September, 2011. Spuyten Duyvil Press.
Memory's Wake is a work of experimental nonfiction cons... more September, 2011. Spuyten Duyvil Press.
Memory's Wake is a work of experimental nonfiction consisting of memoir, family biography, regional history, photo essay, and staggered narrative. Owens’s story revolves around his mother’s childhood and the sensational abuse she encountered at the hands of her family during the 1930s and 40s in the Finger Lakes of New York--and how that history hibernated in her mind until sprouting forty years later as "recovered memories.” The book weaves her account with General Sullivan’s genocidal campaign against the Iroquois, the cult of the Publick Universal Friend, weird religious visionaries from the “burnt-over district,” and secret messages hidden within walls. It is also a tale that, while presenting the awful facts of one woman’s girlhood, contrasts them with the author’s fairly idyllic upbringing. Memory’s Wake is a testimony to one woman’s fortuitous ability to stop the cycle of abuse and dehumanization she inherited—in the words of Gerald Vizenor, an act of “survivance.”
While sustainability—meeting today’s needs without jeopardizing the interests of future generatio... more While sustainability—meeting today’s needs without jeopardizing the interests of future generations—has become a dominating force in a range of disciplines, it has yet to play a substantive role in English studies. Derek Owens argues that, in light of worsening environmental crises and accelerating social injustices, we need to use sustainability as a way to structure courses and curricula, and that composition studies, with its inherent cross-disciplinarity and its unique function in students’ academic lives, can play a key role in giving sustainability a central place in students’ thinking and in the curriculum as a whole.
Owens draws on student writing to articulate a pedagogy that gives students opportunities to think and write in three zones of inquiry: place, work, and future. This approach allows for the creation of a variegated course wherein students write neighborhood portraits, critique their work experiences, reflect on their majors, investigate alternative theories of education, compose oral histories, construct narratives about their futures, and design their own assignments—all from the perspective of sustainability. These writings are juxtaposed with observations from writers in architecture, ecological economics, future studies, planning, sociology, sustainable business, and urban studies.
The appendixes include a wealth of environmental statistics, as well as a detailed description of Owens’s composition course, with assignments ready to use or adapt. Refiguring English Studies series. 224 pp. 2001. College. ISBN 0-8141-0037-6.
What do H.D., John Cage, Gertrude Stein, Susan Howe, Howlin' Wolf, Public Enemy, and the French O... more What do H.D., John Cage, Gertrude Stein, Susan Howe, Howlin' Wolf, Public Enemy, and the French Oulipo movement have to do with the teaching of writing? Everything, Derek Owens argues in this ambitious and eclectic rethinking of composition studies. This timely analysis will be of interest not only to those involved with the teaching of composition, but also to those interested in rhetoric, literature, and creative writing, as well as in feminist and cross-cultural studies. Rather than condemning either academic or "expressive" discourse, Owens proposes to overlap the worlds of composition and poetics and to teach writing from a perspective inclusive of feminist, non-Eurocentric, and experimental ways of making discourse. Owens advocates a pluralistic tolerance for radically conflicting writing philosophies throughout the university. This pragmatic work begins with analyses of experimental expository prose (H.D., William Carlos Williams, Charles Olson, John Cage, Alan Davies), avant-garde feminist poetics (Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Susan Howe, Madeline Gins, Nicole Brossard), African American discourse ("nommo" to blues, jazz to rap), hypertext, and other innovative discourse influences, ending with a series of proposals intended for teachers, theorists, graduate students, and administrators concerned with the teaching of writing and literature, as well as with writing program and writing across the curriculum design. "No one who reads this book will ever return to teaching composition in the same old way without at least a twinge of guilt." -- Gary Tate. Southern Methodist University Press, 1994.
As an alternative to recent misreadings of boundary politics, a more responsible, outsider pedago... more As an alternative to recent misreadings of boundary politics, a more responsible, outsider pedagogy needs to be cultivated
Many ideas simply cannot make themselves heard within the conventions of the tradition; for many,... more Many ideas simply cannot make themselves heard within the conventions of the tradition; for many, resisting forms are the only way for certain thoughts to evolve and take shape. Ideas, after all, never exist "outside" of forms, but are themselves forms. Perhaps worse, if we assume ...
ABSTRACT. Universities want to prepare students intellectually so that they might eventually find... more ABSTRACT. Universities want to prepare students intellectually so that they might eventually find suc-cessful, fulfilling work. Since work is synonymous with business no work ever exists outside of business one of the academy's primary goals is to help students enter the ...
September, 2011. Spuyten Duyvil Press.
Memory's Wake is a work of experimental nonfiction cons... more September, 2011. Spuyten Duyvil Press.
Memory's Wake is a work of experimental nonfiction consisting of memoir, family biography, regional history, photo essay, and staggered narrative. Owens’s story revolves around his mother’s childhood and the sensational abuse she encountered at the hands of her family during the 1930s and 40s in the Finger Lakes of New York--and how that history hibernated in her mind until sprouting forty years later as "recovered memories.” The book weaves her account with General Sullivan’s genocidal campaign against the Iroquois, the cult of the Publick Universal Friend, weird religious visionaries from the “burnt-over district,” and secret messages hidden within walls. It is also a tale that, while presenting the awful facts of one woman’s girlhood, contrasts them with the author’s fairly idyllic upbringing. Memory’s Wake is a testimony to one woman’s fortuitous ability to stop the cycle of abuse and dehumanization she inherited—in the words of Gerald Vizenor, an act of “survivance.”
While sustainability—meeting today’s needs without jeopardizing the interests of future generatio... more While sustainability—meeting today’s needs without jeopardizing the interests of future generations—has become a dominating force in a range of disciplines, it has yet to play a substantive role in English studies. Derek Owens argues that, in light of worsening environmental crises and accelerating social injustices, we need to use sustainability as a way to structure courses and curricula, and that composition studies, with its inherent cross-disciplinarity and its unique function in students’ academic lives, can play a key role in giving sustainability a central place in students’ thinking and in the curriculum as a whole.
Owens draws on student writing to articulate a pedagogy that gives students opportunities to think and write in three zones of inquiry: place, work, and future. This approach allows for the creation of a variegated course wherein students write neighborhood portraits, critique their work experiences, reflect on their majors, investigate alternative theories of education, compose oral histories, construct narratives about their futures, and design their own assignments—all from the perspective of sustainability. These writings are juxtaposed with observations from writers in architecture, ecological economics, future studies, planning, sociology, sustainable business, and urban studies.
The appendixes include a wealth of environmental statistics, as well as a detailed description of Owens’s composition course, with assignments ready to use or adapt. Refiguring English Studies series. 224 pp. 2001. College. ISBN 0-8141-0037-6.
What do H.D., John Cage, Gertrude Stein, Susan Howe, Howlin' Wolf, Public Enemy, and the French O... more What do H.D., John Cage, Gertrude Stein, Susan Howe, Howlin' Wolf, Public Enemy, and the French Oulipo movement have to do with the teaching of writing? Everything, Derek Owens argues in this ambitious and eclectic rethinking of composition studies. This timely analysis will be of interest not only to those involved with the teaching of composition, but also to those interested in rhetoric, literature, and creative writing, as well as in feminist and cross-cultural studies. Rather than condemning either academic or "expressive" discourse, Owens proposes to overlap the worlds of composition and poetics and to teach writing from a perspective inclusive of feminist, non-Eurocentric, and experimental ways of making discourse. Owens advocates a pluralistic tolerance for radically conflicting writing philosophies throughout the university. This pragmatic work begins with analyses of experimental expository prose (H.D., William Carlos Williams, Charles Olson, John Cage, Alan Davies), avant-garde feminist poetics (Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Susan Howe, Madeline Gins, Nicole Brossard), African American discourse ("nommo" to blues, jazz to rap), hypertext, and other innovative discourse influences, ending with a series of proposals intended for teachers, theorists, graduate students, and administrators concerned with the teaching of writing and literature, as well as with writing program and writing across the curriculum design. "No one who reads this book will ever return to teaching composition in the same old way without at least a twinge of guilt." -- Gary Tate. Southern Methodist University Press, 1994.
As an alternative to recent misreadings of boundary politics, a more responsible, outsider pedago... more As an alternative to recent misreadings of boundary politics, a more responsible, outsider pedagogy needs to be cultivated
Many ideas simply cannot make themselves heard within the conventions of the tradition; for many,... more Many ideas simply cannot make themselves heard within the conventions of the tradition; for many, resisting forms are the only way for certain thoughts to evolve and take shape. Ideas, after all, never exist "outside" of forms, but are themselves forms. Perhaps worse, if we assume ...
ABSTRACT. Universities want to prepare students intellectually so that they might eventually find... more ABSTRACT. Universities want to prepare students intellectually so that they might eventually find suc-cessful, fulfilling work. Since work is synonymous with business no work ever exists outside of business one of the academy's primary goals is to help students enter the ...
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Books by Derek Owens
Memory's Wake is a work of experimental nonfiction consisting of memoir, family biography, regional history, photo essay, and staggered narrative. Owens’s story revolves around his mother’s childhood and the sensational abuse she encountered at the hands of her family during the 1930s and 40s in the Finger Lakes of New York--and how that history hibernated in her mind until sprouting forty years later as "recovered memories.” The book weaves her account with General Sullivan’s genocidal campaign against the Iroquois, the cult of the Publick Universal Friend, weird religious visionaries from the “burnt-over district,” and secret messages hidden within walls. It is also a tale that, while presenting the awful facts of one woman’s girlhood, contrasts them with the author’s fairly idyllic upbringing. Memory’s Wake is a testimony to one woman’s fortuitous ability to stop the cycle of abuse and dehumanization she inherited—in the words of Gerald Vizenor, an act of “survivance.”
Owens draws on student writing to articulate a pedagogy that gives students opportunities to think and write in three zones of inquiry: place, work, and future. This approach allows for the creation of a variegated course wherein students write neighborhood portraits, critique their work experiences, reflect on their majors, investigate alternative theories of education, compose oral histories, construct narratives about their futures, and design their own assignments—all from the perspective of sustainability. These writings are juxtaposed with observations from writers in architecture, ecological economics, future studies, planning, sociology, sustainable business, and urban studies.
The appendixes include a wealth of environmental statistics, as well as a detailed description of Owens’s composition course, with assignments ready to use or adapt.
Refiguring English Studies series. 224 pp. 2001. College. ISBN 0-8141-0037-6.
Papers by Derek Owens
Memory's Wake is a work of experimental nonfiction consisting of memoir, family biography, regional history, photo essay, and staggered narrative. Owens’s story revolves around his mother’s childhood and the sensational abuse she encountered at the hands of her family during the 1930s and 40s in the Finger Lakes of New York--and how that history hibernated in her mind until sprouting forty years later as "recovered memories.” The book weaves her account with General Sullivan’s genocidal campaign against the Iroquois, the cult of the Publick Universal Friend, weird religious visionaries from the “burnt-over district,” and secret messages hidden within walls. It is also a tale that, while presenting the awful facts of one woman’s girlhood, contrasts them with the author’s fairly idyllic upbringing. Memory’s Wake is a testimony to one woman’s fortuitous ability to stop the cycle of abuse and dehumanization she inherited—in the words of Gerald Vizenor, an act of “survivance.”
Owens draws on student writing to articulate a pedagogy that gives students opportunities to think and write in three zones of inquiry: place, work, and future. This approach allows for the creation of a variegated course wherein students write neighborhood portraits, critique their work experiences, reflect on their majors, investigate alternative theories of education, compose oral histories, construct narratives about their futures, and design their own assignments—all from the perspective of sustainability. These writings are juxtaposed with observations from writers in architecture, ecological economics, future studies, planning, sociology, sustainable business, and urban studies.
The appendixes include a wealth of environmental statistics, as well as a detailed description of Owens’s composition course, with assignments ready to use or adapt.
Refiguring English Studies series. 224 pp. 2001. College. ISBN 0-8141-0037-6.