J O H N . F. P F E I L

The following feature story appeared in the campus publication MOSAIC in May, 1997.

John F. Pfeil

Finding freedom through a new way of thinking
Professor of English and jazz aficionado John (Fred) Pfeil frequently draws the attention of his students to a musical axiom developed by the late legendary jazz saxophonist Charlie "Bird" Parker: "First you learn the notes, then you learn your ax, and then you throw it away and just blow."

To Pfeil, the musician's explanation of the creative process aptly describes the thinking processes students must develop. By first learning the basics and the terminology of a specific course of study and then performing practice exercises, students learn a method of critical thinking that can be applied to other disciplines. "In the classes I teach, the content is a distant second to developing this new way of thinking," he asserts. "That's how students find freedom, their own mind, and their own range."

Developing a cultural consciousness
Coordinator of Trinity's creative writing program, Pfeil teaches classes in American studies, creative writing, film studies, and popular culture. To engage students in his classes and motivate them to acquire intellectual freedom, he simply challenges his students to think. "Either implicitly or explicitly I tell them, 'In this class you're going to be exposed to a certain kind of thinking. You can take it with you to other books and other films and to other kinds of texts.'"

In his "Introduction to Film Studies" course, for instance, Pfeil's pedagogical approach leads students to think about Hollywood and its celluloid creations in new and different ways. After learning basic film history and film terms, students learn how to "read" a film from shot to shot, how to understand the sequence of those shots, and then learn different theories of film criticism and critical perspectives. Students learn not only about the medium but also about the inner workings of the film industry and how film can be reflective of social and political ideologies.

Armed with this new perspective, "students no longer have that blind innocence about what they're consuming," Pfeil says. "People should be self-conscious and discriminating about what they're 'eating' in the culture. I think that should be a goal of a liberal arts college in general," Pfeil contends. "Whether the course is on Melville or Hollywood film, postmodern culture or the antebellum period, what I seek to foster in my students is a kind of double consciousness of what cultural production is about and how it works -- a double consciousness plus the dialectical ability to grasp the interrelation of the two," he notes.

Pfeil, a Pennsylvania native, joined Trinity's faculty 10 years ago and has earned a reputation as an extremely popular, accessible, and demanding professor. Prior to coming to Trinity, Pfeil taught at Stanford University, Stephens College, and Oregon State University. Author of What They Tell You to Forget, a novella and selected short stories (1996), for which he won a Pushcart Editors Prize, he also has written a novel, another collection of short stories, and a collection of essays in popular culture criticism and theory. He is halfway through a new novel, which he expects to complete next year.

A laser-beam memory
Pfeil's colleagues and students alike attribute his success as a teacher to both his knowledge and his classroom approach. "He has the most outstanding command over the material," according to G. Keith Funston Professor of American Literature and American Studies Jan K. Cohn, who cotaught the "American Studies Junior Seminar: The American West" with Pfeil last year. "He has an ability for total recall and can reference what he needs with extraordinary facility. With this laser-beam type memory, he can make analogies outside of what we're looking at in class, which enriches the conversation," she remarks. "His own work is very smart and very complex."

By drawing upon their professor's broad knowledge and placing the study of film and literature in historical and social context, students say they find a new dimension in their studies. The English department's 1996-97 President's Fellow, Amy R. Weghorst '97, is a creative writing major who says that one of her first exposures to analytical thinking at Trinity occurred when she was a sophomore enrolled in Pfeil's class "Home Fires Burning: America in Fiction, 1945-75." Examining contemporary criticism in relation to the cultural status and perspective of different reviewers was invaluable, Weghorst claims. "He brought in contemporary reviews of Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead and made me see literary analysis, especially of modern fiction, in a new way. This experience was a primary motivator in my decision to become an English major," she notes. Adam R. Bulger '98, an English literature major and editor of The Other Voice, an alternative student publication, praises Pfeil for his "encyclopedic knowledge of film and pop culture." English literature major Jenica Parker Rogers '98, who has taken two courses with Pfeil, believes her professor is very successful at motivating students to think. "He's really good at drawing students through their thoughts. He knows how to be encouraging and demanding at the same time. He pointed out to me that I'm a very good analytical writer and helped me to develop that ability further," she said.

Thinking is what teaching is all about for Pfeil. "I believe students are capable of thinking well," he asserts. "I trust them to do that, I want them to do that, and I virtually insist that they do that. I'm going to give them lots of support and as much attention as they ask for, but I want them to think." Reverting back to Charlie Parker's musical axiom, he observes, "You've got to learn the rules for doing something and practice. And then you can fly."

-- Suzanne Zack