Calling: Essays on Teaching in the Mother Tongue [Paperback]

Gail B. Griffin (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this absorbing, insightful collection of 15 essays in a feminist vein, Griffin reflects on life in academia, mainly at Kalamazoo College in Michigan, where she is chair of the English Department and director of women's studies. Her voice is wise, wry, self-critical and passionate as she discusses the growth of her feminist consciousness. She deftly employs passages from Alice in Wonderland to counterpoint her amusing account of the Kalamazoo faculty's convoluted attempts to cope with a proposed women's studies course. She involves Emily Dickinson and Jane Eyre as she describes how her female students struggle to find their voices. Ruminating on sexual harassment, she explains how she grew to believe consensual professor-student sex should be prohibited, but admits she has fantasized about students and recalls how one student told her that the professor she followed to California was the one good thing about this place. In a lecture delivered on campus, Griffin recounts how a sticker on her door, Feminist Spoken Here, has sparked the most significant discussions she has had at the college. Those interested in education, not only in women's studies, could learn from this book.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

With a mixture of autobiographical facts and literary insights, the author (English, Kalamazoo Coll.) supports her belief that the "motherheart must be at the center of all teaching." Teachers should "create an environment where human beings can grow in and toward the fullness of themselves." This type of teaching is exemplified by the women teachers in higher education of the mid-1800s who, as the author found following her "calling" to Kalamazoo College, were the leaders in a profession that often brings teacher and student together in crisis situations, situations that the author believes are better confronted from a feminist perspective. This is a well-written, often humorous account of one woman's entry into the feminist side of academe.
- A.R. Huggins, Memphis State Univ. Libs., Tenn.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Paperback: 263 pages
• Publisher: Trilogy Books (August 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0962387924
• ISBN-13: 978-0962387920
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,796,152 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I was born in Detroit in 1950, a place and time I've always regarded as almost mythically significant. Educated by lots of good and bad teachers, by the civil rights movement, by the Beatles, by the '60's, by a formidable mother, and by 19th-century novels galore. Came to Kalamazoo College in 1977 with the intention of moving on in a couple years, and I'm still there, teaching literature, nonfiction writing, and women's studies.

My first two books are out of print but available here on Amazon or through me. CALLING is the story of coming of age as a feminist teacher, and Carolyn Heilbrun called it the best account of the academic patriarchy that she'd read, bless her heart. SEASON OF THE WITCH is a more motley collection of personal essays. My new one, "THE EVENTS OF OCTOBER": MURDER-SUICIDE ON A SMALL CAMPUS (September 2010, Wayne State U. Press), is the result of four years of research into the murder of a woman student by her former boyfriend in 1999. Part "immersion journalism," part memoir, part analysis, it's my attempt to place the tragedy squarely on the spectrum of violence against women and to understand how and why such "events" happen. It was thoroughly exhausting to write and I'm proud of it.

In my spare time I read a lot, watch movies, contemplate my cat, and reflect on the brilliance and beauty of Johnny Depp. I also write and publish poetry and brief nonfiction, a form that really interests me.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Deserves MUCH Wider Readership, July 30, 2002

By 

Dr Cathy Goodwin (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Calling: Essays on Teaching in the Mother Tongue (Paperback)

I wish this book had been published by a mainstream, New York publisher. Every professor -- especially every woman who considers an academic career -- should read this book and Gail Griffin's second, Season of the Witch.

Griffin (or Gail, as she'd probably prefer) writes an unsparing, honest account of her life as a college professor at a small "teaching institution." What's rare -- and what probably kept this book out of the mainstream -- is her ability to integrate literature with life. She must be an incredible teacher. Her brief descriptions of classroom discussion motivated me to search out some books I would have missed otherwise, notably The Color Purple.

As a career coach/consultant, I noted that Gail Griffin reveals her own career sensitivity. She instinctively chose a college where her unique talents would flourish. As she writes, she felt at home right away, although she fought the feeling. Like most new assistant professors, fresh from a prestigious graduate school, she had been taught to value scholarship -- articles in high-powered journals -- over teaching. In the language of career counseling, she created a career that expressed her own value system and seems to serve her life purpose.

As an ex-professor, I can appreciate Griffin's challenge at tiny Kalamazoo College. Staying intellectually keen while teaching only undergraduates calls for a unique discipline, motivation and, above all, sense of oneself. I couldn't have done it: I taught the jaded MBAs that some of Griffin's students became.

If I were teaching a course on careers, especially academic careers, this book would be on the list. I can't help comparing it to the gloomier but also brilliantly written Cliff Walk,
which would also be required reading. Griffin herself might pick up a gender subtext, far better than I could.
I wish she'd write another book and get a big-name publisher
to pick it up.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant book that deserves more attention, June 26, 2008

By 

Andrea F. Jones - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Calling: Essays on Teaching in the Mother Tongue (Paperback)

I can't praise this book highly enough. I wish that I'd discovered and read this much earlier: it has honestly breathed new life into me. Griffin is a champion for teaching as an inextricable part of the life of the mind and a life's mission, rather than as simply a way to pay the bills in academia. Her even-handed, insightful analysis of the differences gender make in and out of the classroom made me breathe a sigh of relief. There is real genius in the connections she draws between her inspired analyses of history and literature and the daily life of a college campus. And, as if all this were not enough, Griffin's prose is gorgeous--a true delight to read.

I suspect that this book hasn't gotten wider attention because it defies the usual divisions of academic work: it is neither a work of cultural studies nor a theory of pedagogy, because it is both. If things were as they should be, though, work like this would be the standard, and not the exception.