'Problematize' and Academic Discourse

The word "problematize" gave rise to the following discussion about its
meaning and usefulness and the role of jargon in academic discourse.  The
discussion took place on WMST-L in February/March 2000.  For additional
WMST-L files now available on the Web, see the WMST-L File List.

I'm wondering if anyone can recommend any articles that problematize the
term choice within feminist rhetoric, as in reproductive choice. I'm
looking for pieces that consider the language of choice and the
implications of naming something a choice.

Fiona Young


Women's Studies Program,
University of Iowa.
Tel: (319) 354-2634

E-mail:
fiona-young  @  uiowa.edu (English only)
fionayoung  @  hotmail.com (English and Japanese)

Sheila Jeffreys in (her book) The Idea Of Prostitution (ISBN 1-875559-65-5).

Semira Dallali

vidabo  @  wanadoo.nl

I hate the word problematize. I wish we had another word for it.



 Emily Toth
 Professor of English and Women's Studies
 Louisiana State University
 Baton Rouge, LA 70803
 225-388-3152
 English Dept. fax: 225-388-4129
 etoth  @  unix1.sncc.lsu.edu

RECENT BOOKS BY EMILY TOTH: Ms. Mentor's Impeccable Advice for Women in
Academia (1997); Kate Chopin's Private Papers (1998); Unveiling Kate Chopin
(1999)

  Visit Ms. Mentor's column: http://www.chronicle.com/jobs

i'm with you, emily--it's not a word.  i think she might be looking for
"operationalizing" (as per research jargon)..?  it would be appropriate
in the context.

debbie <louis  @  umbc.edu>

And I'll weigh in on the side of the word "problematize."  I would think
the word "operationalize" would mean "to put into operation," wh/ is not
the entire question she's exploring; problematize, whether it appears in
the latest dictionaries or not, is generally understood to mean "to
question and consider whether it is either a cause or symptom of larger
problems," as far as I know, and we don't have another single word for
that concept.  I'm not a big fan of many new words ("wellness" still gives
me the shivers), but this one I think serves a useful purpose.

Karen Weekes
kweekes  @  parallel.park.uga.edu

I always thought the word simply meant "to make a problem out of" or
rather, "to complicate" as in to complicate the notion of.

Patti Renda
prenda1  @  uic.edu

What about "discuss"? It's more open ended, whereas "problematize" in a
way anticipates the result.

Jutta


******************************************************************
Jutta Zalud           Phone/Fax (home): ++43-1-272 99 02
Deublergasse 48/5     Phone (office):   ++43-1-712 10 01 ext. 76
A-1210 Vienna         Fax:              ++43-1-713 74 40
Austria               email:            a7400819  @  unet.univie.ac.at
                                        jutta.zalud  @  nextra.at
******************************************************************

This relates to the question about "problematizing" though doesn't
specifically spin on that word.
Isn't this a curious thing about our language -- and our need to define
entire concepts into one word? Part if it is to simplify our lives, makes
things quicker, "universal" labels or quick identifications to issues,
realities, concepts, ideologies, etc. Can this be done? Why do "we" as an
academic community continually perpetuate our own trap-setting by
insisting one word should contain an entire dialog? We'll only add
qualifying adjectives anyway!(liberal feminism, radical feminism, etc.)
I know women and oppressed communities want to participate in the naming
but I often wonder why we have to continue this in one-word options. Is
it only about time/quickness/single referent point or something else? Why
do we continue to make big -- often exclusionary -- vocabulary or lingo
rather than describing accessibly what we each really mean when we're
talking about certain things. Postmodernists might say the language is
such that we'll never truly be able to say what we mean -- I don't know
that I agree but it does seem that one-word naming of very large concepts
create part of the tensions, misconceptions, misunderstandings and/or
tendencies to universalize.

Mev


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Women's Presses Library Project
..keeping women's words in circulation
Mev Miller, Project Coordinator
1483 Laurel Ave.
St. Paul, MN 55104-6737

651-646-0097
651-646-1153 /fax

wplp  @  winternet.com

Hi, Womonwriters,
I'll add my vote for the use of "problematize."  I know it sounds
jargon-ish, but it is one of those words that, when I first
heard it, a light bulb went off in my head -- ah, ha!  Here's a word
that can be a neat tool.
Charlene

M. Charlene Ball, Administrative Coordinator
Women's Studies Institute
Georgia State University
Atlanta, Georgia  30303-3083
404/651-4633
404/651-1398 fax
wsimcb  @  panther.gsu.edu
http://www.gsu.edu/womenpower

I don't see this yearning for a large-concept word as a problem nor as a
solution, but as an aid.  Many words -- maybe most words -- function this
way.  The word "family" certainly means different concepts in different
cultures by the time we spin out any details.  So does the color
"blue."  When I use large-concept words I am trying to locate an arena,
not be exact or specific.  Words are an illustration of a mathematical
concept:  if I can travel only halfway there, I will never reach my
destination.  True enough.  But at some point I am so close that the
remaining distance is insignificant.  Further, what counts as
insignificant, (in other words, the number of times I must split the
difference before feeling stisfied) is relative and depends upon various
measures, i.e., context.

I would agree with your assessment, that postmodernists might believe
we will never be able to say exactly what we mean -- but that seems OK
with me.  Language itself is only one way to describe another
idea/event/concept, but it is not the idea/event/concept.  It is a
translation of sorts, one way in which we try to relate/communicate with
one another and ourselves.  And one word does, it seems, "hold" a whole
dialogue, but the dialog is not within the word.  It is in the space
between the word (a marker) and the readers (the interpreters), that
dialogue being quite different depending on the space itself as much as
(but not instead of) the word or the readers.  Like the activity of
jumping rope, the word may be one end, the readers another, and both must
be held for the activity to take place, but the activity is jumping, and
each jumper does it differently.

I would disagree that it is "language" that steers our need to define
entire concepts in one word.  Language doesn't do this.  We do.  And
academicians find particular fun in that game.  But it is a game whose
rules shift.  We could, indeed, allow these words to be acceptable as
demarcations rather than definitions, a start rather than an end to a
conversation.  And my experience is that they do.

It tickles me to hear a word excluded or devalued because it does not
appear in a dictionary.  All words are just made up, and if people are
using them, and others are understanding various uses of them, then they
are words by definition.  It seems awfully hierarchical to assume it must
be passed on by a body of "official" people, in order to exist.  If we
adopted this belief about actions, then many of the experiences of women
would not exist, and we would be compliant in their non-existence.

Words are fun.  They're meant to help us be with each other in a
particular way.  They should not be given the power to rule us without
further thought.  Use "problematize" if it is useful to you and your
readers, find another word -- or make one up -- if it is not.


Gill Wright Miller
millerg  @  denison.edu
Associate Professor of Dance and Women's Studies

<< What about "discuss"? It's more open ended, whereas "problematize" in a
 way anticipates the result. >>

I am not sure that "discuss" conveys the same meaning; "problematize" as
someone mentioned earlier, means "to complicate" and I think it makes perfect
sense the way it was used in the original message--she is looking for ways
the word "choice" is complicated (i.e. problematized) by other meanings.  It
may not be in the dictionaries yet, but the word sure is used a lot in
contemporary social research.  The word "marginalized" still isn't in many
dictionaries either and we've been using it for years!

Victoria Heckler
vdheckler  @  aol.com

I think this discussion of "problematize" is quite interesting; however, my
understanding of the original post was that the poster wanted literature
that does just that: discusses "choice" as a problematic concept.  That
notion seems plausible no matter what side of the debate we find ourselves.
"Choice" is a complex, multidimensional concept which is bound to have
problematic facets to its nature, no?

Lisa
LBurke2  @  njcu.edu

Re problematize:  What's wrong with "make problematic."

But I guess there's what I see as an odd new use of "problematic," to
mean "a problem" rather than "arguable" in the sense of "calling for
further discussion" which is the way I always understood the word.

I am not a purist trying to save the language from its speakers.  But
why do we seem to need invent a new one when you already have a
perfectly good old one?  Leonora

i think this is important enough for one more reflection--particularly
as an associated issue that comes up for feminist scholars IS the elite
nature and purposes of jargon, particularly of the academic variety--and
it feels to me that this is the manufacture of yet another term/label
that ends up separating "us" (who know the conferred meaning) from
"them" (who don't)--following closely upon the "hegemony" thread which
directly addressed a dimension of this...

i suggested "operationalize" since it's already a long-established part
of broad, interdisciplinary (albeit academic/scientific) research
language, meaning to express in a form that is usable for specific
research purposes--which it seemed to me was what the original inquiry
was seeking to do re the term "choice"...

whether that works or not, i just think we all need to work hard at
conscious avoidance of adding to our repertoires of "intellectualist"
language and at conscious effort to UNlearn much of the institutional
language patterns we are trained into in the academic environment...

debbie <louis  @  umbc.edu>

Thanks to all who commented on my objection to the word "problematize."

I especially like the synonym Jutta proposed: "To discuss."

I think we need to be aware that most words ending in -ize (including
marginalize and historicize) are just academic-jargon ways of expressing
simple ideas, such as feeling excluded or trying to understand the past.

When we choose -ize/jargon words rather than simple language, we're saying
we prefer academese over a language that communicates widely to all women.

We're also being deliberately obscure and (face it) kinda boring.

If we do that, we deserve to be marginalized (wry smile).



 Emily Toth
 Professor of English and Women's Studies
 Louisiana State University
 Baton Rouge, LA 70803
 225-388-3152
 English Dept. fax: 225-388-4129
 etoth  @  unix1.sncc.lsu.edu

RECENT BOOKS BY EMILY TOTH: Ms. Mentor's Impeccable Advice for Women in
Academia (1997); Kate Chopin's Private Papers (1998); Unveiling Kate Chopin
(1999)

  Visit Ms. Mentor's column: http://www.chronicle.com/jobs

Emily Toth writes:

>>I think we need to be aware that most words ending in -ize (including
marginalize and historicize) are just academic-jargon ways of expressing
simple ideas, such as feeling excluded or trying to understand the past.

When we choose -ize/jargon words rather than simple language, we're saying
we prefer academese over a language that communicates widely to all women.

We're also being deliberately obscure and (face it) kinda boring.>>

Bless you.  I could not have said it better myself -- this issue is a huge
thorn in my side on my journey to meld grassroots activism for women with
women's studies at the graduate (and hopefully at some point doctoral)
level.

Jenn Crowell
WS grad student, Towson University

<< When we choose -ize/jargon words rather than simple language, we're saying
 we prefer academese over a language that communicates widely to all women. >>

Is there a language that communicates widely to ALL women?  Although complex
language might be elitist in the sense that it is only accessible to those
privileged enough to interpret it, isn't it sometimes neccessary to use or
even create complex language to express complicated ideas?  I can't imagine,
for example, simplifying Joan Scott's use of "historicize" (from
"Experience," in FEMINISTS THEORIZE THE POLITICAL) to mean simply
"understanding the past."  It just doesn't convey the same message to me.
Where simplicity is due, perhaps, is in explaining how such language is used,
not by substuting complex terms for simpler ones.  There is no challenge in
the latter--not to the writer nor the reader--in essence, maybe making
"academese" more widely accessible instead of assuming that the "average"
woman might won't be able to understand it--that is where elitism comes into
play.

Admittedly though, I think that sometimes writers try to pass off incoherent
writing as brilliance.

Victoria D. Heckler
vdheckler  @  aol.com

There is another issue at play here too that needs naming, although I'm
sure it won't be popular to do so because proper language eludes me.  I'll
explain an analogy first -- to help myself.

This is the story I am hearing in my body:
In concert dance, "just walking" can be labeled worthy of respect and
attention, carrying all sorts of meaning.  That is true enough as an idea
(a theory), but generally speaking it is only noticed as Legitimate
Concert Dance if the performer has first proven herself worthy of
investigating "just walking."
If she tries to perform "just walking" and it *appears* as "in lieu of
years of training," critics are much more skeptical and less interested.
No, it is the exquisite technician whose "just walking" dance gets
reviewed, and it is a process of technical prowess gone public then
simplified that led critics to the choreographer in the first place.

I am suggesting this idea for thought:
Writing a complicated argument simply (and publishing it so that others
have access to it) is a privilege awarded those who have already shown
themselves capable of complicated, perhaps "jargonized," writing within a
set of socialized rules.  Coming to ideas and stating them in simple ways
can also carry the message that the writer is "not yet" sophisiticated,
rather than is "appreciative" of simplifying.
Those who choose never to write in a discourse's jargon might well have
trouble convincing higher-ups that their work is sufficiently "cutting
edge" to be taken seriously, and therefore might find few outlets for
doing more of it.

Gill Wright Miller
millerg  @  denison.edu
Associate Professor of Dance and Women's Studies
Denison University

>From Gill Wright Miller:
>I am suggesting this idea for thought:
>Writing a complicated argument simply (and publishing it so that others
>have access to it) is a privilege awarded those who have already shown
>themselves capable of complicated, perhaps "jargonized," writing within a
>set of socialized rules.  Coming to ideas and stating them in simple ways
>can also carry the message that the writer is "not yet" sophisiticated,
>rather than is "appreciative" of simplifying.
>Those who choose never to write in a discourse's jargon might well have
>trouble convincing higher-ups that their work is sufficiently "cutting
>edge" to be taken seriously, and therefore might find few outlets for
>doing more of it.
>

What Gill Wright Miller is describing, and the description is honest, is
what's told to grad students: learn the lingo or you won't be taken
seriously. I was told that myself 25 years ago: "You'll never get a job ...
you'll never get tenure ... because what you write is 'high journalism,'"

Well, the man who told me that never got tenure. I did get jobs (I've been
hired in 4 different places over the years, 3 of them tenured/tenure
track). I did get tenure,  my eleventh book is coming out in April, and
I've been able to write for a wide audience and make some difference for
younger women because I kept my accessible writing style.

Also, you don't have to "earn" the "privilege" of writing when you write
for a wide audience. It's the quality of your writing that gets you
published, and your ability to write with clarity--and ideally, with grace
and humor as well.

I appreciate all the contributions to this thread, and I hope that
feminists will dedicate themselves/ourselves to language that reaches as
many women as possible. That's the only way we make significant changes.



 Emily Toth
 Professor of English and Women's Studies
 Louisiana State University
 Baton Rouge, LA 70803
 225-388-3152
 English Dept. fax: 225-388-4129
 etoth  @  unix1.sncc.lsu.edu

RECENT BOOKS BY EMILY TOTH: Ms. Mentor's Impeccable Advice for Women in
Academia (1997); Kate Chopin's Private Papers (1998); Unveiling Kate Chopin
(1999)

  Visit Ms. Mentor's column: http://www.chronicle.com/jobs

Fiona Young asked about the feminist use of the term "choice."

In my recollection, the word "choice" as used as a euphemism for abortion
rights was the result of a political battle in the late seventies in which
women's liberationists, socialist feminists in particular, defended the
term "reproductive freedom" (admittedly a far less catchy slogan).  The
issues included:
a) refusing to be "abortion-baited: using the term abortion rights when
appropriate and rejecting recourse to euphemism , refusing the
abortion-as-a-necessary-evil position adopted defensively in the face of
the religious right
b)broadening the issue, including issues such as opposition to abusive
sterilization and
c) contesting individual choice as a supreme value

Diedre English wrote a lovely journalistic piece on this question in the
late 70s early 80s, but I can't remember where (Seven Days? Mother Jones?).
It was translated here in _Les Temps modernes_.  I wrote a short article
in French a little after that in _La Nouvelle revue socialiste_ when the
issue arose in France (Pro-choix is now used!).
An important early philosophical treatment of the question is contained in
Rosalind Petchesky's _Abortion and Women's Choice: The State, Sexuality,
and Reproductive Freedom_.  Boston: Northeastern UP, 1985.)

Regards
Judith Ezekiel

                                             ************
                                       ezekiel  @  univ-paris12.fr

    Well, I'm impressed. I just received my daily digest, piled with responses
to my post on choice. Unfortunately only one person actually offered any
suggested reading materials (my thanks to the few who also emailed me
privately with suggestions).
    I have to say that the dialogue that followed my query has helped to
solidify many of my thoughts about the word choice being problematic - I
stick by that word. Language is a living creature and while I am not a fan
of many new words, sometimes the old words just don't sum up what needs to
be said. I consider the way the word 'choice' is used to be a problem for
many reasons. Language changes, and words and concepts lose or change
meaning over time.

>I think this discussion of "problematize" is quite interesting; however, my
>>understanding of the original post was that the poster wanted literature
>that does just that: discusses "choice" as a problematic concept.  That
>notion seems plausible no matter what side of the debate we find ourselves.
>"Choice" is a complex, multidimensional concept which is bound to have
>problematic facets to its nature, no?

Thank you Lisa. My point exactly, but instead of discussing the word
choice, everyone has been sidetracked.
    On the subject of academic language versus a language for all women...
there is no universal women's language or if there is, I haven't found it
yet. Since coming to grad. school, I have been struggling to find language
that would be both acceptable in my papers and something my working-class,
non-high school educated family in England could understand. I try to write
in language that is accessible to my family, but it is not always
considered "suitable" language for academe (not my choice, but the rules of
those who judge my work, and those already established in academe). Besides
which, there are some concepts I would just not be able to articulate
clearly.
    I'm sorry if this message has seemed sarcastic at times, but I do think
it's interesting that so many academics spent so much time arguing over the
language of my question rather than answering the question itself. The
privilege of the academy??? :-)
    Fiona
Women's Studies Program,
University of Iowa.
Tel: (319) 354-2634

E-mail:
fiona-young  @  uiowa.edu (English only)
fionayoung  @  hotmail.com (English and Japanese)

My English Dutch dictionary tells me that the affix -ize- or -ise- is generally
used in the English language to make a verb.

But maybe *to question*  is an effective synonym for 'to problematize'??

Semira
vidabo  @  wanadoo.nl
The Netherlands

>From reading the various posts on this issue, which the original querier
probably thought was an innocent academic question (ah, but is anything
academic innocent?), I find two main threads: pro-jargon and
anti-jargon. And this in itself seems to bring up the issue of choice, so
let's discuss "problematize" and "choice" together in this way for a
minute (thanks for indulging me).
One reason I do this is to take away the word "choice" from the abortion
issue as exclusive terrain.  Another reason is to bring to the foreground
the fact (if there is a fact) that choice is ever-present in academic
debates--indeed, in all debates.  Not only is there a choice between one
point of view and another, but also there is a choice between taking a
stand and "merely" making a statement.
I think the issue of "problematize" is equally fraught with choices.  Do
we choose to be in conversation with our intellectual/educational
peers or with a broader, somewhat less educated public? Do we choose to
have our work evaluated by our peers or by a larger public? Do we choose
to do work that is relevant in academe alone or do we do work that has
more general application? Do we choose to write about our work in academic
journals or in the popular press? Indeed, do we choose to work and publish
in an academic setting, with its inherent specialized and, some argue,
exclusive jargon) or do we work and publish in a mix of venues both
academic and general, using language that needs no footnotes?
My choice has been to do both, because I hate binary choices and thus
try to seek more ambiguous, fluid, adventurous and at times ambitious
(read: risky academically) ways of dealing with the issues I research and
write about. This in fact is my approach to choice as a rule: there should
be choice even if I hold a firm belief in one approach and despise the
other, so that there will be a choice for me when the tables are
reversed. This is the mark of a strong society, the ability to present
choice and live with the consequences.

Liora Moriel
Comparative Literature Program
2107 Susquehanna Hall
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742-8825
"It is essential for the feminist critic to remember that Scripture has at
no single moment in its history been a unified, monolithic text, has
always been a radically layered, plurally authored, multiply motivated
composite, full of fascinating mysteries, gaps, and inconsistencies, a
garden of delight to the exegete" -- Alicia Suskin Ostriker

On Mon, 28 Feb 2000, Deborah Louis wrote:

> i suggested "operationalize" since it's already a long-established part
> of broad, interdisciplinary (albeit academic/scientific) research
> language, meaning to express in a form that is usable for specific
> research purposes--which it seemed to me was what the original inquiry
> was seeking to do re the term "choice"...

Not exactly.  "Operationalize" has a quantitative ring to it.  To
operationalize something is to make an abstraction into something you can
measure, like turning "liberalism" into something you can show through
questionnaire results on certain topics.  I think "to problematize x"
means "to show that x is not self-evident, or contains assumptions that
need to be teased out of it."  If it means all that (or something about as
windy), I can understand both why someone would want to make a single word
out of it, and why it's not a good idea.


Marc Sacks
msacks  @  world.std.com

P.S.  While we're on the subject of words, could someone please explain
"interpellate" in plain English?  Many thanks.

I still think "problematize" is okay, and I will still continue to use it.
"Discuss" suggests that we are talking within the boundaries of
what's assumed to be true.  "Problematize" makes us look at those
boundaries.
For me, the word "problematize" opened up the possibility of challenging
the assumptions of someone who was saying something that had previously
seemed unchallengeable.  It rendered visible what had been invisible
before (or "transparent" to use another word accused of being jargon
but that also serves a useful purpose).

For example, to say that we need to "problematize whiteness" is to say
something entirely different from saying that we need to "discuss
whiteness."  And to say to "operationalize whiteness" -- what on earth
would that mean??


M. Charlene Ball, Administrative Coordinator
Women's Studies Institute
Georgia State University
Atlanta, Georgia  30303-3083
404/651-4633
404/651-1398 fax
wsimcb  @  panther.gsu.edu
http://www.gsu.edu/womenpower

Just for a bit of a different perspective on this thread, I'd like to share
a conversation with you all.

Last night, I was talking on the phone with my mom.  Now, my mom seems to
me to be a pretty good example of an "average" woman (if there is such a
thing at all in the US).  She's in her mid-50s, white, rural and working
class, very proud of still being pretty, works in a factory and sells Mary
Kay makeup on the side, lives about a mile from the house in which she was
born and has lived in the same county virtually all her life.  She never
graduated from high school (dropped out to get married at 16) and her only
pleasure reading is Better Homes and Gardens magazine.  She uses the
internet to get quilt patterns, recipes, and really bad jokes that she
sends along to me.  She is also pro-choice.

So we were talking about abortion rights, and "choice" (in another context)
and I told her about this on-line discussion we are having about whether
feminist academics should use words that non-academic people might not know.

She asked, "what word are they talking about?"

"Problematize."

She snorted (this is the only word I know to describe the nasal noise we
midwest farmwomen make when we think something is ridiculous).  "It means
to make a problem out of something," she said.

Then she said (and this is a recurring theme in conversations with my
parents), "You know, Jeannie, that's the problem with every
college-educated supervisor I've ever worked under.  They don't give the
rest of us credit for being able to figure out anything."


Now, I am all for de-jargoning academic language when the difficulty of the
language gets in the way of the meaning we want to convey.  At the same
time, I do think it is important, sometimes, to use words (and to explain
them as appropriate) that are not "simple" if another word just won't do.

At the same time, I think we need to start acknowledging that this is a
political act against the expectations and value systems of the academy.
And we need to stop claiming that we are doing this for the sake of "the
average woman" because there is implied in that claim the idea that "she"
wouldn't be able to understand us.  I am issuing a gentle call for all of
us to remember that the average woman has experiences and intelligences
that deserve our respect, and that we (women academics) might not be so
different or so far from her as we sometimes seem to think we are.

(Just as an aside, I doubt that mom would have come up with the same
definition for "operationalize."  I didn't ask her because I hadn't seen
that post yet.)


Respectfully submitted,
Jeannie


+x+x+x+x+x+x+x+x+x+x+x+x+x+x+x+x+x+x+x+x+x+x+x+x+x+x+x+x+x+x+x+x+x+x+x+
"I always felt that, for every unwashed dish, for every unmade bed,
another group of farmworkers got a dollar more."
    --Dolores Fernßndez Huerta, labor organizer, on charges that
        she neglected her responsibilities at home.
        NPR interview, 2/22/00

Dr. Jeannie Ludlow                jludlow  @  bgnet.bgsu.edu
Coordinator, Undergraduate Program        (419)372-0176
American Culture Studies
101 East Hall
Bowling Green State University
Bowling Green OH 43403

This discussion reminded me of Susan Kopplemen's request for a
definition of the word "hegemony" and the wonderful responses that
followed concerning language usage.  While the group of women from the
retirement community would certainly jump at the chance to define
"choice" as an accessible word, they may baulk at the "problematic."
With apologies to Fiona Young for missing her original point, I have
thoroughly enjoyed the resulting, fruitful dialogue . . . .  :-)

Sincerely,

Peggy L. Richards
plr  @  uakron.edu
The University of Akron

Dear listers-

I'd like to take up your already too-consumed time with this idea and remark
on the post from Jeannie about her Mom.

The argument against using "problematize" presupposes that that word is not
part of language outside of academia. Working in and outside that field, I
disagree. I am not even sure that everyone in Academia would necessarily
define that word in the same way nor would they deem it elitist, so common
has that word become.

Rather than being academic jargon, the word "problematize" appears to me more
of a lowbrow convenience. It is an efficient word. But like every word its
definition and connotations are not immutable. It is charged in a way that
the word "discuss" is not yet it seems less specialized than a word like
"operationalize."

As we bring the quotidian language into academia, I think it only fair that
we take our "high brow" academic language into the world outside. Or is the
latter not part of diminishing the rigid boundaries between the 2 worlds?

And the irony is that the spell check on my computer does not in any way want
to recognize that word in any language.

Stephanie in Seattle
chastainst  @  cs.com

apologies to fiona young, who asked only for articles problematizing
reproductive choice.

words i have heard dismissed during this conversation:  problematize,
marginalize, historicize.  i've been told we may replace these terms with
"discuss," "operationalize," etc.

jeannie's mom said, when asked what she thought "problematize" means:

>"It means to make a problem out of something," she said.<

jeannie's mom is wrong.  what has been lost in this coversation is that the
word "problematize," as used in the literary stuides community, originates
from the term "problematic" -- and problematize does *not*  mean "to make a
verb of problem"; which is to say, problematize doesn't mean to make a
problem.  it means to make a *problematic* of.  problematic (noun) has a
specific meaning, and etymology; it's been in english since 1607, but was
re-coined by louis althusser, the french structural marxist theorist who
attacked humanism in the 1960's.  from _critical theory since 1965_ (h.
adams and l. searle, eds, up florida, 1986):  "the problematic of the text
is the unconscious infrastructure, the forms that detrmine how the text
will behave and can be allowed to be thought."  from althusser:  "we must
go farther than the unmentioned presence of the thoughts of a living author
to the presence of his [sic] *potential* thoughts, to his [sic]
*problematic*, that is, to the constitutive unity of the effective thoughts
that make up the domain of the existing *ideological field* with which a
particular author must settle accounts in his own thought."  in "english":
to problematize is to analyze the problematic -- the material and
totalizing conditions -- over which a work is produced.

jeannie's mom, whom i love very much because she is just like my father,
which is why i so adore our christmas visits, also says:

>"You know, Jeannie, that's the problem with every college-educated
>supervisor I've ever worked under.  They don't give the rest of us credit
>for being able to figure out anything."<

jeannie's mom is wrong in her diagnosis of the "problem."  the problem is
not with education, but with those who have the power to construct the
public *image* of intellectual activity (particularly as concerns the field
of literary studies).  now, i agree with emily toth that if she wants to
write "high journalism," she should still get tenure.  i write same, and
it's my view that too few literary studies people have a talent for taking
complex notions, like "problematic," and translating them usefully to the
lay public.  those of us who are doing it should be promoted to full
professor just because we go to the incredible trouble this entails.
*however*, and as jeannie herself suggests, jeannie's mom probably would
not object if a convention of scientists gathered in her city to discuss,
among themselves, the complexity of curing cancer, using their own
precisely coined "lingo" in order to talk to one another.  indeed, i want
two things from my doctor:  i want her to talk to her colleagues in
whatever "jargon" necessary for her to figure out what to do about this
lump in my breast -- *and* i want her to be able to turn to me and explain
in lay terms what the hell's wrong.  (lest i be misread:  i'm fine.)
journalists  struggle daily to explain complex genetic therapy projects on
the nightly news.  in fact, most of our culture valorizes scientific
language, and scientific "progress," without challenge.  meanwhile, if
social and language theorists speak in tongues, we're immediately dismissed
as elitist.  our society pooh-poohs the "progress" of radical
intellectuals, and disregards innovations in our understanding of the
material and totalizing conditions that control society.  gee.  i wonder
why the public doesn't want to hear about this.  or who is preventing them
from understanding.  with what purpose.

one effective way to *keep* the public from learning about our innovations,
our progress, is to take words like "problematize" and erase their radical
meanings.  anti-intellectual liberals and  conservative censors are unholy
allies in this process of censorship.  for instance, "historicize" is
another verb we have condemned here; interestingly, it too has a marxist
origin, attributable to hans robert jauss and others who have analyzed
reception and culture.  is there not a pattern here?  if we leftists were
to take the word "capitalism" and work in the public arena to alter its
meaning to "a horrific system that steals from the poor and gives to the
rich," we would hear it from the right, would we not?  why is it that those
terms which support the status quo are rarely erased in and by public
debate?  and who benefits from the erasure of radical concepts that work to
*subvert* the status quo?

let me say that i *do* have problems with some of these terms, and with the
masculinist language practices of writers like althusser and jauss.
(please also note that we doubtless have some translation problems going on
here too.  english is dreadful this way.)  but they are problems of a more
complex nature.  one thing that has bothered me about -ize verbs is that
they infer a passive construction.  which is to say, if i am to "make a
problematic of" something, who makes that problematic?  the implicit answer
is "the hegemony makes the problematic," but the *implicit* nature of the
agency allows a failure to hold "the hegemony" *explicitly* accountable for
material conditions etc etc.  you can see that if i were to attend a
conference dedicated to improving the language practices of the radical
left, i would need, in order to communicate with my colleagues, to utilize
some terminology that would *complicate*, rather than *simplify*, the
problem at hand.  simplification, so that al gore might use my innovations
later in his presidential campaign, would come *after* our panel
discussion.  i aver that there is a time/place for both language practices.

i found fiona's original post quite interesting:  articles that
problematize reproductive choice.  cool, i thought.  what *are* the
socio-political/economic conditions that surround the emergence of the
concept called "choice."  (i also thought, gee, i wonder if she really
*means* to ask that?  since terms like problematize, deconstruct,
historicize have been wrecked.  my own personal favorite for the Nails on
Chalkboard Award:  "*essentially*, i told him to go to hell."  no you
didn't.  :>)

let me close this dreadfully long post with an example.  last week i read
several student papers, many of which studied _the awakening_.  several
male students, and one female student, took as their thesis the assertion
that edna pontellier is a selfish, terrible mother who killed herself with
no thought for her children.  now, most of us on this list would probably
agree that this is an "ungenerous" (technical term) reading that has failed
to -- WHAT?  DISCUSS edna's choice?  no.  the readers here have failed to
engage a *specific* kind of discussion, one that *problematizes* the
psycho-socio-political conditions of chopin and edna; and fails to
*historicize* the psycho-socio-political conditions contributing to the
reader's beliefs about "selfishness," "good mother," etc.  without the
terms that describe these analyses, i would be unable to understand where
my students, and by extention myself, have failed.

all best,
kass fleisher


~~~~~~~~~

kass.fleisher  @  colorado.edu
http://spot.colorado.edu/~fleisher
(site under construction)

<< I think we need to be aware that most words ending in -ize (including
marginalize and historicize) are just academic-jargon ways of expressing
simple ideas, such as feeling excluded or trying to understand the past.

When we choose -ize/jargon words rather than simple language, we're saying
we prefer academese over a language that communicates widely to all women. >>

I disagree completely. The words in dispute have very specific meanings that
cannot be translated into single simple words. For example "historicize"
means to place into historical context, specifically
social-economic-political structures and conditions as they have endured or
changed over time.  There is no "simple" way you can state that without the
specific word "historicize" because it is a complex idea that challenges
common assumptions about the nature of history and human action.

"Problematize" is also very specific, as a previous poster noted.

However, we do need to find ways to communicate with people who are not
familiar with our language. That doesn't mean dropping the terms, but finding
a way to teach the concepts behind them. We should not assume that people who
do not know our language don't want to learn it. They often do--they just
don't want us to treat them as if they must be stupid for not knowing it
already.

Georgia NeSmith
gnesmith  @  aol.com