Deborah Mutnick “Inscribing the World: An Oral History Project in Brooklyn”

Mutnick’s article was published in College Composition and Communication in the summer of 2007 and documents “a university-school oral history project at an elementary school in Brooklyn.” I was really interested in the theory behind this particular project as well as the methods that Mutnick and her students used to collect the data. I thought what I would do for this post is to list some of my favorite quotations as well as the terminology that I found intriguing. Where possible I will try to explain the quotation or define the terms to the best of my ability.

“Places are sensuous, laden with the repetition of life. As we pass through or dwell someplace, we recreate it” (626).

What a great way to describe how we all make our mark on the places we inhabit.

“Pedagogy of the public sphere” (627).

I liked this terminology as a way to describe the ways we can learn and be taught from the everyday elements of our life.

“Competing Counterpublics” (629).

This term is attributed to Nancy Fraser…I like the idea that we are not the only people who inhabit a space, there are years and years of people who have inhabited the space we now inhabit. I think it also address the “other” not just the dominate culture or ideology, which are competing for public recognition.

“Phantom Public Sphere” (629).

I don’t have a good definition for this term, but I believe it also address the “other” in the sense that the “other” occupies a space that is not legitimized or recognized, making it a “phantom” space.

““read” built structures” (630).

Not a direct quote, but I like the idea that we “read” structures / buildings. Mutnick goes on to explain that we also “read” the history / social memory of places as well. Good stuff.

Towards the end of her article, Mutnick describes the setting and start of her oral history project. She says that she begins with the following quotation from the play Junebug/Jack:

“Everybody has a story, their own story. But it seems like it has to come to the place where people think their stories are silly and aren’t worth anything anymore. Trouble is, seems like some people are always wanting to tell our story for us. But, we got to tell it ourselves! Otherwise how we gonna know it’s us? And if we don’t listen to the stories of others, how we gonna know who they are?”

Mutnick then describes three lessons we can learn from this quote.:
1) Everybody’s story has value
2) We have to tell the stories ourselves in order to know who we are.
3) We have to listen to others’ stories in order to know them.

I think these are great mantras that could be used as pedagogical guidelines in specific composition classes.

“Call and Response” (633).

I thought the phenomenon that Mutnick described in relation to call and response was fascinating. I thought it would make an interesting study to trace this phenomenon in public settings.