Hey, sorry I missed everyone on Monday.
As I read Jeff Rice’s article and Collin Brooke’s discussion of deixis, I kept circling back to Charlie Parker (I could say to “jazz” or even “Bebop,” but to keep this example under some control, I’ll stick with Parker). I thought of the fusion of quotations that became the "assemblages" of Bird’s solos, especially when Rice was making a case for hip-hop’s “sounding out” as rhapsodizing, which Ong “places at the center of Homeric poetry and the Greek rhetorical tradition” (Rice). While I see that "hip-hop as an assemblage" affords us a means of discussing "different ways of knowing through digital writing," it seems like the fusion (or rhapsodizing) in hip-hop lyrics is often less interesting than the fusion of sounds sampled. I’m guilty of generalizing here, but it seems like a wider variety of cultures are assembled at the turn-table than at the mic. That said, I’ve already seen textbooks and readers that present Tupac lyrics alongside other “gritty, urban social commentaries” like Marge Piercy’s “Rape Poem”. Now, of course, it’s not Tupac’s or Jeff Rice’s fault that the full aurality of hip-hop gets canonized as--or flattened into--mere lyrics, and it doesn’t mean that hip-hop can’t help us imagine or illustrate Havelock’s (1986) aural/oral writer building “his own semi-connected discourse out of disconnected bits and pieces contained in oral discourse” (as quoted in Rice). I just think that Parker’s “recompositional” decisions in the moment of improvisation--improvising against the inherited charts and time signatures of old standards, “reimprovising” in set pieces performed nightly with “variations in the stitching [that] led to variations in rhetorical output”-- may provide a useful analog to Rice’s example of the Homeric poet. I guess I just have an easier time thinking of the “aural practice of rhapsodizing” when I think of the sampled beats, hooks, grooves, etc. without the accompanying visual rhetoric of lyrics on a lyrics sheet or in a “social commentary” section of a Bedford collection of “Minority Voices.”
Parker’s improvisations (like the solos of those he influenced) also offer an opportunity to discuss deictic systems. In one sense, Parker became a resource as a pioneering "expert": he absorbed not only the history of jazz but the history of western music and was willing to quote Bartok, Stravinsky, etc. in his playing, in a way that purportedly schooled younger musicians. In another sense he was an "intelligent agent" (the younger musicians took what they wanted or could hear from Parker’s solos, from the way he mixed and matched and seemed to create the new from classical and pop cultural sources, something that also gave expression to his ethos and pathos). For all of its solos, jazz is deeply reliant on collaboration and communication, a reliance that allowed James Baldwin a device for making his narrator finally listen to his brother Sonny "sounding out" and entering a conversation in the epiphanic close of “Sonny’s Blues”. Again, I’m only offering Charlie Parker as a metaphor for discussing deictic systems, “sounding out,” or as an alternative to expert mastery of a subject; I’m not arguing, as it seems Rice is with hip-hop, that a sustained analysis of Parker’s abilities will provide insight into digital networks or ka-knowledge.
I'm also considering Parker's impact on a “small network” of jazz buffs who had tired—at least in Harlem and a few progressive clubs on the west coast—of the influence of swing. Parker’s agency in the evolution of “bebop” is tricky to explore for the same reason it's ideal for discussing small networks: many of his innovations came during the recording strike in the early 1940s, so there was a delay between limited audiences learning to hear jazz a new way in a few clubs on either coast and the mass audiences who purchased a later “now” on recordings that tried to capture—-a few years after the fact-—the spontaneity of the “now” of small club improvisations that had already spawned legions of imitators. As early as 1939 Parker’s devotees “learned” to listen for the origo of a song like “Cherokee” even as they heard it in the “now” context of Parker re-assembling “Cherokee” into his signature tune “KoKo”. Parker’s innovation, or his “recompositional” decisions, led him to play past the original time signatures, improvise new melody lines against older songs’ chord changes, and later snag copyrights for these new songs that became, with each performance, less recognizable. That is, “Cherokee” is certainly harder to hear in “KoKo” than The Police’s “Every Breath You Take” is in Diddy’s tribute to his pal Biggie. By the time much of the country-between-the-coasts got to hear the “revolution” that was “KoKo,” the “now” of that 1944 recording had multiple layers of context: how the old standard once sounded—or at least how its underlying structure was preserved—a collage of what Parker added in the moments of, say, specific club dates in 1941, 42, 43, etc., and what Parker’s “comments” on his own solos were on the day of the studio recording (does this make bebop an example of both the deictic and palimpsestic?).
Ultimately, Rice wants to find ka-knowledge “in the mix,” or as he describes it:
“The result of this stitching (described aptly in McLuhanist terms of bodily extension) is a new type of knowledge where the personal and the multiple events/ideas/moments engaged by the personal (i.e., voice) come together. Not quite autobiography, not quite technological reflection, not quite cultural critique, not quite argument, it is somehow a bit of all the above and something else. . . .this combination of actions through rhapsodizing is indicative of the ka-knowledge of digital writing I am uncovering. In digital culture, the process of interweaving composition and identity, of becoming an extension of one's own writing, of assembling various genres of discourse, has come to be known not as the stitch, but the mix.”
Somewhat relatedly, jazz critics often struggle to find a rhetoric that doesn’t just add to a hagiography of the individual autonomous icon nor discredit the icon's "pioneering work" in favor of LaTour-be-damned “social forces” that contributed to post-World-War-II revolutions in jazz. Take the following quote by Stanley Crouch, writing about Parker in a 1989 article. After referring to Parker as “the self-made creator of a vital and breathtakingly structured jazz vernacular,” Crouch observes,
“[Parker’s] prodigious facility was used not only for exhibition or revenge, moreover, but primarily for the expression of melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic inventions, at velocities that extended the intimidating relationship of thought and action that forms the mastery of improvisation in jazz.” (“Bird Land” 255)
Crouch goes on to make points about the way we begin to learn and intuit an emotional understanding of the performer (sounding out, in his own way) as he makes sampled lines and conjured riffs from the past his own—in the moment, in the “now” that doesn’t get to come back in just the same context at future gigs, recording dates, or when Parker’s solos were “digitally lifted” from their “original context” (Crouch’s terms) so that modern performers could “swing” with him on the poorly received soundtrack to Clint Eastwood’s biopic Bird (1988).
In a transcript of an interview Parker gave in the last year of his life (he died at 34), Paul Desmond and John Fitch seemed to be pressuring him into defining a way of knowing and communicating that music provided (Parker’s elliptical answers, with his false starts and halting phrasing sounds like Sonny when he is pressed to describe his anger with words instead of music in Baldwin’s long middle dialogue). Thirty-five years before the Beasties start droppin’ science in favor of ka-knowledge, Parker tries putting something similar (to me) in his own words:
“There’s definitely—there’s stories and stories and stories and stories that can be told in the musical idiom, you know? You wouldn’t say idiom, either, it’s—it’s so hard to describe music other than the basic way to describe it: music is basically melody, harmony, and rhythm. But I mean, people can do much more with music than that—it can be very descriptive in all kinds of ways, you know? [It can include] All walks of life.”
Back to deixis, I realize I’ve left out the context for this quote: interviewers were pushing him to promote “book study” of jazz to kids who think you’re either born with knowledge and “mastery” or not. All of which leads me back to Rice’s concluding explanations of Ka-Knowledge, in which he asserts:
“To enact a theory and pedagogy of the aural (i.e., sounding out), we also are inventing new forms of knowledge acquisition, forms traditional studies of literacy cannot accommodate. Ka-knowledge as digital knowledge is a mixing, a usage of a variety of ideas, events, moments, and texts for the mix and the subsequent identity of “being mixed,” not for the demonstration of expertise (a fixed, topos-bound concept)”
It seems that most jazz critics and casual fans of Parker often cite his solos--or sample them--for the “demonstration of expertise” (“hey, listen to how Bird mastered the e-flat alto sax like no one else!”), while some, like Gary Woideck, are more interested in the way Parker’s solos, his sense of what was possible musically or aurally, led him to defy traditional musical composition, the limits of structure. I guess in the context of our recent readings, I’m interested in how those like Parker retrained listeners to appreciate, decode, reconsider a high speed “variety of ideas, events, moments, and texts for the mix” (Rice). Again, I would favor including aural knowledge that doesn’t include lyrics—or an easily separated “text” for inclusion in textbooks—to illustrate many of the same points Rice seems to be getting at in his argument for ka-knowledge.
Or, whew, that could just be the cough syrup talking.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Monday, April 16, 2007
Post on Rebekah Nathan from 8010
Krause and Brooke
I assume that Krause's "Blogging Gone Bad" was the Brooke response that we were supposed to read (I wasn't entirely sure from the syllabus). Anyway, I was struck by Krause's remarks. He places some of the blame for his class's failed blog experiment himself, but he also points out some key issues that I found myself agreeing with, such as:
"While blogging, students quickly learn that posted content can be read by those other than the teacher and their classmates. Blogging opens up assignments beyond the teacher-student relationship, allowing the world to grade students and provide encouragement or feedback on their writings."
I wonder if Krause's utopian vision here is common. As I wrote in a comment to Faith about her blogging anxiety, there's very little to feel anxious about, since so few people will read your blog. In fact, many bloggers receive hits from friends and family. I ran a blog for two years and was disappointed that my blog didn't receive more hits. This notion that the class Web log will connect students to people around the globe is something of a pipe dream.
Later, Krause writes,
"Perhaps my expectations were too high, but I thought the blogs turned out poorly. Some students posted repeatedly, while other students barely posted at all. The amount of text per posting varied considerably. While there were times in which some students wrote longer messages, more often than not, the posts were short, merely links to other documents, or text that was "cut and pasted" from another source. There was very little writing that could be described as reflective, dynamic, collaborative, or interactive."
At times this term, I've felt that the 8040 blog could fit the description above, and I'm definitely part of the problem! I've blogged. I consistently blogged for two years. I am no technophobe, yet I find myself posting less often to the blog than I have for other forums, such as E-mail listserv or Blackboard. Part of me wonders if the blog is really more special than Blackboard discussion, which offers similar basic tools: posting and commenting. If the blog isn't really reaching out to the masses, is it really better than other simpler forms of technology?
Krause would disagree with some of my comments. He sees blogs as more polished, more formal than E-mail; thus, they can inhibit discussion, since posters might feel intimidated to post to the "author." I'm not sure I agree. Members of the class feel comfortable enough to talk to one another. I think Krause is referring here to true dynamic discourse (i.e. people from "out there" jumping in on the discussion), and as I've written above, I'm not sure how many people outside the class really find their way to the blog, become interested in what's written, and respond.
The Brooke page was okay, but did anyone else have problems putting everything together? The page begins with an overview of deixis, which sounded interesting, but by the time I finished all the readings, I didn't really sure how digital writing should embrace/acknowledge deixis. Also, as Brooke admits, his page is quite stable and doesn't seem like a very good example of a "web log as a deicitic system" (which is the name of the blog). I did like the part where Brooke writes, "In a matter of three degrees (each connection between two people is a degree), the graduate students at Syracuse, for instance, are connected to the faculty and graduate students at Purdue University, the University of Texas, Penn State University, and so on." This reminded me of a mental game that I play, and that I'm sure others play, where you try to link any given two figures (Liberace and George W. Bush, for example) in as few steps as possible. :-)
"While blogging, students quickly learn that posted content can be read by those other than the teacher and their classmates. Blogging opens up assignments beyond the teacher-student relationship, allowing the world to grade students and provide encouragement or feedback on their writings."
I wonder if Krause's utopian vision here is common. As I wrote in a comment to Faith about her blogging anxiety, there's very little to feel anxious about, since so few people will read your blog. In fact, many bloggers receive hits from friends and family. I ran a blog for two years and was disappointed that my blog didn't receive more hits. This notion that the class Web log will connect students to people around the globe is something of a pipe dream.
Later, Krause writes,
"Perhaps my expectations were too high, but I thought the blogs turned out poorly. Some students posted repeatedly, while other students barely posted at all. The amount of text per posting varied considerably. While there were times in which some students wrote longer messages, more often than not, the posts were short, merely links to other documents, or text that was "cut and pasted" from another source. There was very little writing that could be described as reflective, dynamic, collaborative, or interactive."
At times this term, I've felt that the 8040 blog could fit the description above, and I'm definitely part of the problem! I've blogged. I consistently blogged for two years. I am no technophobe, yet I find myself posting less often to the blog than I have for other forums, such as E-mail listserv or Blackboard. Part of me wonders if the blog is really more special than Blackboard discussion, which offers similar basic tools: posting and commenting. If the blog isn't really reaching out to the masses, is it really better than other simpler forms of technology?
Krause would disagree with some of my comments. He sees blogs as more polished, more formal than E-mail; thus, they can inhibit discussion, since posters might feel intimidated to post to the "author." I'm not sure I agree. Members of the class feel comfortable enough to talk to one another. I think Krause is referring here to true dynamic discourse (i.e. people from "out there" jumping in on the discussion), and as I've written above, I'm not sure how many people outside the class really find their way to the blog, become interested in what's written, and respond.
The Brooke page was okay, but did anyone else have problems putting everything together? The page begins with an overview of deixis, which sounded interesting, but by the time I finished all the readings, I didn't really sure how digital writing should embrace/acknowledge deixis. Also, as Brooke admits, his page is quite stable and doesn't seem like a very good example of a "web log as a deicitic system" (which is the name of the blog). I did like the part where Brooke writes, "In a matter of three degrees (each connection between two people is a degree), the graduate students at Syracuse, for instance, are connected to the faculty and graduate students at Purdue University, the University of Texas, Penn State University, and so on." This reminded me of a mental game that I play, and that I'm sure others play, where you try to link any given two figures (Liberace and George W. Bush, for example) in as few steps as possible. :-)
Rice
At the end of Rice’s article he quotes Berlin, “Only through language do we know and act upon the conditions of our experience” (277). So, what I understand of the article is that there are those who are actively participating in understanding through rap. This makes sense.
Whenever I need to understand a concept I have to talk about it with someone more knowledgeable than myself, which means just about anybody. But that is for understanding things that are really complex from my view. I’m not sure I think that I believe that auditory information will be what leads us in the future. Rice quotes the rapper B.I.G. as seeming to state that his success came from a place other than educational mastery. If I’m not mistaken so did Kenneth Burke’s. He was not happy with educational systems, and never really finished a degree in the traditional manner. I think I remember Dr. Comas telling us that he had several sporadic attempts, but didn’t finish. Anyway, my point is that our successes in general probably do not come from the educational system. It is through finding our own voices more likely. We read, attend classes, etc., in order to attempt to broaden our views and to conform with certain educational criteria so that we can more easily succeed in this world.
Power, juice, etc., come from inside and are sparked by things from the outside. I think.
Whenever I need to understand a concept I have to talk about it with someone more knowledgeable than myself, which means just about anybody. But that is for understanding things that are really complex from my view. I’m not sure I think that I believe that auditory information will be what leads us in the future. Rice quotes the rapper B.I.G. as seeming to state that his success came from a place other than educational mastery. If I’m not mistaken so did Kenneth Burke’s. He was not happy with educational systems, and never really finished a degree in the traditional manner. I think I remember Dr. Comas telling us that he had several sporadic attempts, but didn’t finish. Anyway, my point is that our successes in general probably do not come from the educational system. It is through finding our own voices more likely. We read, attend classes, etc., in order to attempt to broaden our views and to conform with certain educational criteria so that we can more easily succeed in this world.
Power, juice, etc., come from inside and are sparked by things from the outside. I think.
Blogs
My interest in blogging has only, so far, been related to what is required in certain classes. Although, I think a couple of things in this weeks readings have sparked a different kind of interest.
A quote at the author uses by Kathleen Blake Yancey got my attention: “The word Now when I wrote this text is one time; as I read the Now in San Antonio was a second time; and now, when this talk is published in CCC and who [knew?] how many people do (or do not!) read this Chair’s Address, it will be many, many other times (318)” (1). So, whether or not we add words, take away ideas and sculpt them to meet our needs, or simply read the ideas to interested parties, the premise changes. Now will never be the same for readers who are not reading the words simultaneously. The “situation” of now will be different for each of those readers—their mood, their circumstance, the reason for the reading of the words, etc. It is as if time itself is an element that thrives within the written word. I find that interesting, and perhaps, will explore that at some later date.
While reading “Software, socially” I began thinking of another aspect of the effects of blogging. Blogging as an electronic transference of information, like all electronic transfers, I suppose, is instantaneous. It is also limitless as far as the information it can contain. This brings me to wonder if we can be overly informed. Information, knowledge, for me has to be taken in, and thought over for a time, so that I might integrate it more thoroughly with prior knowledge. This makes attempting grad school at warp speed fun. Ugh. But I wonder if all this knowledge pouring forth changing, mutating, gaining, losing, etc., is losing something. The translation of that information must be quick and adept. Is it actually possible to keep up?
Centripetal/Centrifugal reminded me, of course, of Latour. It also made me think of my idea about concentric circles, and how that is now not quite right. Perhaps a better analogy is chemistry. Each new reader being a new ingredient that can change ideas and thoughts radically or barely. I realize this was about software, but. . . The author states, “This fluidity returns us to Yancey’s evocation of deixis—in the context of research, a given source may function centripetally or centrifugally for us depending on the time and place within the research process where we use it.”
Hmmm.
A quote at the author uses by Kathleen Blake Yancey got my attention: “The word Now when I wrote this text is one time; as I read the Now in San Antonio was a second time; and now, when this talk is published in CCC and who [knew?] how many people do (or do not!) read this Chair’s Address, it will be many, many other times (318)” (1). So, whether or not we add words, take away ideas and sculpt them to meet our needs, or simply read the ideas to interested parties, the premise changes. Now will never be the same for readers who are not reading the words simultaneously. The “situation” of now will be different for each of those readers—their mood, their circumstance, the reason for the reading of the words, etc. It is as if time itself is an element that thrives within the written word. I find that interesting, and perhaps, will explore that at some later date.
While reading “Software, socially” I began thinking of another aspect of the effects of blogging. Blogging as an electronic transference of information, like all electronic transfers, I suppose, is instantaneous. It is also limitless as far as the information it can contain. This brings me to wonder if we can be overly informed. Information, knowledge, for me has to be taken in, and thought over for a time, so that I might integrate it more thoroughly with prior knowledge. This makes attempting grad school at warp speed fun. Ugh. But I wonder if all this knowledge pouring forth changing, mutating, gaining, losing, etc., is losing something. The translation of that information must be quick and adept. Is it actually possible to keep up?
Centripetal/Centrifugal reminded me, of course, of Latour. It also made me think of my idea about concentric circles, and how that is now not quite right. Perhaps a better analogy is chemistry. Each new reader being a new ingredient that can change ideas and thoughts radically or barely. I realize this was about software, but. . . The author states, “This fluidity returns us to Yancey’s evocation of deixis—in the context of research, a given source may function centripetally or centrifugally for us depending on the time and place within the research process where we use it.”
Hmmm.
More On Rice
I've really appreciated reading the posts about Rice's uses of hiphop to redefine literacy, and they've helped me to think about what his article is and isn't doing. In my reading of it, he's making comparisons between traditional conceptions of rhetoric and a rhetoric embodied by hiphop, and doing so to show that traditional rhetoric needs to change in order to respond to changes in culture fomented by new technology.
The article may make it seem like he's trying to claim academic cred for the Notorious BIG and the Wu-Tang Clan, and/or to give street cred to his academic piece (which has been a hot rhetorical move, maybe, ever since Barthes mythologized pop culture); what I took from it is that hiphop doesn't claim any academic membership, but embodies aspects of culture that academically spawned rhetoric can't, since its focus has been drawn from the image and the print media, and not from the aural realm that McLuhan and Ong defined as the rhetorical territory created by new technology. In his view, traditional rhetoric hasn't ventured into that territory; hiphop, more than any other form of music, has.
I believe that his article outlines at least three ways in which hiphop rhetoricizes aural media. First, hiphop's use of sampling foregrounds the text as assemblage. Second, its reliance on mixing different sounds together, more than other forms of music, foregrounds those sounds as representing different contexts--instead of a guitar and drums, we might get a guitar loop from an Aerosmith song and a bass/snare track from another hiphop song, so each song becomes a mixing of cultures that embodies the simultaneity of aural culture delineated by McLuhan. Finally, the stance assumed by the Notorious BIG, the Wu-Tang Clan, and the Beasties, establishes the primacy of the individual voice--not as a mood, the way Lunsford defines it, but, literally, as the sound of a voice. Using that voice, the rapper doesn't belong to the traditional rhetorical establishment, but to the rhetorical alterity of hiphop, with its own science, its own ka-knowledge, and its own cred, based on the power of the individual voice to carry the rhetoric. As Aaron wonderfully pointed out, other forms of music do all of the above (the boast claimed by Rice as an aspect of ka-knowledge comes, I think, from the blues). However, hiphop combines them with greater frequency.
The article's juxtapositions can lead to the idea that Rice is trying to install hiphop in the academy, and/or that rappers are trying to claim a particular rhetorical territory; I got this funny vision of Ad Rock rushing to his fellow Beasties with a copy of McLuhan's article, saying, "We need to rhetoricize the auditory domain!," and Mike D gleefully shouting, "Fellows, let's drop some science to drive McLuhan's thesis home!" What I think Rice is trying to say is that hiphop is rhetoricizing aural technology in a way that traditional rhetoric is not, and that examining the particulars of that rhetoric will help us to shape a pedagogy more informed by that rhetoric.
The article may make it seem like he's trying to claim academic cred for the Notorious BIG and the Wu-Tang Clan, and/or to give street cred to his academic piece (which has been a hot rhetorical move, maybe, ever since Barthes mythologized pop culture); what I took from it is that hiphop doesn't claim any academic membership, but embodies aspects of culture that academically spawned rhetoric can't, since its focus has been drawn from the image and the print media, and not from the aural realm that McLuhan and Ong defined as the rhetorical territory created by new technology. In his view, traditional rhetoric hasn't ventured into that territory; hiphop, more than any other form of music, has.
I believe that his article outlines at least three ways in which hiphop rhetoricizes aural media. First, hiphop's use of sampling foregrounds the text as assemblage. Second, its reliance on mixing different sounds together, more than other forms of music, foregrounds those sounds as representing different contexts--instead of a guitar and drums, we might get a guitar loop from an Aerosmith song and a bass/snare track from another hiphop song, so each song becomes a mixing of cultures that embodies the simultaneity of aural culture delineated by McLuhan. Finally, the stance assumed by the Notorious BIG, the Wu-Tang Clan, and the Beasties, establishes the primacy of the individual voice--not as a mood, the way Lunsford defines it, but, literally, as the sound of a voice. Using that voice, the rapper doesn't belong to the traditional rhetorical establishment, but to the rhetorical alterity of hiphop, with its own science, its own ka-knowledge, and its own cred, based on the power of the individual voice to carry the rhetoric. As Aaron wonderfully pointed out, other forms of music do all of the above (the boast claimed by Rice as an aspect of ka-knowledge comes, I think, from the blues). However, hiphop combines them with greater frequency.
The article's juxtapositions can lead to the idea that Rice is trying to install hiphop in the academy, and/or that rappers are trying to claim a particular rhetorical territory; I got this funny vision of Ad Rock rushing to his fellow Beasties with a copy of McLuhan's article, saying, "We need to rhetoricize the auditory domain!," and Mike D gleefully shouting, "Fellows, let's drop some science to drive McLuhan's thesis home!" What I think Rice is trying to say is that hiphop is rhetoricizing aural technology in a way that traditional rhetoric is not, and that examining the particulars of that rhetoric will help us to shape a pedagogy more informed by that rhetoric.
Deixis
My reaction to the Brooke article was similar to Aaron's in that I questioned the explanation of deixis itself, although my "objection" to it, if it can be called an objection, was on narrower grounds: I felt that the temporal--and to a lesser degree the spatial--was being foregrounded, when in fact one could pay just as much attention to the agency and power relations created and maintained through deixis.
In linguistics, following Buhler, we speak of deixis as a process whereby utterances rely on context to give them meaning--it's the way in which the reference of certain elements in an utterance is determined in relation to not just a particular time or place, but also to a specific speaker and addressee. The origo is the context from which the reference is made—it is the viewpoint expressed by one interlocutor that must be understood by another interlocutor in order for the latter to interpret the utterance. In most deictic systems, the origo identifies with the current speaker (for example, the “I” in a first-person statement).
What interests me in terms of the Brooke piece is how the discussion of deixis with regard to networks constituted by centrifugal and centripetal movement and flux (in what I thought was similar to Latour's argument that the social is constantly being reassembled) is what role power might play--or, alternately, might be resisted--in such systems. The discussion of deixis immediately reminded me of a part of what eventually became one of the writing samples for my application to the MA program here: I used the concept of deixis to discuss how it can inform the transition from modernism to postmodernism. The relationship between the Occident and the Orient before World War II, for example, can arguably be situated in terms of deixis, where the origo, then, is analogous to the centre, to the Occident. As Edward Said, Homi K. Bhabha, and others have mapped for us, the Occident spoke to the Orient, it lectured it, narrated it, implicated it in its subjugation. Place deixis is implicit in this analogy as well. Place deixis marks the spatial location relative to the location of the speaker: “over there” implies a distance away from the speaker. Before World War II, the Orient was “over there” from the Occident.
Following the war, however, these deictic relationships came into crisis. The origo was no longer located solely in the Occident. Previously oppressed voices were now heard and emerged from multiple points in space simultaneously, breaking down the deictic binary. Similarly, “over there” was no longer a one-to-one opposition either: place was complicated as the Orient broke down into separate independent nations and cultures in the post-colonial period, while simultaneously globalization disturbed their lines of demarcation. East and West had been replaced by a multititude of locations. The dichotomies of us and them, of black and white, of masculine and feminine were no longer tenable. Both the end of empire and the move toward globalization problematized the relations of the East and West as they existed up through the modern period. The centre indeed could no longer hold. (The emerging voices that arose out this deictic crisis brought forth a second problem: power relations had been disturbed and there was now a crisis of authority or, as I call it, the crisis of interpellation--but this is for another time).
In linguistics, following Buhler, we speak of deixis as a process whereby utterances rely on context to give them meaning--it's the way in which the reference of certain elements in an utterance is determined in relation to not just a particular time or place, but also to a specific speaker and addressee. The origo is the context from which the reference is made—it is the viewpoint expressed by one interlocutor that must be understood by another interlocutor in order for the latter to interpret the utterance. In most deictic systems, the origo identifies with the current speaker (for example, the “I” in a first-person statement).
What interests me in terms of the Brooke piece is how the discussion of deixis with regard to networks constituted by centrifugal and centripetal movement and flux (in what I thought was similar to Latour's argument that the social is constantly being reassembled) is what role power might play--or, alternately, might be resisted--in such systems. The discussion of deixis immediately reminded me of a part of what eventually became one of the writing samples for my application to the MA program here: I used the concept of deixis to discuss how it can inform the transition from modernism to postmodernism. The relationship between the Occident and the Orient before World War II, for example, can arguably be situated in terms of deixis, where the origo, then, is analogous to the centre, to the Occident. As Edward Said, Homi K. Bhabha, and others have mapped for us, the Occident spoke to the Orient, it lectured it, narrated it, implicated it in its subjugation. Place deixis is implicit in this analogy as well. Place deixis marks the spatial location relative to the location of the speaker: “over there” implies a distance away from the speaker. Before World War II, the Orient was “over there” from the Occident.
Following the war, however, these deictic relationships came into crisis. The origo was no longer located solely in the Occident. Previously oppressed voices were now heard and emerged from multiple points in space simultaneously, breaking down the deictic binary. Similarly, “over there” was no longer a one-to-one opposition either: place was complicated as the Orient broke down into separate independent nations and cultures in the post-colonial period, while simultaneously globalization disturbed their lines of demarcation. East and West had been replaced by a multititude of locations. The dichotomies of us and them, of black and white, of masculine and feminine were no longer tenable. Both the end of empire and the move toward globalization problematized the relations of the East and West as they existed up through the modern period. The centre indeed could no longer hold. (The emerging voices that arose out this deictic crisis brought forth a second problem: power relations had been disturbed and there was now a crisis of authority or, as I call it, the crisis of interpellation--but this is for another time).
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Those other readings...
So it appears that Rice is getting the lion's share of posts, which leaves Brooke and Krause (and my map) outside in the cold. There's not alot for me to say in that area, either, since I too find Rice's issues more easily assayable.
Here's what my minimal thinking (after a long weekend of thesis-ing) has come up with. Brooke says that Yancey claims we should focus on the deitic way that tech can help us as compists/rhetists.
He defines blogs as deitic systems, claiming that "... even when the moment has passed, the terms are capable of referencing that moment" in order to show us that blogs have this ability to conceptualize "now" in different ways.
I'm thinking that in the same way, though, they're automatically "then". While there seems to be some claim that these times are indeed timeless, and always in the present, it appears to me to be, unless you're the AUTHOR, always in the past. While I always buy "social" for social's sake, this doesn't appear to be social to me, at least in the ways that he says it is. I'm not sure I'm being clear...Brooke talks about how Yancey's writing occurs in three different "nows" in the article--and he connects them to himself as the reader/imaginer in his current "now". But come on, HER "now" is THEN, no matter how we try and social it up.
I dont' think there's anything inherently wrong about seeing it as "then", since "then" isn't so bad--plenty of "thens" can influence us "now", but it doesn't, to my mind, make them "nows".
Again, I'm all for "Aaron you've missed the point" sort of responses here. I've been writing for pretty much 48 hours, and I'm pretty brain fried, but in the mean time, I've also read Rice and Brooke, and they seem to be, particularly from the scattering of posts, "blowing things out of proportion"...
Like the other folks, I'm all for treating things outside the comp classroom as academic, but some of the bits this week seem really forced....
Here's what my minimal thinking (after a long weekend of thesis-ing) has come up with. Brooke says that Yancey claims we should focus on the deitic way that tech can help us as compists/rhetists.
He defines blogs as deitic systems, claiming that "... even when the moment has passed, the terms are capable of referencing that moment" in order to show us that blogs have this ability to conceptualize "now" in different ways.
I'm thinking that in the same way, though, they're automatically "then". While there seems to be some claim that these times are indeed timeless, and always in the present, it appears to me to be, unless you're the AUTHOR, always in the past. While I always buy "social" for social's sake, this doesn't appear to be social to me, at least in the ways that he says it is. I'm not sure I'm being clear...Brooke talks about how Yancey's writing occurs in three different "nows" in the article--and he connects them to himself as the reader/imaginer in his current "now". But come on, HER "now" is THEN, no matter how we try and social it up.
I dont' think there's anything inherently wrong about seeing it as "then", since "then" isn't so bad--plenty of "thens" can influence us "now", but it doesn't, to my mind, make them "nows".
Again, I'm all for "Aaron you've missed the point" sort of responses here. I've been writing for pretty much 48 hours, and I'm pretty brain fried, but in the mean time, I've also read Rice and Brooke, and they seem to be, particularly from the scattering of posts, "blowing things out of proportion"...
Like the other folks, I'm all for treating things outside the comp classroom as academic, but some of the bits this week seem really forced....
On Rice
Right before Jeff Rice visited the campus, Matt Gordon gave me a copy of “The Making of Ka-Knowledge” and said something like, “Here. You’re into this theory stuff—you understand it better than I do. Read this and tell me if it makes any sense.” The first part of what he said was an assertion that was equal parts compliment and insult in a way that only Dr. Gordon can deliver. The second part proved to be a challenge.
I read “The Making of Ka-Knowledge” then—something like three months ago now, so I’ve had that long to marinate on it and I have to say that I feel conflicted, at best, about it. Dr. Rice starts off by valorizing a non-traditional form of rhetoric and he makes a move to incorporate what's outside of the academy into the classroom (like Faith, I see this as a good thing). He then theoretically describes--in a wedding of McLuhan/Ong and Lyotard--how listening is bound up with engaging “the process of knowing as opposed to just the known… redefined through technological innovation” (267), which he exemplifies using the lyrics to various hip-hop/rap songs. Dr. Rice and I should be fellow travelers, then, but I found myself taking exception to a lot of what he had to say. (We probably are fellow travelers, but for the sake of this post I’m going to commit a trahison des clercs or, alternately, just play devil’s advocate).
Like David, I found myself resisting the beginning of the piece and then warming up to it in the second half (my resistance was aided by the fact that when I went to my copy of the 1964 edition of The Gutenberg Galaxy, the passages that Dr. Rice quotes weren't on the pages he cites, and that the quote he gives for McLuhan later on page 268 that doesn't reference a title but only a year--1967--has no corresponding entry for that year in the References section). I think David is right on when he says that
First, for me there’s a problem of definition. Dr. Rice asserts that “droppin’ science” is hip-hop’s renaming of McLuhan’s “new physics." As Dr. Rice puts it (268):
So it's ironic, in a way, that Dr. Rice's article "directs its critical voice primarily to a specialized audience, one that shares a common language rooted in the very master narratives it claims to challenge" (to quote bell hooks, speaking about what I'd say is a related matter in "Postmodern Blackness"). Or as Faith puts it, "if Biggie's argument is a rejection of traditional schooling, how would he feel about his lyrics being co-opted for an article in an academic journal?" It seems like Dr. Rice took the Urban Dictionary's entry and ran with it (seriously, he seems to quote it almost verbatim), adding to the entry's description of it meaning "to rhyme, say or do something original or unique, especially when rapping or in music," the puzzling assertion that it also means "to generate new kinds of knowing processes." Really?
The point is that Dr. Rice should've dropped the "droppin' science" bit, and especially the Beasties' use of both that phrase and even more so "ka-knowledge," which means nothing, period, but especially not what Dr. Rice develops for it (for a thorough discussion of the Beasties' use of the terms, see Dan LeRoy's treatment of Paul's Boutique in the 33 1/3 series--search for "sound of science" on amazon's page and read LeRoy's discussion, starting on page 85). The whole enterprise is a red herring that got the best of him. Furthermore, I think Dr. Rice would have done himself a great service if he would have actually dug deeper into the history of hip-hip and rap. For example, bringing in Public Enemy's "Caught! Can I Get a Witness?" from their seminal It Takes a Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back (1988), which is about PE going on trial for "stealing beats" (the title of the song itself is an homage to Marvin Gaye's "Can I Get a Witness?"). Chuck D starts the track thusly:
Caught, now in court cause I stole a beat
This is a sampling sport
But I'm giving it a new name
What you hear is mine
P.E., you know the time
Soon afterwards, Flavor Flav (I know--cringe) interjects into Chuck's flow to tell the court that "Man, y'all can't copyright no beats, man!" At the time, sampling was becoming a matter for copyright infringement cases. PE was encouraging the free exchange of ideas and bricolage composition that Dr. Rice sees in emerging digital forms, but they also are pointing out something that Dr. Rice seems to miss altogether in his analysis: if he had went further back still, he could have brought in Afrika Bambaataa, Grandmaster Kaz (and Grandmaster Flash), Kool Herc and other DJs' use of sampling and mixing that would speak directly to his use of McLuhan/Ong and Lyotard much more than any of the latter, hipper albeit less relevant artists he cites do. For example, in Droppin' Science: Critical Essays on Rap and Hip Hop Culture, William Eric Perkins points out that
Like Mark says about his own post, I might seem "grumpy"--or even captious--here. It probably seems absurd to critique Dr. Rice's gloss of "droppin' science," but I think it speaks to what Faith means when she says that "the juxtaposition of rap lyrics and academic discourse sometimes had a comic effect." I agree, but I'd qualify that by saying it's a matter of execution, not of any essential incommensurability of the two--and I see that comic effect beginning with Dr. Rice's gloss of what needn't have been a violent yoking together of heterogeneous ideas. The definition of "droppin' science" also happens to be where I'd locate the move Dr. Rice makes from the theoretical discussion of McLuhan/Ong and Lyotard to hip-hop itself, the move David and Aaron (and I) found problematic. I think the reason why it's problematic is because--like David and Faith have both pointed out--the academic-speak does a disservice to what is actually an interesting argument, once the layers of unnecessary obfuscation are removed.
I read “The Making of Ka-Knowledge” then—something like three months ago now, so I’ve had that long to marinate on it and I have to say that I feel conflicted, at best, about it. Dr. Rice starts off by valorizing a non-traditional form of rhetoric and he makes a move to incorporate what's outside of the academy into the classroom (like Faith, I see this as a good thing). He then theoretically describes--in a wedding of McLuhan/Ong and Lyotard--how listening is bound up with engaging “the process of knowing as opposed to just the known… redefined through technological innovation” (267), which he exemplifies using the lyrics to various hip-hop/rap songs. Dr. Rice and I should be fellow travelers, then, but I found myself taking exception to a lot of what he had to say. (We probably are fellow travelers, but for the sake of this post I’m going to commit a trahison des clercs or, alternately, just play devil’s advocate).
Like David, I found myself resisting the beginning of the piece and then warming up to it in the second half (my resistance was aided by the fact that when I went to my copy of the 1964 edition of The Gutenberg Galaxy, the passages that Dr. Rice quotes weren't on the pages he cites, and that the quote he gives for McLuhan later on page 268 that doesn't reference a title but only a year--1967--has no corresponding entry for that year in the References section). I think David is right on when he says that
Rice's early discussion of Biggie and Wu-Tang feels awfully forced, and neither of these examples really show off what Rice ultimately finds most rewarding about aural writing in a digital world. Rather, the references feel like a desperate stab at street cred. The first pages of the Rice article feel a bit arbitrary at best, obvious at worst.David goes on to make some great points, and I'll just add some of my own observations here.
First, for me there’s a problem of definition. Dr. Rice asserts that “droppin’ science” is hip-hop’s renaming of McLuhan’s “new physics." As Dr. Rice puts it (268):
Droppin’ science means to rhyme (usually in a unique way) in order to rhetorically engage with the aural dimensions of discourse. Rhyming, like McLuhan’s new physics, is meant to evoke new types of discursive relationships, to generate new kinds of knowing processes. Droppin’ science’s nonliterate status (as McLuhan might say) might be attributed to the ways it disrupts the conventions of print culture (linearity, syllogistic reasoning) in favor of rhyming. Droppin’ science is meant to lead to a new “wisdom” often rhetorically shaped as a physics or general science practice.This isn't exactly the "droppin' science" that I know. At the risk of sounding like I'm trying to assert my own authenticity or street cred, rap and hip-hop are two genres that I listened to growing up. I have every album that Dr. Rice cites and I'm familiar with the lyrics he quotes, and my personal feeling is that he's overstating what "droppin' science" means. It can mean a few different things, actually, depending on who's doing the talking and when (in other words, deixis--but that's another post), but it basically means something very much like "to school" (another hip-hop phrase), that is, to demonstrate either skill or wisdom for the sake (or at the expense) of someone else. You can "school" someone by upstaging them in a battle or, alternately, you can "school" or "drop science" in the sense of disseminating knowledge to those listening to you. The expression goes all the way back to documented usage among members of the Five Percenter branch of the Nation of Islam in describing the uses of science (Rakim, whom Dr. Rice citess in his definition of "droppin' science," was actually one-half of the duo Erik B. and Rakim, and they were/are both Five Percenters). And the OED entry actually explains the term's use well: to "drop science" (you don't need the hip "-in' ending) is "to impart knowledge or wisdom, frequently about social issues" (from the OED's entry for draft additions for 2005, entry "b"). The OED offers this citation: "Recorded in 1989 on the television programme CBS This Morning in J. E. Lighter's Hist. Dict. Amer. Slang (1994) I. 660/2: 'Droppin' science is when she's really explainin' what's goin' on." In other words, "telling it like it is" or, one might posit, cutting through the b.s.
So it's ironic, in a way, that Dr. Rice's article "directs its critical voice primarily to a specialized audience, one that shares a common language rooted in the very master narratives it claims to challenge" (to quote bell hooks, speaking about what I'd say is a related matter in "Postmodern Blackness"). Or as Faith puts it, "if Biggie's argument is a rejection of traditional schooling, how would he feel about his lyrics being co-opted for an article in an academic journal?" It seems like Dr. Rice took the Urban Dictionary's entry and ran with it (seriously, he seems to quote it almost verbatim), adding to the entry's description of it meaning "to rhyme, say or do something original or unique, especially when rapping or in music," the puzzling assertion that it also means "to generate new kinds of knowing processes." Really?
The point is that Dr. Rice should've dropped the "droppin' science" bit, and especially the Beasties' use of both that phrase and even more so "ka-knowledge," which means nothing, period, but especially not what Dr. Rice develops for it (for a thorough discussion of the Beasties' use of the terms, see Dan LeRoy's treatment of Paul's Boutique in the 33 1/3 series--search for "sound of science" on amazon's page and read LeRoy's discussion, starting on page 85). The whole enterprise is a red herring that got the best of him. Furthermore, I think Dr. Rice would have done himself a great service if he would have actually dug deeper into the history of hip-hip and rap. For example, bringing in Public Enemy's "Caught! Can I Get a Witness?" from their seminal It Takes a Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back (1988), which is about PE going on trial for "stealing beats" (the title of the song itself is an homage to Marvin Gaye's "Can I Get a Witness?"). Chuck D starts the track thusly:
Caught, now in court cause I stole a beat
This is a sampling sport
But I'm giving it a new name
What you hear is mine
P.E., you know the time
Soon afterwards, Flavor Flav (I know--cringe) interjects into Chuck's flow to tell the court that "Man, y'all can't copyright no beats, man!" At the time, sampling was becoming a matter for copyright infringement cases. PE was encouraging the free exchange of ideas and bricolage composition that Dr. Rice sees in emerging digital forms, but they also are pointing out something that Dr. Rice seems to miss altogether in his analysis: if he had went further back still, he could have brought in Afrika Bambaataa, Grandmaster Kaz (and Grandmaster Flash), Kool Herc and other DJs' use of sampling and mixing that would speak directly to his use of McLuhan/Ong and Lyotard much more than any of the latter, hipper albeit less relevant artists he cites do. For example, in Droppin' Science: Critical Essays on Rap and Hip Hop Culture, William Eric Perkins points out that
The DJ ruled during hip hop's early days, and it was the DJ who established the foundations for the lyricist (the MC). The DJ's style was determined by the beats he was able to exploit from the continuous riffs, solos, traps, and thousands of other snippets of sound in the audio treasure chests at his disposal. It was sound that molded the first wave of hip hop (page 6).
Like Mark says about his own post, I might seem "grumpy"--or even captious--here. It probably seems absurd to critique Dr. Rice's gloss of "droppin' science," but I think it speaks to what Faith means when she says that "the juxtaposition of rap lyrics and academic discourse sometimes had a comic effect." I agree, but I'd qualify that by saying it's a matter of execution, not of any essential incommensurability of the two--and I see that comic effect beginning with Dr. Rice's gloss of what needn't have been a violent yoking together of heterogeneous ideas. The definition of "droppin' science" also happens to be where I'd locate the move Dr. Rice makes from the theoretical discussion of McLuhan/Ong and Lyotard to hip-hop itself, the move David and Aaron (and I) found problematic. I think the reason why it's problematic is because--like David and Faith have both pointed out--the academic-speak does a disservice to what is actually an interesting argument, once the layers of unnecessary obfuscation are removed.
A Bitter Response
I agree with Faith that the intellectualizing of hip-hop makes for unintentionally funny reading. In particular, Rice's early discussion of Biggie and Wu-Tang feels awfully forced, and neither of these examples really show off what Rice ultimately finds most rewarding about aural writing in a digital world. Rather, the references feel like a desperate stab at street cred. The first pages of the Rice article feel a bit arbitrary at best, obvious at worst. For instance, I'm still not entirely sure how Rice moves from McLuhan to hip-hop. Oh, I generally see how he moves from one to another, but I don't specifically see how he does so, except that he sees a special connection to hip-hop, and that's all that matters. I also didn't really follow how Elbow's comments about "Juice" led Rice to awkwardly transition into, "In hip-hop, 'Juicy' is a song by the late Notorious B.I.G." While we're talking about Biggie, Rice's discussion of Biggie states the obvious, with the obvious simply translated into academic-ese: "Graff's 'literacy myth' might be understood, in this context, as the myth of knowledge mastery. 'My success,' B.IG. seems to say, 'came from somewhere else than education mastery.' There is an additional dimension to B.I.G.'s rejection, however. Within the rejection of conventional literacy [. . .] and its 'in your face' style is the simultaneous preference for another kind of literacy, an aural literacy of sounding out" (270).
Simple translation into regular-speak: Biggie, like most hip-hop artists--heck, like most rock artists--proves that people can have smarts that don't have their roots in the classroom.
Duh.
I don't mean to sound bitter. I just have lots of problems with academic writing that dresses up what it has to say. I remember reading this psychoanalytic reading of Faulkner where the author spent twenty pages invoking Lacan just to say that women in Faulkner's fiction have agency. Hell, I knew that before I even read the article!
The good news is that Rice's article is much better in the second half, when he spends less time establishing street cred and spends more time drawing analogies between the pastiche, bricolage style of hip-hop and the direction he sees digital writing headed. Rice is right. Hip-hop folds in a lot: spits, samples, loops, rhythms. All of these hit the listener at once and are "read" (or downloaded, in LaTourian language) instantaneously. In fact, I thought of LaTour when reading the second half of the Rice article. Just as the social only becomes evident in a glimpse seen when mediated elements are assembled, the assemblage of hip-hop works similarly. Any given hip-hop song has the potential to produce its meaning on the fly, as it hits the listener's ear; the listener cannot possibly "process" all the elements, but that's not what's important; the overall assemblage produces its effect. Thus, I could kind of see where Rice was going with his desire for future writing.
Too bad most of the article still sounded unintentionally silly.
Simple translation into regular-speak: Biggie, like most hip-hop artists--heck, like most rock artists--proves that people can have smarts that don't have their roots in the classroom.
Duh.
I don't mean to sound bitter. I just have lots of problems with academic writing that dresses up what it has to say. I remember reading this psychoanalytic reading of Faulkner where the author spent twenty pages invoking Lacan just to say that women in Faulkner's fiction have agency. Hell, I knew that before I even read the article!
The good news is that Rice's article is much better in the second half, when he spends less time establishing street cred and spends more time drawing analogies between the pastiche, bricolage style of hip-hop and the direction he sees digital writing headed. Rice is right. Hip-hop folds in a lot: spits, samples, loops, rhythms. All of these hit the listener at once and are "read" (or downloaded, in LaTourian language) instantaneously. In fact, I thought of LaTour when reading the second half of the Rice article. Just as the social only becomes evident in a glimpse seen when mediated elements are assembled, the assemblage of hip-hop works similarly. Any given hip-hop song has the potential to produce its meaning on the fly, as it hits the listener's ear; the listener cannot possibly "process" all the elements, but that's not what's important; the overall assemblage produces its effect. Thus, I could kind of see where Rice was going with his desire for future writing.
Too bad most of the article still sounded unintentionally silly.
I Hope This Doesn't Come Off As Grumpy
I was excited to read this week’s readings, hoping that I could learn about how blogging will fundamentally change the way human beings think and interact with each other. At the very least, I was hoping to read that blogging as seriously disrupted some of our taken-for-granted cultural institutions. So far, I’m not really convinced that blogs are all that special. I concede that they have numerous uses for teachers, students, and non-academics alike, but I feel like we might need to temper our excitement about the potential of blogging.
I don’t mind Marshall McLuhan, at least not when he says that the medium is the message. I understand the importance of the kind of thing that Meg Hourihan has done in describing what she believes is unique about a blog and how that might influence the way we think and interact with one another. Still, I tend to agree with John Grohol on this one. I’m just not convinced that blogging does a whole lot that other online formats haven’t already done. Their ease-of-use and their conversational quality might make them a bit more accessible than other web-based forms of community, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s really tough to make any generalizations about blogs. Some blogs are giving readers daily access to the opinions of respected experts in particular fields, others obscure the idea of an “expert” to such a degree that false information can be propogated by just about anyone; some blogs foster community, others just serve as soap-boxes for bloated personalities that don’t have the faces for television.
In addition to my reservations about the difference between blogs and other online forms, its also important to take into account the number of people who don’t use blogs or for that matter don’t use computers (despite the moves that Year of the Blog makes in describing the growing appeal of blogs). While I’ll admit that weblogs are useful (they’ve certainly been a helpful, important part of this course), entertaining (here’s my favorite), and informative, I’m going to side with Grohol on this one: “Everything old is new again” and we need to understand that blogging has no “special quality to it that makes it, and the people who engage in it, somehow unique or special.”
I don’t mind Marshall McLuhan, at least not when he says that the medium is the message. I understand the importance of the kind of thing that Meg Hourihan has done in describing what she believes is unique about a blog and how that might influence the way we think and interact with one another. Still, I tend to agree with John Grohol on this one. I’m just not convinced that blogging does a whole lot that other online formats haven’t already done. Their ease-of-use and their conversational quality might make them a bit more accessible than other web-based forms of community, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s really tough to make any generalizations about blogs. Some blogs are giving readers daily access to the opinions of respected experts in particular fields, others obscure the idea of an “expert” to such a degree that false information can be propogated by just about anyone; some blogs foster community, others just serve as soap-boxes for bloated personalities that don’t have the faces for television.
In addition to my reservations about the difference between blogs and other online forms, its also important to take into account the number of people who don’t use blogs or for that matter don’t use computers (despite the moves that Year of the Blog makes in describing the growing appeal of blogs). While I’ll admit that weblogs are useful (they’ve certainly been a helpful, important part of this course), entertaining (here’s my favorite), and informative, I’m going to side with Grohol on this one: “Everything old is new again” and we need to understand that blogging has no “special quality to it that makes it, and the people who engage in it, somehow unique or special.”
Blogging Angst
I was interested in Krause's discussion of “audience.” More than once, I've considered starting a blog, but I always get too scared off by audience awareness. I'd like to use a blog as a working-through of ideas that might eventually end up as something more formal, but I worry too much about who will read what I write and what they will think about me. I feel that I would have to qualify everything with a “Just thinking out loud here, but ....” Krause writes that his students as well as his colleagues lacked motivation or a “personal reason” to write in the blog in the first place. Most of my motivation to write is when I'm getting angry about things or people or ideas, and a public space is not an appropriate place for that. (Perhaps this is why so many bloggers write about their dogs.) My network includes too many people that I have to worry about impressing (and not just scholars, Boyfriend's Parents are online too). Now that I re-read that last sentence, “deixis” seems precisely the problem: I get so wrapped up in thinking about all the different meanings my words will have for different people that I become completely blocked.
Saturday, April 14, 2007
This is Why I'm Hot
I understand and appreciate the way Jeff Rice describes a pedagogy that focuses on ka-knowledge and explicates “a different method of forming ideas and presenting ideas” (p. 277). Still, something Rice wrote when he was describing “the mix” got me thinking of other ways that hip-hop is related to the social. Upon arguing that the point of the mix is to juxtapose styles and open up new discourses, Rice claims “what is often forgotten in discussions of hip-hop is the rhetorical gesture of showing off, a move essential for enacting the mix in the first place. This showing off is not a gesture to demonstrate expertise nor is it egotistical” (p. 274).
Rice might be talking about the art of sampling and borrowing from other genres of music, but there are clearly other elements of hip-hop that could indeed be considered egotistical. Hip-hop is typically a male-dominated space, and so masculinity is a distinct characteristic of this type of music. According to Trujillo (1991) occupational achievement is a key component of hegemonic masculinity. This can be seen in the efforts of many rappers to explain why they are the best in their chosen business. According to Billboard.com, the number one Rap Track in the country is called “This is Why I’m Hot” by Mims. The song’s title basically explains it all – lyrically, Mims provides a plethora of reasons for why he is hot and you are not. Personally, I was most convinced when he tells me “I’m hot ‘cause I’m fly.” Anyway, I’d give other examples of the tendency of rappers to get a bit braggadocios, but I think it’s something with which most people are familiar.
But let’s say that this self-promotional quality of hip-hop stems from the tradition of battle-rap. Surely, this is a good example of invention as a social act. Sure, each party is trying to one-up their competitor, but they are certainly feeding off of one another and directly referencing each other’s prior utterances. The result, in many cases, is likely much more interesting than the work of just one person rhyming by themselves. In short, reality is being constructed through the efforts of a collective.
Rice quotes from a variety of hip-hop artists, some of which are part of groups, and others who perform as individuals. Clearly, the social is an important component of the work produced by collectives such as the Beastie Boys and the Wu-Tang Clan. According to Invention as a Social Act, the social must also be a necessary component of the songs created by individual artists such as Notorious B.I.G. and Mos Def. I’d be really interested in comparing the creative process, as well as the actual products of artists that operate as a collective to those who at least claim to be individuals.
In summary, Rice’s project was not necessarily to talk about the role of invention and the social in hip-hop, but clearly there are ways in which the social is responsible for hip-hop. Among the best evidence of this might be hip-hop’s origins, which rest within particular communities, and not the actions of individual actors.
Trujillo, N. (1991). Hegemonic masculinity on the mound: Media representations of Nolan Ryan and American sports culture. Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 8(3), 290-309.
Rice might be talking about the art of sampling and borrowing from other genres of music, but there are clearly other elements of hip-hop that could indeed be considered egotistical. Hip-hop is typically a male-dominated space, and so masculinity is a distinct characteristic of this type of music. According to Trujillo (1991) occupational achievement is a key component of hegemonic masculinity. This can be seen in the efforts of many rappers to explain why they are the best in their chosen business. According to Billboard.com, the number one Rap Track in the country is called “This is Why I’m Hot” by Mims. The song’s title basically explains it all – lyrically, Mims provides a plethora of reasons for why he is hot and you are not. Personally, I was most convinced when he tells me “I’m hot ‘cause I’m fly.” Anyway, I’d give other examples of the tendency of rappers to get a bit braggadocios, but I think it’s something with which most people are familiar.
But let’s say that this self-promotional quality of hip-hop stems from the tradition of battle-rap. Surely, this is a good example of invention as a social act. Sure, each party is trying to one-up their competitor, but they are certainly feeding off of one another and directly referencing each other’s prior utterances. The result, in many cases, is likely much more interesting than the work of just one person rhyming by themselves. In short, reality is being constructed through the efforts of a collective.
Rice quotes from a variety of hip-hop artists, some of which are part of groups, and others who perform as individuals. Clearly, the social is an important component of the work produced by collectives such as the Beastie Boys and the Wu-Tang Clan. According to Invention as a Social Act, the social must also be a necessary component of the songs created by individual artists such as Notorious B.I.G. and Mos Def. I’d be really interested in comparing the creative process, as well as the actual products of artists that operate as a collective to those who at least claim to be individuals.
In summary, Rice’s project was not necessarily to talk about the role of invention and the social in hip-hop, but clearly there are ways in which the social is responsible for hip-hop. Among the best evidence of this might be hip-hop’s origins, which rest within particular communities, and not the actions of individual actors.
Trujillo, N. (1991). Hegemonic masculinity on the mound: Media representations of Nolan Ryan and American sports culture. Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 8(3), 290-309.
School Spirit
My latest crusade for composition studies is that it needs to look outside of the composition classroom more, so I appreciated the creativity of Jeff Rice's piece. What fascinates me about writing, and what I think makes it so worthwhile to study is that it's everywhere (unlike, say, Chaucer). Everybody writes (including Biggie).
I was wondering why Rice didn't mention Kanye West's The College Dropout. West, whose mother is an English professor, dropped out of Columbia College in Chicago, and much of the album is his argument for the uselessness of that education, and how it hasn't correlated to his success. See, for example, the lyrics to the School Spirit Skits 1 and 2. Kanye West is probably best known for his enormous ego ("the rhetorical gesture of showing off"), which prompts him to do things like say that “George Bush doesn't care about black people” and appear on the cover of Rolling Stone as Jesus. I imagine that Rice would see this as part of his “vision” of his success. Kanye West is also an especially relevant example because he rose to fame as a producer -- it was his "assemblages" that made him famous.
Still, I'll be honest – the juxtaposition of rap lyrics and academic discourse sometimes had a comic effect. “Academic Locates Pedagogical Structure of Literacy Myth in Old Dirty Bastard Lyrics” sounds like an Onion headline. And if Biggie's argument is a rejection of traditional schooling, how would he feel about his lyrics being co-opted for an article in an academic journal?
I was wondering why Rice didn't mention Kanye West's The College Dropout. West, whose mother is an English professor, dropped out of Columbia College in Chicago, and much of the album is his argument for the uselessness of that education, and how it hasn't correlated to his success. See, for example, the lyrics to the School Spirit Skits 1 and 2. Kanye West is probably best known for his enormous ego ("the rhetorical gesture of showing off"), which prompts him to do things like say that “George Bush doesn't care about black people” and appear on the cover of Rolling Stone as Jesus. I imagine that Rice would see this as part of his “vision” of his success. Kanye West is also an especially relevant example because he rose to fame as a producer -- it was his "assemblages" that made him famous.
Still, I'll be honest – the juxtaposition of rap lyrics and academic discourse sometimes had a comic effect. “Academic Locates Pedagogical Structure of Literacy Myth in Old Dirty Bastard Lyrics” sounds like an Onion headline. And if Biggie's argument is a rejection of traditional schooling, how would he feel about his lyrics being co-opted for an article in an academic journal?
Relevant Reading...
There's an interesting article in a recent issue of Mass Communication and Society. It's called, "Is Advertising Creativity Primarily an Individual or a Social Process?" As the title implies, it is pretty relevant to this course. The authors use scientific understandings of creativity and social systems to argue that the social (although they never refer to it as such) is an undeniable factor in the creation of today's popular advertising. The article analyzes the stories about how famous campaigns such as Foster's Lager's "Australian for Beer," Budweiser's "Whassup," and Snicker's "Why Wait" were created. You can't get the article from EBSCO yet because they hold articles for a year before oh-so-generously granting us access to them, but I'll bring the hard copy to class this week in case anybody is interested.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Ka-Knowing Latour
Jeff Rice's article ties the writing of Ong and McLuhan, which hints at technology transforming rhetoric, to hiphop's unique innovations, and depicts hiphop as an aurally based way of communicating that springs from technology. The ties that he makes are primarily to the above writers, along with Berlin and a few others, almost all of whom seem to align his discussion with the social nature of rhetoric; the only surprise in his citations is maybe Peter Elbow. Elbow's discussion of the "juice" that spurs writing, which seems to stem from a Platonic view of invention, is equated with the "juice" of the Notorious BIG, and both depicted as difficult to pin down. This "juice" reminds me of Latour's "plasma," which also seems to bring the ineffable into discussions of the social.
All of the above remind me of our classes focused on ANT. Donna pointed out that Rice's article ties network discussion in to hiphop, and I'm wondering now, more than ever, if some hiphop might be considered ANT documentation of community life. Rice's citing of the Wu-Tang Clan has all of them saying their names, representing a multiplicity of actors, and how many hiphop songs could be said to offer actors that are nonhuman, like brand names and place names? This other-referentiality seems more common to hiphop than to other genres of music. Certainly, other songs refer to brand names and band member names, but the sense of each band member playing a part that constitutes the band as an entity is more common than in hiphop. Too, one mainstream hiphop group tends to lead us to another, as in any network, that's ultimately borderless; Outkast has the Goodie Mob and the Dungeon Family, and so on. Does the hiphop song function as a piece of ANT documentation?
All of the above remind me of our classes focused on ANT. Donna pointed out that Rice's article ties network discussion in to hiphop, and I'm wondering now, more than ever, if some hiphop might be considered ANT documentation of community life. Rice's citing of the Wu-Tang Clan has all of them saying their names, representing a multiplicity of actors, and how many hiphop songs could be said to offer actors that are nonhuman, like brand names and place names? This other-referentiality seems more common to hiphop than to other genres of music. Certainly, other songs refer to brand names and band member names, but the sense of each band member playing a part that constitutes the band as an entity is more common than in hiphop. Too, one mainstream hiphop group tends to lead us to another, as in any network, that's ultimately borderless; Outkast has the Goodie Mob and the Dungeon Family, and so on. Does the hiphop song function as a piece of ANT documentation?
Textbook dollar breakdown.
Here's the graphic I was talking about in class last time. It's from the National Association of College Stores (NACS), so it's industry-produced (that may or may not be a good thing). The first slice you see is for author income, but as it says, that includes what's used to cover expenses. I went to this presentation at the 2006 NACS conference and they broke it down further, the actual profit that authors make is closer to 5 cents per dollar.
Court
----------------
1. Author Income : 11.8 ¢
Author's royalty payment from which author pays research and writing expenses.
2. Publisher's Paper, Printing & Editorial Costs : 32.8 ¢
All manufacturing costs from editing to paper costs to disctribution, as well as storage, record keeping, billing, publisher's offices, employee's salaries and benefits.
3. Publisher's Income : 7.2 ¢
After-tax income from which the publisher pays for new product development, author advances, market research, and dividend to stockholders.
4. Publisher's General and Administrative : 10.2 ¢
Including federal, state and local taxes, excluding sales tax, paid by the publishers.
5. Publisher's Marketing Costs : 15.6 ¢
Marketing, advertising, promotion, publisher's field staff, professors' free copies.
6. Freight Expense : 1.0 ¢
The cost of getting books from the publisher's warehouse or bindery to the college store. Park of cost of goods sold paid to freight company.
7. College Store Personnel : 11.0 ¢
Store employee's salaries and benefits to handle ordering, receiving, pricing, shelving, cashiers, customer service, refund desk and sending extra textbooks back to the publisher.
8. College Store Operations : 6.3 ¢
Insurance, utilities, building and equipment rent and maintenance, accounting and data processing charges and other overhead paid by college stores.
9. College Store Income (pre-tax*) : 4.1 ¢
* Note: The amount of federal, state and/or local tax, and therefore the amount and use of any after-tax profit, is determined by the store's ownership, and usually depends on whether the college store is owned by an institution of higher education, a contract management company, a cooperative, a foundation, or by private individuals.
Please Note
The statistics in this illustration reflect the most current 2002-2003 financial data gathered by the National Association of College Stores and financial data provided by the Association of American Publishers. These numbers are averages and do not represent a particular publisher or store.
Court
----------------
1. Author Income : 11.8 ¢
Author's royalty payment from which author pays research and writing expenses.
2. Publisher's Paper, Printing & Editorial Costs : 32.8 ¢
All manufacturing costs from editing to paper costs to disctribution, as well as storage, record keeping, billing, publisher's offices, employee's salaries and benefits.
3. Publisher's Income : 7.2 ¢
After-tax income from which the publisher pays for new product development, author advances, market research, and dividend to stockholders.
4. Publisher's General and Administrative : 10.2 ¢
Including federal, state and local taxes, excluding sales tax, paid by the publishers.
5. Publisher's Marketing Costs : 15.6 ¢
Marketing, advertising, promotion, publisher's field staff, professors' free copies.
6. Freight Expense : 1.0 ¢
The cost of getting books from the publisher's warehouse or bindery to the college store. Park of cost of goods sold paid to freight company.
7. College Store Personnel : 11.0 ¢
Store employee's salaries and benefits to handle ordering, receiving, pricing, shelving, cashiers, customer service, refund desk and sending extra textbooks back to the publisher.
8. College Store Operations : 6.3 ¢
Insurance, utilities, building and equipment rent and maintenance, accounting and data processing charges and other overhead paid by college stores.
9. College Store Income (pre-tax*) : 4.1 ¢
* Note: The amount of federal, state and/or local tax, and therefore the amount and use of any after-tax profit, is determined by the store's ownership, and usually depends on whether the college store is owned by an institution of higher education, a contract management company, a cooperative, a foundation, or by private individuals.
Please Note
The statistics in this illustration reflect the most current 2002-2003 financial data gathered by the National Association of College Stores and financial data provided by the Association of American Publishers. These numbers are averages and do not represent a particular publisher or store.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Monday, April 9, 2007
Three Versions of Rhetoric
It's interesting to read the three articles assigned for this class, and look broadly at their views of rhetoric. In each one, rhetoric is articulated as something different, and each holds different social implications.
Bitzer's article seems to delineate rhetoric the way Plato and Gaonkar did--as something suited for persuasion, and nothing else. He takes it for granted that rhetoric is used when persuasive language is needed, which is limited to a specific set of situations.
Vatz acknowledges this as a primary difference between them, and tries to render Bitzer's position untenable by showing its roots in the Platonist tradition. Clearly rhetoric can't be situational, and must be constitutive of meaning, because rhetors seem so clearly able to create emergencies and other situations where rhetoric is heightened.
Edbauer seems to work more from Vatz's tradition, but to modify it with the same kind of horticultural metaphor offered by ANT, and its heterogeneity. Rhetoric, like the ANT conceptions of the individual and the world, exists in the confluence of too many influences for it to have tidy borders and guidelines.
Exigence seems to be the pivot point that facilitates these different definitions, and it also implies divergent definitions of rhetor and audience. All of the above hearken back to earlier readings; Vatz and Edbauer seem to both be working from a position that might be shared by Berlin, LeFevre, and Crowley, of rhetoric as ubiquitous and constructed in socially constructed selves.
Bitzer's article seems to delineate rhetoric the way Plato and Gaonkar did--as something suited for persuasion, and nothing else. He takes it for granted that rhetoric is used when persuasive language is needed, which is limited to a specific set of situations.
Vatz acknowledges this as a primary difference between them, and tries to render Bitzer's position untenable by showing its roots in the Platonist tradition. Clearly rhetoric can't be situational, and must be constitutive of meaning, because rhetors seem so clearly able to create emergencies and other situations where rhetoric is heightened.
Edbauer seems to work more from Vatz's tradition, but to modify it with the same kind of horticultural metaphor offered by ANT, and its heterogeneity. Rhetoric, like the ANT conceptions of the individual and the world, exists in the confluence of too many influences for it to have tidy borders and guidelines.
Exigence seems to be the pivot point that facilitates these different definitions, and it also implies divergent definitions of rhetor and audience. All of the above hearken back to earlier readings; Vatz and Edbauer seem to both be working from a position that might be shared by Berlin, LeFevre, and Crowley, of rhetoric as ubiquitous and constructed in socially constructed selves.
Contexts and Networks
Each of this week’s readings reminded me of my eighth grade journalism teacher who was fond of saying that quotes were never truly “out of context,” quotes were just being placed temporarily in a different context. “You could never,” she would repeat, “be outside of a context.” Bitzer might have said, yeah, but you have to admit there was a “natural context” (or an original one, situated somewhere, the principal’s office, perhaps, where an interview about dress code first occurred) and this natural context was comprised of “persons, events, objects and relations.” Vatz might have sided with my teacher and said, yeah, “but one never runs out of context. One never runs out of facts to describe a situation. . .the facts or events communicated to us are choices, by our sources of information. . .any rhetor is involved in this sifting and choosing” (so my jr. high principal, like Keith Richards last week, can’t really complain that his comments were taken out of context just because they reappeared in a different one) (Vatz 156). Edbauer would seem to expand beyond my teacher’s implications and say, yeah, and you’re not just putting the principal’s quotes into one new fixed context, either—you’re just a point of distribution; we’re always in myriad contexts, and we’re also within and between myriad contexts. The (1) original taped interview and (2) whatever you think you’ve made salient by quoting for your article (in the old Bitzler view) are just two nodes of the many already in existence.” This would have taken longer for my teacher to articulate, though, and I know now her contract was already set for termination, at least partly because she didn’t think we should get so hung up about the original context of quotes.
Another connection I’m still thinking through. . .
Edbauer includes Biesecker’s “problem with many takes on rhetorical situation[s],” which is essentially (or anti-essentially) imagining rhetoric for an audience of “already-formed, already-discrete individuals” already limits the possible “potencies” of what rhetoric can hope to do in a situation. As Becker clarifies, the problem with this configuration is that rhetoric may only be used to “influence an audience, to realign their allegiances, but not to form new identities” (Edbauer 2; Biesecker 111). This seemed to account for some of our lamentation over Crowley’s rhetoric. For instance, Crowley states that “fundamentalists” are “unwilling to meet” conditions in which they run the “risk” of having their “beliefs altered” by exchange in a rhetorical situation in which “everyone is accorded the respect due to participants,” whereas “a liberal’s identity” is “not necessarily threatened by a change in belief” (196). Edbauer might argue that both the liberal’s identity and the conservative / fundamentalist / apocalyptist’s identity cannot be situated or as fixed as Crowley renders them (supposedly) for the sake of finding potential stasis for a rhetorical situation between the two. It would seem that both sides are already “trans-situationally” linked in a shared ecology of buzzwords, platform stands, Darwin vs. Jesus Fish car decorations, etc. It would also seem that Crowley only succeeds in trying to fix the identities and the sites of rhetorical interaction in ways that “mask the fluidity of rhetoric” as it’s lived daily, beyond the confines of what is made salient by a few dominant news organizations and spin doctors (Edbauer, page 13ish on my print out).
Another related thought. . .
Vatz, arguing conversely with Bitzler, concludes that “rhetors choose or do not choose to make salient situations, facts, events, etc.. . .after salience is created, the situation must be translated into meaning” (160). This idea of who or what makes things salient (and is everyone who adds a distribution point, in Edbauer’s construct, a rhetor? Or even interested in Vatz and Bitzler’s conflicting notions of saliency?) also becomes interesting in the age of using your cell phone’s video function to create a TMZ.com event, and / or “ecology” of situations online. I think it’s easy for us to think of politicians (a president, his speech writers, his party’s platforms, his lobbyists, his pollsters, his machine, etc.) choosing events to turn into crises not because these events offer inherent exigence (Bitzler) but because the president et al. chose to make certain salient features into a crisis for perceived political gain (Vatz, Burke and motive, etc.). However, it’s maybe more interesting to think through Edbauer’s observations when it’s not the president but the guy who had his phone above his head in time to catch Michael Richards’ racist meltdown, Britney challenging our notions of public decorum, etc. etc.
Selling the recorded event to TMZ. Com could still be seen as a result of profit motive, but the “rhetor” here, if we’re limited to older models, is not even making commentary so much as downloading and forwarding an event—one point of distribution—that will then fan out wildly over the literal network of the internet and the figurative network of public discussion (Has he/she gone too far?), office chatter, blogs, YouTube copies of copies, parody sketches, Daily Show and late night jabs, appropriations into different political platforms, and a wildly diverse “rhetorical-event neighborhood” that seems akin to semioticians talking of “free-floating signifiers” (though, even then, many semioticians posit that there was an “original signified” from which the signifier, or recorded event, has come untethered, and this may bring us back to how structurally or poststructurally we like to think of / locate / fix an “original context”).
Another connection I’m still thinking through. . .
Edbauer includes Biesecker’s “problem with many takes on rhetorical situation[s],” which is essentially (or anti-essentially) imagining rhetoric for an audience of “already-formed, already-discrete individuals” already limits the possible “potencies” of what rhetoric can hope to do in a situation. As Becker clarifies, the problem with this configuration is that rhetoric may only be used to “influence an audience, to realign their allegiances, but not to form new identities” (Edbauer 2; Biesecker 111). This seemed to account for some of our lamentation over Crowley’s rhetoric. For instance, Crowley states that “fundamentalists” are “unwilling to meet” conditions in which they run the “risk” of having their “beliefs altered” by exchange in a rhetorical situation in which “everyone is accorded the respect due to participants,” whereas “a liberal’s identity” is “not necessarily threatened by a change in belief” (196). Edbauer might argue that both the liberal’s identity and the conservative / fundamentalist / apocalyptist’s identity cannot be situated or as fixed as Crowley renders them (supposedly) for the sake of finding potential stasis for a rhetorical situation between the two. It would seem that both sides are already “trans-situationally” linked in a shared ecology of buzzwords, platform stands, Darwin vs. Jesus Fish car decorations, etc. It would also seem that Crowley only succeeds in trying to fix the identities and the sites of rhetorical interaction in ways that “mask the fluidity of rhetoric” as it’s lived daily, beyond the confines of what is made salient by a few dominant news organizations and spin doctors (Edbauer, page 13ish on my print out).
Another related thought. . .
Vatz, arguing conversely with Bitzler, concludes that “rhetors choose or do not choose to make salient situations, facts, events, etc.. . .after salience is created, the situation must be translated into meaning” (160). This idea of who or what makes things salient (and is everyone who adds a distribution point, in Edbauer’s construct, a rhetor? Or even interested in Vatz and Bitzler’s conflicting notions of saliency?) also becomes interesting in the age of using your cell phone’s video function to create a TMZ.com event, and / or “ecology” of situations online. I think it’s easy for us to think of politicians (a president, his speech writers, his party’s platforms, his lobbyists, his pollsters, his machine, etc.) choosing events to turn into crises not because these events offer inherent exigence (Bitzler) but because the president et al. chose to make certain salient features into a crisis for perceived political gain (Vatz, Burke and motive, etc.). However, it’s maybe more interesting to think through Edbauer’s observations when it’s not the president but the guy who had his phone above his head in time to catch Michael Richards’ racist meltdown, Britney challenging our notions of public decorum, etc. etc.
Selling the recorded event to TMZ. Com could still be seen as a result of profit motive, but the “rhetor” here, if we’re limited to older models, is not even making commentary so much as downloading and forwarding an event—one point of distribution—that will then fan out wildly over the literal network of the internet and the figurative network of public discussion (Has he/she gone too far?), office chatter, blogs, YouTube copies of copies, parody sketches, Daily Show and late night jabs, appropriations into different political platforms, and a wildly diverse “rhetorical-event neighborhood” that seems akin to semioticians talking of “free-floating signifiers” (though, even then, many semioticians posit that there was an “original signified” from which the signifier, or recorded event, has come untethered, and this may bring us back to how structurally or poststructurally we like to think of / locate / fix an “original context”).
Genesis of Rhetorical Action
Vatz’s problems the Rhetorical Situation were ethical and philosophical in nature. They were not very practical – a more practical approach realizes that without some variation on the rhetorical situation, studying discourse becomes incredibly difficult. I can’t imagine writing an analysis of a particular speech without using the term “situation” at least incidentally. But as I wrote previously, I do tend to disagree with the way the situation is purported to bring all discourse into being. I believe other factors must be considered. So does Bill Benoit, who challenged The Rhetorical Situation, and most theory about genre, with his theory of the “Genesis of Rhetorical Action.”
“Rhetorical discourse is called into existence by situation,” wrote Bitzer (p. 9). He granted even more power to the situation when he wrote, “The situation controls the rhetorical response in the same sense that the question controls the answer and the problem controls the solution. Not the rhetor and not persuasive intent, but the situation is the source and ground of rhetorical activity-and, I should add, of rhetorical criticism. (p. 6). Benoit (2000) has adopted and adapted Burke’s pentad in order to demonstrate that there are indeed factors other than the rhetorical situation that bring discourse into being.
Basically, Benoit used Burkean ratios to argue that scene, or situation, was not the only thing that could inspire an act. The purpose-act ratio, the agent-act ratio, and the agency-act ratio could also be responsible for generating a body of discourse. A rhetorical critic should approach a text by considering the influence of each other pentadic term on the act. The critic may find that the rhetor’s purpose best explains the creation of a discourse, and accounts for the specific nature of that discourse. It is also possible that this use of the pentad will only confirm that the scene is indeed the term with the most explanatory power over a particular message. Still, the value is in systematically considering each ratio before falling back on the rhetorical situation as Bitzer would have.
Admittedly, Benoit’s system, because it relies on Burke’s pentad, is guilty of the tendency in communication studies to rely on “elemental conglomerations” for describing and explaining discursive processes. Jenny Edbauer cites Louise Weatherbee Phelps as a major opponent of this sort of approach. Still, I believe the theory of the Genesis of Rhetorical Action is useful for opening up a universe of alternative explanations not only for why a piece of discourse exists, but for what that piece of discourse does, and how it does it.
Benoit, W. (2000). Beyond genre Theory: The genesis of rhetorical action. Communication
Monographs, 67(2), 178-192.
“Rhetorical discourse is called into existence by situation,” wrote Bitzer (p. 9). He granted even more power to the situation when he wrote, “The situation controls the rhetorical response in the same sense that the question controls the answer and the problem controls the solution. Not the rhetor and not persuasive intent, but the situation is the source and ground of rhetorical activity-and, I should add, of rhetorical criticism. (p. 6). Benoit (2000) has adopted and adapted Burke’s pentad in order to demonstrate that there are indeed factors other than the rhetorical situation that bring discourse into being.
Basically, Benoit used Burkean ratios to argue that scene, or situation, was not the only thing that could inspire an act. The purpose-act ratio, the agent-act ratio, and the agency-act ratio could also be responsible for generating a body of discourse. A rhetorical critic should approach a text by considering the influence of each other pentadic term on the act. The critic may find that the rhetor’s purpose best explains the creation of a discourse, and accounts for the specific nature of that discourse. It is also possible that this use of the pentad will only confirm that the scene is indeed the term with the most explanatory power over a particular message. Still, the value is in systematically considering each ratio before falling back on the rhetorical situation as Bitzer would have.
Admittedly, Benoit’s system, because it relies on Burke’s pentad, is guilty of the tendency in communication studies to rely on “elemental conglomerations” for describing and explaining discursive processes. Jenny Edbauer cites Louise Weatherbee Phelps as a major opponent of this sort of approach. Still, I believe the theory of the Genesis of Rhetorical Action is useful for opening up a universe of alternative explanations not only for why a piece of discourse exists, but for what that piece of discourse does, and how it does it.
Benoit, W. (2000). Beyond genre Theory: The genesis of rhetorical action. Communication
Monographs, 67(2), 178-192.
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