Information for Discussants
On two occasions during the semester it will be your responsibility to present the material to the class. This is not something you should panic over, but you should consider the responsibility you have here for directing the tone and direction of the class discussion. You have 3–4 minutes to present the material. That is all. You do not gain points for taking longer than the allotted time; in fact, going over the time limit indicates that you have not properly prepared your introduction.
So, how do you present the material? First, here is what you will not do: you will not recapitulate the material, provide a summary of it, or in any way assume that you somehow need to tell us what the reading consists of. We have all read the material. It is thus not your responsibility to somehow synthesize and abstract pages and pages of material into 3-4 minutes of pithy prose. It is your responsibility, however, to indicate to the class what you think the principal issues and questions are in the text for which you are responsible. What does that mean?
It means that, generally speaking, you will identify what makes this text unique. What is this text doing that others are not doing? What is this text's reason for being? What are the main questions that it is raising?
Often texts will raise very difficult questions for which they have no answers, but it is generally the case that raising the question is difficult enough. Think of it this way: what is a given text asking that readers had not thought to ask about previously? What had people simply accepted as given before the text you're considering came about, and how (and why) did it ask people to think about something in a new way?
Often times as well texts will consider old problems in new ways. There are many texts about, for example, cultural difference. But what does the text in your care say about cultural difference, and how does it say it? What metaphors, systems of thought, analogies, or arguments does it make to contribute a specific and potentially unique way to consider the problem?
In any event, you will find that by referring to a specific passage or two from the assigned reading you will be able to make your introduction of the material easier, clearer, and more to the point.
Your job is to consider the text the class will have read for the day indicated, and consider the above—and anything else you like—in relation to the assigned reading. Consider doing any or all of the following:
- Indicate your interpretation of the overarching main point or idea of the work, and then show specific instances in the text that (a) contribute to making that point and (b) nuance the point in different ways
- Suggest two or three inter-related ideas that occur throughout the reading
- Isolate a passage or two and do a detailed close reading of the passage to show how it works: that is, through what means it produces the meanings that you find operating in the text
- Posit a number of questions that you find the text to be asking over the course of the pages you are assigned to
- Make connections to other readings we have done and show what is specific to the text at hand in the connections you are making
- Consider contradictions or tensions operating in the work and what those contradictions or tensions mean or what effects they produce (N.B. This does not mean you're finding holes in the author's logic: it means you're identifying conflicting points of view that are being put head to head)
On some occasions more than one person will present the same material to the class. This is not at all a problem. The chances that you will present in precisely the same way or choose exactly the same passages or have precisely the same interpretations are vanishingly small.