WGS MAJOR, Matthew Day, in regards to Dr. Purvis’s ENG/WGS 371 class that he is enrolled in

The following is a short interview with a Women’s Gender Studies major, Matthew Day, in regards to Dr. Purvis’s ENG/WGS 371 class that he is enrolled in.

Ryan: Thank you again for agreeing to do this interview. I wanted to start by giving you a bit of background. Dr. Purvis’s course is a brand new course designed to bring together upper-level students from two different majors or minors, English and WGS. My interview questions today will focus on this design and your own particular experience in the course as having enrolled either for English or WGS. You are an English major, correct?

Matt: Yes.

Ryan: Did you know prior to taking this course that it is cross-listed with WGS, and that the course itself is designed to meet two different groups of students?

Matt: I actually had no idea. I showed up to the class and asked people if this was ENG 371, and they all said it was WGS 371. So it was kind of a coincidence. It’s the natural continuation of 171 and 271, and then after that they do 471, which I think is also WGS next semester.

Ryan: I’d have to double check that, but you might be right. I have a couple other questions to draw on. When a professor plans a new upper-level literature course like ENG 371, they will be thinking about the course content and the materials they want students to read. They will also think about how they want to approach those materials, like the questions they’ll ask or the method on how they’ll shape their assignments. Thinking about both course readings and Dr. Purvis’s approach to these materials, in what way would you say this course feels familiar to you, that it’s similar to other ENG courses you’ve taken here at UMaine?

Matt: I think one of the easiest things is how it’s different, but for the way it’s similar, it’s definitely the literature in general, where you’re doing a lot of reading in familiar forms. It’s familiar in the sense of taking an idea and applying it to something. But it’s different in the sense that what you’re applying to is much larger than the work itself. Especially with the WGS stuff that we’ve done, like we read Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza by Gloria Anzaldua. Yes, it’s literature, but what we’re looking at in it applies to real life. Not to say that in the English department you spend a lot of time reading dead people, but you do, and to have that idea of this literature, but it’s something that’s living, is familiar in a way that’s different.

Ryan: So the fact that it’s drawing on the experiences is a refreshing view of it?

Matt: Yes. Something that applies to the modern world in a very easily-accessible, often underappreciated way. 

Ryan: And has your experience with an English degree made it a bit easier to approach adapting to this sort of lived experience narrative they’re putting forward, even if it’s not fiction or past events?

Matt: I find that it makes the form much easier to digest. Because obviously we’re not going to read things that are easy to read. Oftentimes it’s going to be very depressing, it’s going to be very sad, it’s about injustice and oppressive things, a lot of oppression, things that don’t necessarily have an easy answer. But by putting it in a form that I at least find easy to digest because it’s familiar, it makes it easier to come to terms with both the suffering and the lived experiences, and also the potentiality for hope.

Ryan: Keeping in mind my earlier question about Dr. Purvis’s course content, but also the approach to that content, what if anything has surprised you the most about this course? And what are ways it’s maybe different from other courses you’ve taken here at UMaine?

Matt: I was expecting more theory, to be honest. More literary theory. I mentioned it earlier, the natural continuation of 170, which is narrative theory, and 271, which is interpretive theory, is 371, and so I was expecting more of the hands-off passive learning style, if you will. Here’s a bunch of people who had a bunch of thoughts, and here’s how it applies to literature. But instead you get hands-on, as mentioned earlier, lived experiences. It’s just different. You’re reading things that happened to people. I go back to Borderlands, it is a combination of poetry and prose, it’s kind of like fiction and nonfiction come together. It’s more of a metaphorical idea than a memoir.

Ryan: I think that’s a super important viewpoint to have. I come from a philosophy background, so I’m used to reading stuff that’s not necessarily having a prose to it, and discussing it as a big group is the usual standard, so hearing an English perspective on that is really valuable as well. Building off of that, English and WGS students will bring different skills and background knowledge to the conversation, naturally. Thinking about the course makeup now, what skills or approaches do you or some of your other colleagues in English, if you’ve noticed, bring to the table that you think might add to the conversation in class?

Matt: That is an excellent question, and I don’t know if I can do it justice. English and WGS are so closely related, you can see that in literary theory like I was talking about earlier. Feminist theory is a very large part of English. I like to believe – and I hope – that at least I personally as an English major get to bring in a bit of the nuance of the construction of literature itself, whether that’s syntax, or diction, imagery, kind of like a close reading. Going back to the question you had earlier, being able to close-read something that’s a lived experience is something that we do in English, and I hope that’s something that we get to bring in to WGS. And you put specificity to not only just the general happenings in the world, but specific happenings in the world as well.

Ryan: In my interview with Dr. Purvis, we noticed that a lot of English majors will bring out analysis of language or narrative that has helped improve it a fair bit. I would say that it’s all very valuable. In turn, what would you say your WGS colleagues are bringing to the table?

Matt: I’m always amazed by the personal touch my WGS colleagues bring to something. At least in English, personal experience isn’t something that’s often considered. I took WGS 205, and something we focused on a lot is the things that don’t get counted are personal experience, and I feel like you see that a lot in English. Sure, we’re looking at specificity, but it’s the specifics of a general topic. I’m in a Robert Frost class, and we’re specifically looking at Robert Frost poetry to then talk about how he discusses the environment, which is a super personal topic. But if I was going to do that with a WGS perspective, which is something I see from WGS students all the time, it’s how the environment would interact with the individual. So where we’re in a class about borders right now, you often see an emphasis on the individual and personal experiences that I feel like you don’t see in English classes.

Ryan: Would you say that having a taste of WGS approaching the subject would maybe help English going forward, in looking at the intentions of the author and their language choice, or what they’re writing about, do you think it may have a constructive effect going forward?

Matt: Yes, I think it kind of makes literature more relevant. When I tell people I’m an English major, they’re like, “What’s the point?” You might answer like, “Oh, we’re discovering the human experience.” But WGS, and combining that with English, it really is looking at the human experience, the specificity of being a human, the way we interact with each other, and I think that’s something both necessary and almost new in English. It often feels so impersonal to me, looking at Robert Frost. “Ah, another dead white man that I’m reading.” But to be able to take Robert Frost and say “this is how it applies to somebody nowadays,” like the environment in which we currently live, it makes it more relevant to me.

Ryan: I feel like that’s a perspective that doesn’t get focused on at all, like you mentioned before. And especially with this class, too, to bring that other perspective into the discussion for both English and WGS. One last question, is there anything else you’d like to share? Anything about the class we might not have touched on, anything else that might’ve piqued your interest?

Matt: I think one of the most interesting things about WGS classes, at least in my experience, is that in modern society, we’re almost taught not to care about something that doesn’t affect you. It’s very meritocratic and individualistic. But WGS isn’t about a meritocracy, it isn’t about an individual, it’s about an individual in a community. And that’s something I think is incredible about WGS is that it teaches you to care in the most general and specific sense of the word. It teaches you to care about yourself and the things that you’ve lived through, and it teaches you to care about other people who aren’t like you in any capacity, the complete opposite, and how those ideas can coexist.

Ryan: I would say that’s the best way to put it. And the fact that it’s gotten across that way is both a victory for the class and the subject because it is very much bringing in the personal story of a lot of people who don’t get a seat at that table, or even the dynamics of power and how they affect other people.


We also thank Matthew for his time and input in regards to this effort to blend disciplines within the English and Women’s Gender Studies fields.