The fallacy of "Academic Community"

One of the persistent underlying themes of my comprehensive exam readings is the concept of community. And because I prefer to concretely connect abstract concepts to my sense of reality, this now has me thinking about my communities. Most disturbingly, I have discovered that the idea of an “academic community” is a fallacy.

Let me lay down some groundwork for this conclusion. Between my readings and my own developing beliefs, my loose definition of community entails interaction, communication, and understanding among the members. Easy, right? Well…no. Consider this scenario. I am a member of the “academic community.” What does that mean, exactly? That I am participating in the academic, university environment? Ok, but based on my aforementioned definition, that’s not enough. Let’s consider interactivity – who do I interact with in the broader “academic community”? Professors, instructors, and graduate students in my department. A couple of grad students outside my department (thanks to my service on the Graduate Student Council last year). The librarians. That’s about it. So maybe that qualifies. How about communication?

Yes, I definitely communicate with all of the above mentioned folks. Check. And understanding? Ummm. Ok, I think this is where things fall apart. Let’s take just one common question: “What are you getting your PhD in?”

I get this one all the time. In fact, it is one of the unwritten and unspoken rules of grad school that this must be one of the first questions you ask upon meeting a fellow grad student for the first time. Here is how that interaction usually goes when the question is directed at me from a fellow grad student outside the English department:

“What are you getting your PhD in?”

“Composition and Rhetoric with a focus on Native American rhetoric and literacy”

Response range: Half-smile/half-recognition of terms to glazed eyes/raised eyebrows

I try again: “Writing”

Full on smile/recognition: “oh!”

Usually the conversation then veers onto something else, like the temperature and flavor of the free pizza, but on the off chance that the poor soul attempts to continue, which has happened a handful of times, this is how that conversation usually progresses:

“Really? What’s Native American rhetoric? Who are the theorists?”

“The way Native scholars past and present use language in various situations to make a point. Some of the big names are Vine Deloria, Robert Warrior, Jace Weaver, Joy Harjo…”

At this point, recognition is so far away that I usually throw in “Leslie Marmon Silko,” at which point the proverbial light bulb goes on and out comes another, “ooohhh! I read Ceremony as an undergrad!”

Le sigh.

Back to the concept of community. Very often, when this conversation plays out in my own department among myself and professors, instructors, or fellow English grad students, I get similar reactions because the “academy” is very good at partitioning itself into insular, disconnected compartments that seldom, if ever, interact. So “Native American rhetoric” is a foreign concept to many in the English department as much as “Composition and Rhetoric” is a foreign designation to anyone outside the English department.

(And by the way, all of this magnifies once I step outside the academic environment and try to interact with friends and family “on the outside,” so to speak. They really glaze over and lack understanding about what exactly it is that I do. And not only do they not understand, they also aren’t interested in learning, so conversation always shifts to other topics.)

I’m questioning whether there is such a thing as an “academic community” at all. Who exactly is in the community who can interact, communicate, and understand the fields I’m studying and discussing? Let’s see, that would be my three-member professorial committee, a handful of instructors and all of my grad student friends who took my director’s Native American theory class with me last spring. (I know I’m selfishly presenting myself and my situation, but I imagine the same argument could be made for someone in the Biology Department, or Family Services, or Poultry Science, etc.)

Certainly my little cohort of folks who can interact and communicate with, and understand me in discussions of Native American theorists and rhetoric qualifies as a sub-community within the larger English department community, which is part of the Humanities community within the Auburn University structure, which is part of the broader “university” or “academic community” in the U.S. and the world. So many levels of community, but can we really call those broader categories communities, considering the lack of interaction, communication, and understanding between the internal members of the sub-genres and sub-communities that make up the larger versions?

Instead of “community,” which puts a positive spin and gloss over what the superstructure really is – and I see this term in academic journals as well as my own writing -- we should be honest and stop pretending to be a community. We should call the broader groupings by a more honest and less happy term: an institution. Seems to me in recent years, people have been trying to get away from the term “institution” because of its negative connotations. Well. Yeah. An institution can operate, function, and even flourish without its members interacting, communicating, or even feigning understanding across boundaries. As long as the work gets done and everyone gets paid, the “institution” is just fine.

The institution is really a machine. Not a community that functionally relies on the interconnectivity and interdependence of its participants.

And as far as re-casting the institutional machinery of the academy into the frame of a community as I envision it, well, I just don’t know if that’s really possible. It would require members of the compartmentalized units to truly care about what’s going on in other units – enough to at least learn some fundamentals or even just basic concepts and terminology. But honestly, who has time for that? The pressures of “publish or perish” – which is ridiculous and a problem to tackle another day – in addition to administrative and service requirements that come with working in academe restrict members to focusing on their own compartments (for job survival) while engaged in academic business. Outside time is usually devoted to hobbies and interests that have very little or nothing to do with that institutional machinery…and perhaps that is where our best chance for “academic” community resides – in the external interactions of academic professionals engaged in non-academic activities, like Niffer’s trivia on Mondays and Project Runway Appreciation Nights. ;)