Insignificant Wranglings

Kenneth Burke, George Carlin, and Language as Symbolic Action

Today is our second day working through Kenneth Burke’s rhetorical theory. I want to open by listening to George Carlin, since we didn’t get to it last class:

Today we work through two more of Burke’s central essays, one on metaphysics and the other on language (and the way language structures/impacts our relation to the world).

I want to spend the beginning of class dealing with the former, and the end of class dealing with the latter. So, first, I will ask you to pair up. Each pair will deal with one clause of Burke’s definition. Working together, submit a five sentence summary of your clause to Canvas.

First, Carlin’s bit on euphemism:

As I mentioned last class, one of my good friends argues that Carlin’s resistance to euphemism reflects the very kind of verbal realism that Burke works against. On the other hand, I would argue that Carlin’s rant–while a redress of overly complicated language–also testifies to the idea that words themselves have agentive power, that words aren’t merely neutral carriers of information, but rather that they are symbolic actors, shaping the way we feel about what they/we think.

I would also argue that the most (in)famous bit of Carlin’s career, his “7 dirty words” routine, provides a concrete example of how words can have symbolic power beyond their mere meaning. We could trace the rhetorical effect (not affect!) of this speech, noting all of the actants (people, laws, places, ideas, morals) it pulls into conversation, and its impact on cultural practices.

All of this is a very roundabout way to get at what is at stake in Burke’s insistence that language is “a deflection of reality.” Earlier in the semester we talked about stasis theory, and the idea that the first stage of an argument is to agree on what something is, to label it. Burke reminds us that there is no such thing as a neutral or innocent naming–that any entity could be named otherwise, and that the decision what to name something is, potentially, momumentally important, ethically loaded, or downright dangerous; we will see this in the terms of technical communication when we read Steve Katz’s “The Ethic of Expediency” later this semester. For now, I would offer this tweet to set a conversation about the importance of recognizing the non-essential nature of our terminologies:

'Terrorist attack in Chapel Hill…' 'Victims are Muslim' 'Ehem, A man shot 3 terrorists in self defense' #foxnews pic.twitter.com/mVsoZo2zGK

— Basit (@iBasitt) February 12, 2015

Because that leads to this.

Writing a Longer Paper

Since I know a few people are intimidated by the thought of a 20 page paper, I wanted to break the process down a bit to show you what it looks like. First it is helpful to think about what kinds of research questions often drive rhetorical scholarship:

• What do people think about X? [Bibliographic survey, review essay]
• How does X compare to Y? [Compare and contrast essay]
• What can X tell us about Y? [Analysis essay]

Each of these questions (modes of invention) leads to a slightly different kind of arrangement (or outline). The third example above is the standard analytical essay format. Here’s what the third paper comes to look like:

• Introduction: 2-3 pages, argues why the research is necessary now (kairos), why you/I should be interested in it (nomos, identification, who are “we the audience,” identifies the exact object of study, and what research argues–what new thing does it offer?
• Previous research: 2-3 pages, what previous research does this work extend? what similar studies are there? Sometimes this is part of the introduction, but usually it comes next. Not all analytical essays need this, either.
• Theoretical Lens: 3-4 pages. At its heart, and analytical essay is an attempt to look at something in a new way. As such, these essays have to build a lens. In Burke’s language, let’s call this “a way of seeing.” What theoretical ideas or writers are you using to look at an object?
• A core part of any research paper is the thesis, which begins as a question, but should end up as a very, very specific statement. This is why it is important to compose the thesis LAST. This might be something like: “This paper uses Kenneth Burke’s notions of identification and symbolic action, combined with a recognition of Diogenes’s notion of cynicism, to explicate and trace the impact of George Carlin’s infamous speech. By shocking Americans sense of “good taste,” Carlin’s comedy engendered a Supreme Court case that reshaped both American law and American attitudes by fundamentally altering the American ethos, our shared identity, and amplifying our fundamental belief in free speech.”
• Let’s think about this thesis mathematically, as: This paper uses A.1 and A.2 along with B to [VERB] [OBJECT OF STUDY]. Such analysis [VERB] [IMPORTANCE OF WORK]. The object of study can be a text, person, idea, event, building, object, film, piece of music, etc. The verbs can come from a long list: examine, engender, reveal, enforces, supports, contradicts, challenges, questions, problematizes, complicates, echoes, urges us, etc.
• In the case of my hypothetical paper here, then, we would take 4 pages to explicate those theoretical concepts using primary and secondary sources: what is Burke’s theory of identification (1 1/3 page), what is his notion of symbolic action (1 1/3 page), and who is Diogenes and what is his notion of cynicism (1 1/3 page)?
• Examination of A.1: 2-3 pages How Carlins’s speech identifies its audience, who are “we”?
• Examination of A.2: 2-3 pages
• Examination of B: 2-3 pages
• Conclusion 1 page: what have you proved? why should we care again? what can we (that audience you shape in the introduction) do next, do tomorrow, do to make this scholarship relevant to our lives?

So that gives us a minimum of 14 pages. But, let me assure you, the minimum will NOT be the problem. Once you start following this format the challenge will be squeezing everything I am asking you to do in ONLY 20 pages.

If you choose to write the shorter paper, the analytical paper, then you are doing the same work I have outlined above, but in a more narrow scope (a smaller, more defined, single object) and with a far more specific lens. But the structure of the paper is the same (i.e., this paper reveals the pivotal role kairos, ethos, and pathos play in Alex Rodriguez’s recent attempt to apologize for using performance-enhancing drugs). You are performing the same kind of close reading, but I do not expect the additional research into prior scholarship or the larger scope.

Homework

There’s three essays on the homepage to read for homework. Each work with Kenneth Burke, but I offer them also as examples of research projects–to what extent do they follow the archetype that I offered above?

In today’s class, I want to do a bit of housekeeping. First, I want to lay out the calendar for the rest of the year. Second, I want to review Project 1, paying attention to some pretty cool projects. Third, I want to handout the homework.

Reflecting on Project One

A few projects that stood out:

• Andriana
• Kiyo
• Sarah
• Harley (Nick on Wisdom)

If you want to resubmit the project, then send me an email with the URL and a note that highlights what specific changes you made (use the rubric as a guide).

In general, let me say that I would appreciate it if you would STOP CENTER-ALIGNING TEXT. Thank you.

1. I want to clarify what Ong is arguing a bit: Ong believes literacy, and the way it leads us to think abstractly and logically, is a good thing. However, he also wants us to recognize that it transforms the way we think, and prevents us from seeing other ways of thinking (especially ways ground in feeling, emotion, pathos). In short, Ulmer believes new media–images, websites, television, motion pictures–engender a return to feeling.

2. When you write: “Ulmer is also interested in how to update the way we communicate given the prevalence of new media” I immediately expect the next sentence to follow-up: what does it mean to update our methods of communication in light of new media? This question left me hanging a bit.

Of course, later parts of the installation address the question in terms of aesthetics. This is smart, and you do a nice job thinking through some pretty complex theory here. To your emphasis on the “supplemental” nature of electracy: I would argue that Ulmer wants us to realize that electracy *ins’t* a finished product yet–he hopes that, if we take the time to recognize that the process is under way, then we can actively shape what we want electronic writing to be(come).

3. I was a bit concerned in your postmortem when you wrote: “Ong says literacy can hinder human beings ability to think critically. He mentions in oral cultures how the mind must remember every detail otherwise that story or bit of their culture is lost forever. The invention of writing and therefor literacy promotes yes easy access to stories, information, and traditions but looses some of it’s meaning in the process.” This is a tricky point: Plato feared that literacy would take away from our ability to think. He also feared that if ignorant people attempted to read, then ideas would be “left out there” with no one to care for them (that is, no one is there to help ignorant people overcome their misunderstandings). Ong, however, disagrees with Plato. Ong argues that literacy promotes the kind of abstract analytics that Plato encourages.

Calendar

I have updated the calendar on the syllabus. The important date is that Project 2 is due next Thursday. But this is up for negotiation.

Homework

Read the Stockman .pdf I sent out via Canvas. We will generate the Project 2 rubric in Thursday’s class.

In today’s class, I want to:

• Introduce some basic principles and language for talking about video
• Have you practice shooting video
• Have you practice editing video using an editing program

Basic Intro to Videography

First, a 9 minute video dealing with basic types of shots: tight, extreme close-up, establishing shot, wide shot, and over-the-shoulder. 

Second, I want you to find two partners. Working in a group of three, I want you to shoot a 30 second commercial for an object product. Your commercial needs to use at least 3 different types of shots. You will have 20 minutes to collect footage for your commerical.

Third, I want you to edit your video in Windows Moviemaker. Moviemaker is a simple WYSIWYG video editor.

Fourth, if there is time, I want you to put a soundtrack in the background for your commercial.

In today’s class I want to work out a bit more what we might mean by “affective object.” Our first example came from Henry Jenkins, and his relationship to comic books in the essay “Death-Defying Superheroes.” Today we turn to Maira Kalman’s 2014 book My Favorite Things.

A question that can resonate throughout today’s discussion: why is she interested in broken furniture, shoes, buttons and books?

First, let’s listen to a bit of Kalman:

2012/10 Maira Kalman from CreativeMornings on Vimeo

Notes toward a process:

• A Focus on place
• How happy are you / how sad are you?
• “Which brings me to the chicken” / sudden transitions. Lack of explicit connection.
• The unexpected, odd little moment
• First instinct: Time. Precious. Fleeting. Be aware of the moment. Greatest moments when you are on your own. (Why? Because you are open to an encounter).
• Journey: walk around the block, or a trip to India. You can see as much in a walk around the block as you can on a trip around the world.
• How do you navigate the world with a sense of humor.
• An interest in history. Tracing the history of specific objects.
• Juxtaposition: Lincoln. Personal history [Subjective]. National history [Objective]. Breakfast at the museum. A hat. Serendipity.
• An empty brain. Not a stupid brain.
• The dog and bemused indifference.
• Idiosyncratic details.
• “I didn’t have to think, I just fell in love with it.”
• The countess / Cindy Sherman / presence as performance art as interruption

Ella Browning and I analyzed Kalman’s aesthetic process/product, outlined in the video above, concluding:

In this series of images from …And Pursuit of Happiness, we see representations of our four principles of choric invention: a prioritizing of space / place; a juxtaposition of subjective (affective) experience alongside objective history; a resistance to synthesis; and finally, a resistance to codification. As we have said, in line with this fourth principle, we cannot generate a prescriptive method for choric invention that guarantees specific results. However, Kalman’s processes and her work provide suggested practices that increase the possibility of moving through a particular space and experiencing an “ah ha!” or punctum moment, whether it is one of affective delight or a painful sting. This series of images, then, serves as an exemplary model for choric invention, and for all of its theoretical complexity, and all of its challenges to traditional notions of teaching, we believe choric invention lends itself to practice, particularly through the use of Kalman’s suggested principles.

Currently, I am working on a piece that deals with feminist theory and pedagogy, specifically the work of Helene Cixous, Luce Irigaray, and Julia Kristeva. Lynn Worsham articulates how, taken together, these woman produce an approach to writing (and thinking) called “ecriture feminine.” In short, my argument is that the Ulmer’s call for electrate writing is an example of ecriture feminine–a form of writing that eschews the intellectual underpinnings of logo-centric (masculine) writing. And, again in short, this is a method of writing less interested in Universal truth, objectivity, and synthesis [what we have in common] as it is in affect, subjective experience, and idiosyncrasy [what marks us as unique].

While the theory/philosophy here might be complicated, I want to argue that we can unpack some of that complication by paying close attention to Kalman’s work. Here is my connection between Kalman and new media. And that’s what I want to do in class today: I want you to go through the book and trace a/the theme of this work.

To do this, I want to specify what I mean by theme. The theme of any aesthetic work, be it a novel, a television show, a painting, a graphic novel, a video game, is what it contributes to our understanding of what it means to exist or how we should/could live. At its most simple, it is the moral of the story (but not all themes can be expressed as a moral). So, I’ll ask you to identify what you think is the theme of Kalman’s work, and to find 5 pages that speak to this particular theme.

Potential Themes

I noticed two dominant themes in Kalman’s work, the first was the prevalence of sadness, it’s inevitability. The second, and obviously related, was the passing of time, the inevitability of change and, ultimately, the reality of death.

This theme first surfaces on page 15, when she writes “Somewhere not too far away, the czar and the czarina with their beautiful children, all in white, were taking tea in their palace.

Soon that would end. As all things do.

This sadness really hit me on page 61: “Watching a person eat soup can break your heart.” And again on page 37: “You can rely on sadness. Happiness, well…that is a different story.” Page 87/88, from a door: “People were always coming and going and dying. She was killed in the Holocaust. Which brings us inevitably to sorrow”

And this acknowledgement of sadness leads a realization of death. Page 34:

There is a piano, and music will be played in the room.

And it has something (or everything) to do with Life and Death.
And Time. Always Time.

And page 65’s nostalgic discussion of old candy stores and candy boxes carefully hand wrapped (a time long past). And these two themes wrap up in the book’s conclusion, on pages 141-145.

But I want to suggest that these themes, the objective message of the text, are offset, juxtaposed, against the earnest joy of the everyday and the idiosyncratic. See especially page 78.

In short, I want to suggest that Jenkins and Kalman provide us with methods for tracing the affective resonances of objects. How they compose us. How they resonate with us. Reflecting on objects and our investment in them, their histories, our histories, becomes a electrate method of introspection and invention.

Today we transition into the second major part of our course, focusing on the work of Kenneth Burke. We’ve jumped some 1800 years from ancient Greece, and I would like to offer the following brief and obviously inadequate history to provide some context for Burke’s work.

As I’ve mentioned before, after the fall of the Roman Empire most of Europe finds itself under the intellectual authority of the Vatican. Catholicism spreads quickly both as a religion, a theological/philosophic system of thought, and as a political organization. During this time, most “heretic” thought is destroyed. Given their resonances with Christian thought, Plato and Aristotle are kept in play (though they are transformed). Sophist thought is lost to the West. Whoever might have controlled the intellectual scene in Ancient Greece is up for debate, but there can be no question that Plato wins the long, historical battle.

At sometime in the 14th-16th century, Catholicism’s control of Europe’s intellectual scene began to waver. In Italy, as we touched on in Grassi, a series of philosopher-rhetoricians, in part inspired by Petrarch’s art, began to rethink the power of language. But in England, and then Germany, a group of radical’s opposed Scholasticism on different grounds: inspired by the likes of Descartes and others, they were interested in “empiricism”: a philosophy that all knowledge descends from sensory experience (in short, if I can’t see it, I don’t believe it). This is the birth of science and the search for a Truth not delivered from up high in the Heavens, but from down low on the Earth. This search for truth radically reshaped not only philosophy, but also politics. American democracy is the realization of the Enlightenment belief in truth, individual experience, and progressive knowledge.

To best understand the Enlightenment, we should turn to Immanuel Kant’s seminal essay, “An Answer to the Question ‘What is Enlightenment?”. Kant, a German, structured a highly rhetorical argument for why governments (monarchies) should encourage the “free” exchange of ideas. His arguments here greatly inspired Thomas Jefferson and the American insistence on freedom of the press and freedom of speech. However, we should also note Kant’s rather Platonic undertones.

All of this is to say: the Modern Enlightenment can be described as a radical and progressive movement that greatly transformed Western thought, politics, science, industry. It was highly idealistic, even if (as Kant’s essay demonstrates) it was also cautious. Philosophers like Hegel influentially argued that history itself was a dialectical march toward human perfection (I am oversimplfying here, but I said I would keep this short). This optimistic spirit fueled much of the 19th century across Europe. And, indeed, at the turn of the 20th century, humanity had made tremendous advancements in the fields of science, medicine, philosophy, industry. But then came two world wars, the Holocaust, Nagaski, Hiroshima, the Cold War. The promised Enlightenment and optimism of the 19th century seemed a distant memory.

Burke’s work anticipates much of the late-20th century critique of the modern Enlightenment. It also echoes much of what I have identified thus far as “sophistry.” The first essay we will read, “The Rhetoric of Hitler’s Battle,” comes from 1933–at a time when most intellectuals in the West were dismissing Hitler as a ridiculous political figure not worthy of scholarly attention. Burke disagreed.

For homework, please read Burke’s essay and Bitzer’s essay “The Rhetorical Situation.”

In our first project, we worked with Gregory Ulmer’s concept of electracy and Walter Ong’s notion of literacy. I shared a reading from Ulmer’s Heuretics in which he argued that a major consequence of literacy was a shift to issues of method. Rather than bask in the magic of a long, persuasive speech (as the oral mind would), the literate mind wanted to know how the speech worked, how to (re)create the speech. The literate mind wanted not magic, but method.

Ulmer’s argument–one I enjoy–is that the development of electrate tools opens up possibilities for new genres and new methods (since a genre can be understood as a collection of typical/expected/productive methods). In project two, I am attempting to invent–or at least delineate–methods for a new genre (which I am calling Affective Objects). How does one affectively explore the affectivity of an object?

This is not a question to which I have an answer. I have ideas, but not answers. My goal is for you to develop an idea that approaches an answer. As I indicated in our last class, I have put together some readings that can help us do that. Today’s readings get us started, albeit in different ways.

The Shouse reading “Feeling, Emotion, Affect” gives us a robust sense of what we mean by “affect.” This is important.

The Jenkins reading gives us a model of one way (not THE way) to trace and explore the affective resonances of an [objective?] object. I am being intentionally coy here a bit.

I have created a discussion forum in Canvas, and I would ask that you get started by free-writing on the Jenkins for 10 minutes. I want you to explore NOT what Jenkins says, but what he DOES. How is this essay constructed? What does it do? How might I reduce it to a recipe: what are the ingredients? What are the procedures? What special instructions do I need? How do I make this essay? HINT: In your response, do not use the word “comics.”

Literacy:Writing::Electracy:Affect

In her 2000 book Breaking Up [at] Totality, Diane D. Davis advocates rethinking the ways we teach writing in Universities. Her argument is complicated, but I will try to offer a summary here. She argues that despite the fact that philosophy and technology undergo incredible transformations across the 21st century, the ways we teach writing, and what we consider writing to be by and large do not. She writes:

Writing gets codified, disciplined, domesticated in the typical composition course; indeed, writing is often sacrificed in the name of “composition,” in the name of this “discipline’s” service-oriented and pre-established requirements. As Lester Faigley notes in Fragments of Rationality, what passes for “good student writing” in the typical composition course is still the “modernist text,” the linear and progressive narrative written in an authoritative voice and arising from accepted conceptual starting places (topoi) (15-16). The point here is not to suggest that there is no longer a place in this postmodern era for the “modernist text”: rather, our concern is that this very particular style of writing has been allowed (even encouraged) to masquerade as writing itself. Though we-teachers have attempted to incorporate postfoundational ways of knowing into our pedagogical strategies, as far as I can tell, we have not allowed what Lyotard calls “the postmodern condition” to radically refashion our pedagogical goals themselves. Though we have, for instance, begun to design writing courses that encourage collaborative learning, emphasize process [METHOD], foreground rhetorical situation [KAIROS], and make room for personal experience, the motivation behind these surface-level revisions typically remains the same: to better help students produce the same old modernist texts. Our criteria for “good writing” and our motivation for “teaching writing” have remained virtually unaffected by these updates in pedagogical style. (p. 6)

I introduce this passage as a way of introducing affect because I offer this assignment as a response to Davis’s call for postfoundational ways of knowing (which, after project one, I would call “electrate” ways of composing) that do not seek to replicate or reinforce “the same old modernist texts” (or, the already existing genres/methods of literacy). I want to see if, inspired by Ulmer and in response to Davis, we can make something new. And hope that the something new does something useful (though we may have to think about what makes a project/method/genre/composition useful).

There is a more direct connection between Davis and affect though. I want to turn our attention to her discussion of “physiological laughter.” In the linked passage, Davis posts a question of “who laughs?” I have similarly raised a question of trauma and crying–asking “who cries?” In both of these questions lies a specter of who/what transcends our rational control. It asks a question of the extent to which we are master of our own experience, and to what extent the objects, forces, and others inside and around us possess control. To the Shouse reading: “What is remarkable about the story of the woman whose leg danced all on its own is not so much that afect trumped will in this particular case, but that this is just one example of the way in which affect precedes will and consciousness.”

Today’s class serves as a review before we begin working with Modern rhetoric next week.

First, we’ll explore potential research topics for the longer paper (discussion question on Canvas).

Second, I want to hear about which articles you chose to re-read, and what popped out on a second pass.

Third, here is a link to the class notes from the previous time I taught the course; this has a bunch of review material and Historical Rhetorical Jeopardy (patent pending, sure to be a big hit).

Homework

Project One is due on Tuesday. I have created a project page (including turn-in) on Canvas. Given the size of video files, it is probably easier to upload the video to YouTube and then share a URL with me (and, of course, you can set the video to private if you don’t want it to be public).

In today’s class I will introduce our second project, which I have decided to term the “Affective Objects” project. This project will have two different stages. In stage one, we will read a series of texts. The purpose of such reading is to invent an assignment. Think of these texts as offering ingredients, and of stage one as writing the recipe. How do you transform these materials into an assignment?

Materials for Project 2

• Henry Jenkins, “Death-Defying Superheroes” (PDF)
• Eric Shouse’s “Feeling, Emotion, Affect”
• Maira Kalman, Favorite Things
• Christine Harold, “On Target: Aura, Affect, and the Rhetoric of ‘Design Democracy'”
• Erich Werner’s review of Joddy Murray’s Non-Discursive Rhetoric: Image and Affect in Multimodal Composition”

After we have read these materials, we will spend time in class working with video production. In the end, I will ask you to produce another website that showcases 3 short videos that that each explore the affective dimensions of a particular object (note, the previous sentence is the starting point for inventing the second assignment; I leave the specifics to each of you to work out via the readings and materials I have listed above).

Homework

For homework, I would want you to read Jenkins essay (PDF) and the Shouse article (link above).