On reflecting on what I learned throughout this exercise it can be stated what I came away with a deeper appreciation of how the factor of conception can how a sponsor behaves within an outside literacy framework. For example in one structure the concept Of Power maybe a relative one distributed along various lines. This in turn can influence how truth was formed by the role that the sponsor Choosesto play. There is a multitude although other factors that also can contribute to outcomes from the relationship between a sponsor and epistemology. This is the importance of literacy culture.
I can interweave a discussion that places Literacy Culture within a personal context. The term by itself is meant to imply the cultural dynamics of a community that is intrinsic to a certain economic Outlook that culture has. Take, for instance, the people of Zanzibar, in the chapter the author documents many personal testimonies of respondents, many of whom do not hold A High Appreciated value in situating literacy as a valuable currency in their lives. I can relate this conception of literacy to a personal experience.
My family how’s their roots within central India that mostly comprises of poor indigo farmers. In this context, I spoke to my cousin recently, and asked him what books has he read recently? He replied “books” what do you mean buy books? If you mean a financial ledger then yes? But we are a poor community we don’t even have a local library you mostly find that in New Delhi” (Patel Personal Communication, Phone Call, March 2021). What this phone call demonstrates is not only the fact, that I have adopted an Ethnocentric view of literacy. Which is a perspective that documents the way that Western cultural Assumptions can construct a biased view of literacy in that I assumed that everyone around the world in every culture around the world is Homogeneous and now they approach the concept of reading I’m writing.
Connecting the example above the truth I have Accommodated towards a Western construction of a negative truth that views the world through the construction of Cultural Dichotomies, which frame literary cultures as a binary relationship of personal choices rather than a societal construction. The most difficult task in terms of completing this assignment. Was choosing a unique difference in the way that I was to design my synthesis. Originally, I had thought of constructing a synthesis analysis in the form of a panel discussion between two separate authors. However, I came to realize that this was going to be a difficult task. The reason was I did not want to put words into the mouths of the authors which they would not say. So I returned to a traditional essay form synthesis.
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