The Foucault quote in the beginning set the stage quite well.

On page 8

> Writers who can successfully manipulate an audience (or, to use a less pointed language, writers who can accommodate their motives to their readers' expectations) are writers who can both imagine and write from a position of privilege. They must, that is, see themselves within a privleged discourse, one that already includes and excludes groups of readers. They must be either equal to or more powerful than those they would address. The writing, then, must somehow transform the political and social relationships between basic writing students and their teachers.
If my students are going to write for me by knowing who I am-and if this means more than knowing my prejudices, psych- ing me out-it means knowing what I know; it means having the knowledge of a professor of English. They have, then, to know what I know and how I know what I know (the interpretive schemes that define the way I would work out the problems I set for them); they have to learn to write what I would write, or to offer up some approximation of that discourse. The problem of audience awareness, then, is a problem of power and finesse.

> it means having the knowledge of a professor of English

I’m not entirely sold on this assertion. I feel like one could seduce a reader without imbuing their knowledge wholly. It reminds me somewhat of the Turing test: the reader could be fooled, to some degree, that the writer has the knowledge or power of an English professor, even though the writer is a computer (or a clever writer).

But giving this passage a second glance, and the context that he is talking about students writing to an English professor, I think the point isn’t that the student must have all the knowledge of the professor, but merely an approximation.

The student must “invent the university” before being able to approximate the mind of an English professor. The phrase is interesting because the university, as an institution, has been around for hundreds (thousands?) of years. It’s not as if every student in the present is building a university, rather, they have to invent it inside their mind. They have to build a set of internal constructs in order to assimilate the language and minds of people who are part of the university club. This assimilation contorts and restricts discourse in that realm, which gives it power to control the people who invent the university. By inventing the university, in a way, you are being influenced by a powerful institution. Enveloped by its ideas. Infected like a virus. If one can think of an institution as an entity with motives of its own, sometimes political, it can therefore be viewed as a force for good and evil.

Also, it should be noted, state universities are partially funded by government institutions, so there is a direct line between the survival of universities and government influence. Nation-states can mask their influence under the guise of an educational system, disseminating propaganda in order to teach people how to think. But I digress.

This was a surprisingly fun read, as someone who spends a lot of time writing, it’s sparks my intrigue when someone sets a stage to analyze the discourse between writers and readers with a looming philosophical undertone