Cover not available
Article published In:
Language/Sexuality/Affect
Edited by William L. Leap
[Journal of Language and Sexuality 7:1] 2018
► pp. 77–104

“I don’t mean to be a dick, but”

Paralipsis, affective excess, and the reproduction of sexual hierarchies in university classrooms

| Gallaudet University, Washington D.C., USA
This article explores the significance of paralipsis to analyses of affect and sociopolitical formation. Taking attested utterances from undergraduate anthropology courses as a point of departure, I examine how one White and female-identified student engaged in a sexualized form of paralipsis to claim distance from her own negative construal of the object-category “girls [that brag about community service].” Deploying what I term dick-rhetoric, in combination with strong affect and assertions of ideological common-sense, this student’s performance was effective at garnering stance ratification and “uptake” from classmates (Jaffe 2009), and facilitating the reproduction of gender and sexual hierarchies. Drawing on Browne’s (2015) examination of denied racial subjectivity or “dark matter,” I argue that “dick matter” renders genderism and sexual objectification acceptable in university classrooms (among regimes, e.g., racial) – particularly for settings where professors do not engage students in critical exploration of dominant hierarchies and normalization processes. Discussion emphasizes the salience of engaging (ourselves and) students in examination of uses of paralipsis and dick-rhetoric for addressing gender and sexual inequalities.
Keywords: critical pedagogy, dick-rhetoric, paralipsis, stancetaking, sexual inequality
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Dick-rhetoric in a university classroom: Querying affect and sexual objectification
  • 3.Paralipsis, stancetaking, and university setting: Hierarchical dimensions of the classroom
    • 3.1Affect as excess: New power formations and violence
  • 4.Of dicks and dissent: Distribution of dick-rhetoric and its effects in the era of the ‘grabber in chief’
  • 5.Genitalia and pedagogy: A conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 22 February 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jls.17012.coo
References (76)
References
Ahmed, Sara. 2007. A phenomenology of whiteness. Feminist Theory 81: 149–168. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2012. On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Althusser, Louis. 1971. Lenin, Philosophy, and Other Essays. New York, NY: Monthly Review Press.Google Scholar
Anderson, Ben. 2010. Modulating the excess of affect: Morale in a state of “Total War.” In The Affect Theory Reader, Melissa Gregg & Gregory J. Seigworth (eds), 161–185. Chapel Hill, NC: Duke University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Anderson, Kay & Perrin, Colin. 2009. Thinking with the head: Race, craniometry, humanism. Journal of Cultural Economy 2(1–2): 83–98. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Baldick, Chris. 2009. The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Barrios, Roberto E. 2017. Governing Affect: Neoliberalism and Disaster Reconstruction. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Batacharya, Sheila. 2004. Racism, “girl violence,” and the murder of Reena Virk. In Girls’ Violence: Myths and Realities, Christine Alder & Alice Worrall (eds), 61–80. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.Google Scholar
Birch, Eva Lennox. 2016. Black American Women’s Writings. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1998. The State Nobility: Elite Schools in the Field of Power. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Boyce-Davies, Carole. 1994. Black Women, Writing, and Identity: Migrations of the Subject. New York, NY: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Boyer, Wanda. 2008. Girl-to-girl violence: The voice of the victims. Childhood Education 84(6): 344–350. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Browne, Simone. 2015. Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness. Chapel Hill, NC: Duke University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cady, Clare L. 2014. Food insecurity as a student issue. Journal of College & Character 15(4): 265–272. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Carrigan, Mark. 2011 There’s more to life than sex? Difference and commonality in the asexual community. Sexualities 14(4): 462–478. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Castagno, Angelina E. 2008 “I don’t want to hear that!”: Legitimating whiteness through silence in schools. Anthropology and Education Quarterly 39(3): 314–333. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chatterjee, Piya & Maira, Sunaina. 2014. The Imperial University: Academic Repression and Scholarly Dissent. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chen, Mel Y. 2012. Animacies: Biopolitics, Racial Mattering, and Queer Affect. Chapel Hill, NC: Duke University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chinn, Sarah E. 2003. Feeling her way: Audre Lorde and the power of touch. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 9(1–2): 181–204. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cooper, Audrey. 2014. Signed languages and sociopolitical formation: The case of “contributing to society through Hồ Chí Minh City sign language. Language in Society 431: 311–332. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2015. Signed language sovereignties in Việt Nam: Deaf community responses to ASL-based tourism. In It’s a Small World: International Deaf Spaces and Encounters, Michele Freidner & Annelies Kusters (eds), 95–111. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.Google Scholar
. 2017. Deaf to the Marrow: Deaf Social Organizing and Active Citizenship in Việt Nam. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.Google Scholar
Cooper, Brittney C., Morris, Susana M. & Boylorn, Robin M. 2017. The Crunk Feminist Collection. New York, NC: Feminist Press (CUNY).Google Scholar
Crais, Clifton & Scully, Pamela. 2010. Sara Baartman and the Hottentot Venus: A Ghost Story and a Biography. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Crunkista. 2012. Dear patriarchy. The Crunk Feminist Collective Web-Blog. <[URL]> (October 1, 2017)
Damasio, Antonio. 2005. Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain. New York, NY: Penguin.Google Scholar
. 2010. Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain. New York, NY: Vintage.Google Scholar
Das, Veena. 2007. Life and Words: Violence and the Descent into the Ordinary. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques. 1978. Writing and Difference. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Du Bois, John W. 2007. The stance triangle. In Stancetaking in Discourse: Subjectivity, Evaluation, Interaction, Robert Englebretson (ed), 139–182. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dupriez, Bernard & Halsall, Albert W. 1991. A Dictionary of Literary Devices: Gradus, A–Z. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Engel, Magali Gouvela. 2008. Forbidden sexualities: Madness and the male gender. História, Ciências, Saúde-Manguinhos 151: 173–190. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fairclough, Norman. 1989. Language and Power. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
. 2003. Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fanon, Franz. 2008. Black Skin, White Masks. New York, NY: Grove Press.Google Scholar
Fausto-Sterling, Anne. 1995. Gender, race, nation: The comparative anatomy of “Hottentot” women in Europe, 1815–1817. In Deviant Bodies: Critical Perspectives on Difference in Science and Popular Culture, Jennifer Terry & Jacqueline Urla (eds), 19–48. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Fleming, Luke & Lempert, Michael. 2011. Introduction: Beyond bad words. Anthropological Quarterly 84(1): 5–14. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gamson, Joshua. 1998. Freaks Talk Back: Tabloid Talk Shows and Sexual Nonconformity. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gee, James. 2010. An Introduction to Discourse Analysis: Theory and Method. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goldrick-Rab, Sara, Richardson, Jeb & Hernandez, Anthony. 2017. Hungry and Homeless in College: Results from a National Study of Basic Needs Insecurity in Higher Education. Madison, WI: Wisconsin Hope Lab.Google Scholar
Gordon, Lewis R. 2006. Is the human a teleological suspension of man? Phenomenological exploration of Sylvia Wynter’s Fanonian and Biodicean reflections. In After Man, Towards the Human: Critical Essays on the Thought of Sylvia Wynter, Anthony Bogues (ed), 237–257. Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle.Google Scholar
Gordon-Chipembere, Natasha (ed). 2011. Representation and Black Womanhood: The Legacy of Sarah Baartman. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gould, Stephen Jay. 1981. The Mismeasure of Man. New York, NY: Norton.Google Scholar
Gregg, Melissa & Seigworth, Gregory J. (eds). 2010. The Affect Theory Reader. Chapel Hill, NC: Duke University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Holtgraves, Thomas. 2002. Language as Social Action: Social Psychology and Language Use. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Irvine, Judith T. & Gal, Susan. 2000. Language ideology and linguistic differentiation. In Regimes of Language: Ideologies, Polities, and Identities, Paul V. Kroskrity (ed), 35–83. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press.Google Scholar
Jaffe, Alexandra. 2009. Stance in a Corsican school: Institutional and ideological orders. In Stance: Sociolinguistic Perspectives, Alexandra Jaffe (ed), 119–145. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jensen, Robert. 2004. Knowing pornography. In Critical Readings: Media and Gender, Cynthia Carter & Linda Steiner (eds), 246–264. Maidenhead: Open University Press.Google Scholar
Johnson, Mark. 1987. Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2007. The Meaning of the Body: Aesthetics of Human Understanding. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lakoff, George. 1987. Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lepuki, Edan. 2017. Kevin Bacon is not a dick: He just plays a guy named that on Transparent creator Jill Soloway’s new show. Esquire. <[URL]> (October 1, 2017)
Lieberman, Myron. 1993. Public Education: An Autopsy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Maines, Rachel P. 1998. The Technology of Orgasm: “Hysteria,” the Vibrator, and Women’s Sexual Satisfaction. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
McGlotten, Shaka. 2013. Virtual Intimacies: Media, Affect, and Queer Sociality. Albany, NY: State University of New York.Google Scholar
Michaelson, Scott J. & Johnson, David E. 2008. Anthropology’s Wake: Attending to the End of Culture. New York, NY: Fordham University Press.Google Scholar
Mosbergen, Dominique. 2015. Mystery artist Wanksy paints penises around potholes to get them fixed (NSFW). Huffington Post. <[URL]> (October 1, 2017)
Nocella, Anthony J. & Juergensmeyer, Erik. 2017. Fighting Academic Repression: Resistance, Reclaiming, Organizing, and Black Lives Matter in Education. Bern: Peter Lang. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Noll, Steven. 1994. ‘A far greater menace’: Feebleminded females in the south. In Hidden Histories of Women in the New South, Virginia Bernhard & Betty Brandon (eds), 31–51. Columbia, MI: University of Missouri Press.Google Scholar
Ordover, Nancy. 2003. American Eugenics. Race, Queer Anatomy, and the Science of Nationalism. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Park, Suey & Leonard, David. 2016. Toxic or intersectional: Challenges to (white) feminist hegemony online. In Are All the Women Still White: Rethinking Race, Expanding Feminisms, Janell Hobson (ed), 205–226. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.Google Scholar
Qureshi, Sadiah. 2004. Displaying Sara Baartman: The “Hottentot Venus.” History of Science 45(2): 233–257. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Roberts, Diane. 2016. Donald Trump: Grabber in chief. Prospect Magazine. <[URL]> (May 30, 2017)
Schaffner, Laurie. 2005. So Called Girl-On-Girl Violence is Actually Adult-On-Girl Violence. Chicago: Great Cities Institute.Google Scholar
Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. 2003. Touching Feeling: Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Silkey, Sarah. 2015. Black Woman Reformer: Ida B. Wells, Lynching, and Transatlantic Activism. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.Google Scholar
Stein, Perry. 2016. D.C. and Maryland have the highest median incomes in the country. Washington Post. <[URL]> (May 29, 2017)
Stoler, Ann Laura. 1995. Race and the Education of Desire: Foucault’s History of Sexuality and the Colonial Order of Things. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Thompson, Geoff & Hunston, Susan. 2000. Evaluation: An introduction. In Evaluation in Text, Susan Hunston & Geoff Thompson (eds), 1–27. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
van Dijk, Teun A. 1993. Denying racism: Elite discourse and racism. In Racism and Migration in Western Europe, John Solomos & John Wrench (eds), 179–193. Oxford: Pergamon Press.Google Scholar
Webster, Wendy. 2007. Englishness and Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Weeks, Jeffrey. 1996. The idea of a sexual community. Soundings 21(Spring): 71–84.Google Scholar
West, Edwin G. 1994. Education and the State. Carmel, IN: Liberty Fund.Google Scholar
Williams, Raymond. 1977. Marxism and Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Willis, Deborah. 2010. Black Venus 2010: They Called Her “Hottentot.” Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Žižek, Slavoj. 1997. Multiculturalism, or, the cultural logic of multinational capitalism. New Left Review I1 (September-October): 225.Google Scholar