Pleasurable Pedagogies: "Reading Lolita in Tehran" and the Rhetoric of Empathy

Autor/in	Kulbaga, Theresa A.
Titel	Pleasurable Pedagogies: "Reading Lolita in Tehran" and the Rhetoric of Empathy
Quelle	In: College English, 70 (2008) 5, S.506-521 (16 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0010-0994
Schlagwörter	Rhetoric; Foreign Countries; Empathy; Radio; United States Literature; Authors; Fiction; Civil Rights; Feminism; Empowerment; Discourse Modes; Freedom; Reading Habits + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Rhetorik; Ausland; Empathie; Author; Autor; Autorin; Fiktion; Bürgerrechte; Grundrechte; Zivilrecht; Feminismus; Diskursethik; Freiheit; Reading habit; Lesegewohnheit
Abstract	In her audio essay for the the National Public Radio's series "This I Believe," Iranian-American author and professor Azar Nafisi celebrates the affective power of empathy. In the essay, Nafisi refers to actual people in Darfur, Afghanistan, Iraq, Algeria, Rwanda, and North Korea, but she turns to classic nineteenth-century American novel to provide her exemplary hero, Huckleberry Finn, who chooses not to turn in his friend, Jim, a runaway slave, despite social and religious pressure to do. Although Huck Finn does not play a prominent role in her bestselling book, "Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books," other famous characters from American and British literature do loom large, as does her argument about the privileged relationship between empathy and fiction. In this article, the author discusses "Reading Lolita in Tehran" with Nafisi's audio essay in order to highlight the entanglements of consumer culture with self-representational practices and affective and "ethical regimes" such as popular feminism and human rights. These entanglements, the author argues, enable Nafisi's audio essay and memoir to articulate a neoliberal rhetoric and pedagogy of empathy that function through consumption, including the consumption of "great" literature and the other's story of pain and pleasure. In the case of "Reading Lolita in Tehran," the identifications produced through reading practices reveal the memoir's simultaneous investment in feminist discourses of empowerment, neoliberal discourses of individual choice, and U.S. nationalist discourses of freedom. (Contains 11 notes.) (ERIC).
Anmerkungen	National Council of Teachers of English. 1111 West Kenyon Road, Urbana, IL 61801-1096. Tel: 877-369-6283; Tel: 217-328-3870; Web site: http://www.ncte.org/journals
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10