VG Blog: MLA Introduction

Revised Introduction:

During the last two years, the four of us have been involved in the maintenance, redesign, update, and expansion of VG/Voices from the Gaps, a University of Minnesota website devoted to student writing on the lives and work of women writers and artists of color. This process has demanded that we theorize the website, as well, as we have come to realize that VG presents both potential and pitfalls to women, as artists and scholars, negotiating the academy. To begin this presentation, Carla Elaine Johnson, an MFA candidate at UMN, will discuss VG from a writer's perspective. Then, Rachel Mordecai, Masha Zavialova, and I, who are doctoral candidates in English Literature, will approach the issue of negotiation from the standpoints of three roles that we think illuminate the tensions inherent in hte work of VG: I will discuss VG as a "secretary"; Rachel will consider VG as "gatekeeper"; and Masha will theorize VG as "grafter."