Marc C. Santos

ENC 6370: Contemporary Rhetorics

Three words I have carried with me for sometime: righting, writing, and riting. The University of higher learning is a conglomeration of all three-epistemology, language, and process. It is here that students come to engage the right rites, which often include writing. They are subjected to the proper subjects, which in terms subjects them as subjects of their subject. Especially all of you, since the subject of your subject is writing, and the rites of writing right. Seriously, I could do this all day.

There are two articles down the syllabus to which I would call introductory attention. The first is Vitanza's "Abandoned to Writing: Notes Toward Several Provocations." In it Victor argues that as a discipline Rhetoric and Composition is afraid of W-R-I-T-I-N-G as so chooses to teach writing. Writing, as opposed to W-R-I-T-I-N-G, can be ontologized, commodified, packaged, and exchanged. It can be disciplined. Writing, in other words, can be righted and rited-or, better yet, writing can be righted through writed rites. We discipline our children through (w)rit(gh)ing(s). Haunted by ghosts, puns, ellipsis, and scare quotes. Excellent writings, Readings reminds us.

The second article I would point to is Muckelbauer's "Through Foucault's Resistance." In response over academic debates (rites) attempting to write the right Foucault, Muckelbauer urges us to use Foucault productively. Ultimately, the goal is not to reproduce the proper Foucault (and thus render him an ontological, commodified, packaged thing ready for exchange) but rather to turn my experience with Foucault into something new. The ultimate value isn't as a representation of Foucault, but rather as a productive purposing.

This entire course might be an attempt to render these two articles intelligible; but it is probably not. I consider my goal here three fold:

1. To survey the history of postmodern theory from the particular perspective of the purpose of education. What should University's teach? How does rhetorical theory and the discipline of Rhetoric and Composition fit into this historic/mystoric perspective?
2. To acknowledge that we are moving past postmodern theory into new avenues of investigation. What do these new avenues borrow from the last half of the 20th century? What are their new, particular concerns? As rhetorical theory becomes more enmeshed in mapping, location, emergence, kairos, and context, then we should pay particular attention to the values of the contexts in which we operate (both the Univeristy and the discipline).
3. To argue that postmodernity has been overdetermined according to poststructuralism. Not everything in postmodern theory can be reduced to language-nor is postmodern theory in any way "a-political." In fact, I want to argue that strains of this theory are dedicated to ethics. But can, or should, a University teach ethics?

Bruno Latour posits the question: were we ever modern? I might posit a similar question-where we ever (not) postmodern? Has the questioning of the postmodern been exhausted? Do our contemporary movements reject some of its foundational questions and terms (subjectivity, difference, power, other)? These terms still carry currency, even if they head in new directions. We will explore these directions in our final weeks.

But what of the term "postmodern?" I was careful-and rhetorical-in my choice to exclude it from this course's title. The term feels like it has overstayed its welcome, even if its questions to us continue to go either unanswered or unattended, or both.

In Archive Fever Derrida sums up what he perceives as the impact of deconstruction in a simple sentence. Writing immediately of the instability surrounding the ontological classifications and categories used to sort Freud's numerous writings in the new Freudian archive, Derrida writes: In each of these cases, the limits, the borders, and the distinctions have been shaken by an earthquake from which no classificational concept and no implementation of the archive can be sheltered. Order is no longer assured. The former sentence echoes the much younger Derrida of "Sign, Structure and Play"-a brazen Derrida who duplicitously discloses his shock at the terrible, monstrous progeny to which his essay gives birth. But it is the latter sentence, I believe, that speaks to the older, wiser Derrida. It is a simple sentence made all the more powerful by what it doesn't say. It doesn't say we can live without order. It doesn't say we no longer desire order. It only says-and this, I believe, is the unifying thread of all the readings we will encounter this semester, that there is no absolute foundation upon which one can construct an order (let alone the order). We are without a transcendental right. But this does not mean we live without right, only without assurance.

Required Materials

Course Texts

• Berlin, James. Rhetoric, Poetic, Cultures.
• Brooke, Colin. Lingua Fracta.
• Davis, D. Diane. Innesenntial Solidarity
• Harman, Graham. Prince of Networks: Bruno Latour and Metaphysics.
• Hawk, Byron, A Counter-History of Composition.
• Levinas, Emmanuel. Ethics and Infinity.
• Lyotard, Jean-Francois, The Postmodern Condition.
• Readings, Bill. The University in Ruins.
• Rickert, Thomas. Acts of Enjoyment.
• Ulmer, Gregory. Electronic Monuments.
• Many articles and online readings distributed electronically

Course Requirements and Deliverables

Major Assignments

Paper Day Papers

Compose and deliver 3 papers to the class. Papers will be one page, single-spaced legal size paper. Beyond providing summary, these papers will focus on putting course readings into conversation, tracing out relationships between the various thinkers and commentaries studied in class. Further, every student will be asked to identify an object, place, or practice around which to situate our readings. Students will provide a copy of their paper to each of their classmates. [These papers are expected to be at least 1200 words each / font size must be nine or higher].

Forum Participation

Post approximately 400 words to our online forum each week. Forum posts should focus on particular passages from the reading in preparation for class papers. Additionally, I'll ask each person to post at least one comment in response to someone else's passage.

Secondary Source Presentations

Over the course of the semester, each student will be expected to make 1-2 presentations on secondary sources (MA students, one presentation, PhD students two). Ideally, these sources will address how composition pedagogy has attempted to incorporate our theoretical readings into its practice. Presentations should not exceed 3 double-spaced pages in length, and should be accompanied by a handout that provides classmates with 1) a brief summation of the article, 2) a brief response to the article, and 3) a few valuable quotes from the article.

Final Thing

Submit a final project or paper. The medium, length, and style of the project coincide with its purpose.

Calendar