Conversants and Combatants:
InterChange and Newsgroup Discussions in Literature-Survey Courses

InterChange

Although Amber never responded to Aaron's final newsgroup posting, claims from her newsgroup message reappeared in a later InterChange in Anderson's class. Here her position underwent a transformation that initially suggests that the Interchange medium may be better suited for the kind of constructive conflict that we feel is valuable. In an almost paradoxical way the single-class InterChange promoted more diversity of perspective than the two-class newsgroup exchange. In part this can be attributed to the immediacy of the InterChange format and the way that it allows more control in conflict management. One student, participating in InterChange pseudonymously as Blake (it may have been Amber--we don't know), reintroduced the us-them effect early on by again attacking the apparent homogeneity of Evans' class's postings. Blake seemed to assume that Anderson's class toed a party line in the newsgroup and would continue to do so in the InterChange; this assumption proved faulty. Anderson as well as other students in the class pressed Blake for extensions and clarifications of his/her critique of Evans' class's ideas, and gradually Blake's position shifted onto new and different ground.

The Interchange in Anderson's class was held after the interclass newsgroup exchange had concluded. Blake's first comment was "I don't know about anyone else, but I was less than impressed by the comments we read regarding this story last Thursday from Nick Evans['] class. They all sounded exactly the same." Anderson quickly tried to focus the energy of the conflict into specific criticisms, challenging Blake to clarify his/her position: "Blake, what would you have said differently?" Blake responded

I would have gone more into the fact that depression is seen today, accurately, as a disease of the mind. Back then, it automatically painted the ster[e]otype of "Looney" across your forehead. Society, I believe, rejected her more for this than the women's oppression in a male-dominated society, as every single member of Evan[s'] class seemed to think. Maybe it's just me, but I think overlooking at least part of the biological causes and roots of depression would be a substantial error regarding this story. As Amber called for research into unipolar depression in the newsgroup thread, Blake calls for more psychological analysis and questions the reading centered on men's domination of women. That is, Blake's position in the InterChange reintroduces yet also transforms Amber's and Finn's emphasis on psychological analysis in the newsgroup. In both cases, an interpretation focusing on views toward insanity is opposed to an alternative perspective: Amber and Finn set psychological interpretation over/against biographical reading, while Blake opposes the psychological interpretation to a new enemy, "male-bashing." While the use of pseudonyms makes conflating Blake's perspective with Amber's impossible, it may be that the original complaint was not so much an objection to biography as a mode of reading, but an objection to the anti-male attitudes that reading "The Yellow Wall-Paper" biographically seems to encourage.

Whatever the motivation behind the two calls for readings based on turn-of-the-century attitudes toward insanity, we think that Blake's message favoring psychological analysis underwent a more constructive process of critique and development in the InterChange. In the newsgroup, Finn's argument for psychological interpretation went for the most part unchallenged by Finn's classmates. Attacks on Finn's position came from Evans' class and other members of the university community. Despite--or perhaps because of--these responses, Finn never modulated his position in the newsgroup. Finn's second message there only called for more research, revealing no effort to acknowledge the validity of other perspectives. However, in the InterChange within Anderson's class, Finn's and Amber's newsgroup position, as represented by Blake, was critiqued more openly. One class member, using the pseudonym Qwaz, questioned one of the underlying assumptions of Blake's argument:

Quaz: Blake . . . Interesting point about the biological background and knowledge we have today of depression. But, don't you have to make the assumption that she IS depressed (as opposed to being oppressed into submission or loss of control . . . both of which can be misconstrued(sp?) by uniformed "authorities") from the beginning to use that arg[u]ment? Note how Quaz challenges Blake's position constructively, first acknowledging the thought that went into the stance and then phrasing a critique in the form of a question, which is less threatening and prompts Blake to provide another round of clarification. Essentially, Quaz reintroduces the possibility of and provides new support for an interpretation focusing on oppression by authority figures--the one that Blake initially rejected. Anderson had responded similarly earlier, asking "so would you say the story is more of an investigation of the medical community, than the male community? Can the two be so easily separated?"

In a final response, Blake reclarifies his/her position, this time accepting at least the feasibility of an interpretation highlighting patriarchal domination:

Blake: I think, Daniel, that it is a look at the ignorance of society as a whole which seems to result in the rejection of anything "different." While it is true that the medical field at the time was completely dominated by males, I can't help feeling that it would be a "cop-out" to place the blame reg[ar]ding the entire conflict of the story on the shoulders of the men in that period of time. While unwilling to give up the idea that depression at the time was misunderstood, Blake now seems willing to accept that some aspects of society at the time of the writing of the story were male dominated and that this interpretation has at least a partial role in a reading of the story. It wouldn't be fair to say that Blake has been won over to the other side, but through the challenges that came from within Anderson's class he/she eventually modified his/her position.

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Daniel Anderson
Nick Evans
1996