Assembling Epistemic Scripts - Ramblings on Epistemic Script as Cultural Unit

It should be no secret to many of you that I am interested in the concept of assemblage. I don’t necessarily think it is a conceptual cure-all or the panacea for composition; however, I do think it is something that should be circulating wider in the field to help us understand and teach the processes of composing. However, part of why I like assemblage so much is just how versatile it is. Sure, it is a process of composing, where we can explicitly assemble a series of citations or samples to form a new text. But assembly as composing process is only the tip of the iceberg, as we can use assemblage as a framework for composing writ large, where we consider a lot more broadly the kinds of pre-existing materials that we draw upon when we compose: whole texts themselves (as in a canon or syllabus), cultural discursive conventions, the actual physical materials of texts, media, and genre conventions, just to name a few. Any given text is an assemblage that explicitly and implicitly relies on what has come before it. I give this overview for those that weren’t in Dr. Yancey’s Convergence class last semester, but it also serves as a starting premise of this blog post: the idea that assemblage is malleable and can encompass different sizes of textual “units.” And ultimately my project is arguing to add another thread to assemblage theory, showing how it could be viable and valuable in approaches to (teaching) composition that prioritize and emphasize the concept of identity.

I made mention in class that I think Fatima’s idea of an epistemic script could give us a way of thinking about identity as assembled, so I’m going to use this post to try and make some of those early connections. So, first things first: if Assemblage isn’t just about samples or citations of words or small bits of audio, but can include larger and smaller units of meaning, then theoretically an “epistemic script” could be one of those units as well; if that were the case, then we could begin to think about how a person’s identity is comprised of the epistemic scripts they carry, temporarily assembled on the body and in the psyche of an individual. But to connect assemblage and identity in this way, we need a stronger understanding of what constitutes epistemic scripts. Fatima, pulling from Alison Bailey, defines scripts as “a person’s gestures, language, attitudes, concept of personal space, gut reactions to certain phenomena, and body awareness” (342). Of course, the cultures of which we are members shape how we believe and how we speak. But, I do not believe that this is an exhaustive list, as this brief list is primarily concerned with things we internalize from our cultures. Instead, I believe that like assemblage, we can open up epistemic scripts to include scripts that are more external. Opening up the idea and scope of epistemic scripts can put it on similar ground as I placed assemblage above, where we can see individual texts, or certain bits of texts, as performing or representing portions of an individual’s identities.

To try to make this connection a little more concrete, I can point to the network that Sean, Ashley, and I designed for our exploratory--specifically, I want to point to just how messy it was. We had a lot of textual data around the perimeter to show all of the points of identity we saw play out in the texts, but when you look toward the center, to all the lines and arrows, that’s where you see how messy identity is, how all of these factors overlap. We are comprised of multiple identities and they emerge and fade as our contexts dictate. And each one of those identities has been substantiated by different scripts we have internalized--whether through action, attitude, or belief. So, something like the loyalty to America script that Fatima points to could be considered an epistemic script. But what does this loyalty “sound” like? What does it “look” like? What does it “act” like? I can’t speak for the Muslim-American loyalty script, but we can build an image of a prototypical “loyal” american. He (and it is definitely a he) probably distrusts any manufactured good that isn’t made in America while he blasts Creedence out of the open windows of his pre-owned Japanese pick up, not at all sensing the irony resonating between his sentiments and choice of vehicle. Even in this small profile, we have a few different scripts at play: internalized xenophobia, resentment at the downturn of american manufacturing, a pick-up truck (with our without bumper stickers, take your pick), and Creedence. What does liking Creedence tell us about this person? Well, it doesn’t tell us anything definitive about him, but it is one script that he has assembled; maybe a Vietnam vet uncle got him into Creedence; but when taken in consideration with the other scripts at play, we can gain a sense of who this example “is.” Of course, it’s hard to locate something like these far-away scripts within a person, but something as small as “likes Creedence” and “drives pickup truck” can take on meaning when placed with others in order to come to something other Americans can recognize as “loyal.” That tangent aside, scripts also become interesting when we reconsider Arnold’s article as ultimately being a dispute over curricula, in which teachers were in conflict about which scripts to impart to their students; inasmuch school acts as enculturation, the choice of entire texts or attitudes to impart becomes a kind of assembly and a kind of scripting, hoping that students take up the scripts we offer them. Thinking about scripts and assemblage like this makes it a bit nebulous because the borders we can draw around any script or semantic unit is ephemeral and may not be as readily recognized as the function they are serving, but I think scripts may be a way to give us a somewhat identifiable unit of identity and connect assemblage to composition’s overarching concern with identity.