Posts may be rather sparse for the next couple weeks. With the Fall semester quickly approaching, I'm under a bit of pressure to meet my self-imposed deadline of completing a draft of all six dissertation chapters by the end of summer. With a bit of luck, I should have Chapter Five, the mother of all chapters, finished by early next week. I've finished 10 pages of what I'm thinking will be a 50 page chapter. Here's a bit from the introduction to Chapter Five: If it Walks Like a Goth and Talks Like a Goth . . .
The simultaneous identification with, and differentiation from, "being GOTH" is the focal point of my dissertation project. Given that Devon and Trent’s messages appear on a goth email list, I position them as subjects "within the human drama of discourse and social practices" (Schrag, 1986, p. 138). By responding to other email list participants, by inserting their thoughts into an ongoing conversation regarding goth subjectivity, both involve themselves in the rhetorical negotiation of the subcultural self. Likewise, Devon and Trent also suggest there is more to the subcultural self than a collective subjectivity. Neither Devon or Trent, it would seem, are content with just "being Goth." Instead, their messages suggest a desire to be recognized as complex subcultural selves. Schrag describes this public performance of individual and collective subjectivities, to this constitution of the Self, as "a portrait of the subject as an ensemble of multiplex personae . . ." (p. 148). Situated as the author (or artist, if I continue Schrag’s metaphor) of her own life story, an individual negotiates, manages, and performs her multiplex personae through discourse and action. Informed by cultural attitudes, beliefs, and institutions, the Self and Other co-author a complex, richly textured narrative consisting of protagonists, antagonists, supporting characters, and plot complications.
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