Flattening Effects: Composition’s Multicultural Imperative and the Problem of Narrative Coherence

This essay argues that multiculturalism-inflected composition classrooms often “flatten” or efface radical alterities with which students—and teachers—should be encouraged to grapple. The authors demonstrate some of the limitations of such pedagogies, offer examples of provocative texts that celebrate difference—not identity—as a powerful critical and compositional tool for exploring subjectivity and justice, and call for a shift toward acknowledging our potential incommensurability and unknowability as a fruitful way to engage issues of social justice.