Beyond Silences and Scripts: The Variety of Feminist Experiences

ABSTRACT

This essay is my attempt, via autobiographical theorizing, to weave together personal narratives from within the academy and those from without, to illuminate events in the life of an academic woman in an environment that fosters aggression, intolerance for human variations, competition, and contempt for knowledge construction that is not “objective,” verifiable, and separated from those of us who make it. I construct the essay around three anecdotes, then step back, theorize the experiences, and question the notion of such autobiographical theorizing itself. Throughout the essay I search for ways to use language that are seamless, where there is no back and forth between ideas and emotion, personal and academic, creative and critical; where telling stories and talking about those stories can be the same; where writing for others is writing for ourselves. I finally find that the way I write is intertwined with the way I teach, and both are inseparable from the I who lives in those hours outside the academy.