Today’s Plan:
- Canvas “Quiz” #1
- Canvas “Quiz” #2
- Questions
- Jarratt
- Corder
- For Next Class
Your Questions
Papers: Invention
I think that the papers should also address specific types of rhetoric and their intentions. I would like to better understand each type of rhetoric and their intentions. I would like to better understand each type of rhetoric and their results in discourse. I have begun to understand that rhetoric is very complex, and I want to simplify (each type) of rhetoric to the best of my ability prior to writing the paper. What’s the most common type of rhetoric that is used?
Should we map them by how they were presented in class, or more by the themed idea we managed to find in all of them?
Draw. Your. Own. Map.
Is there a correct answer for this paper? Sometimes I feel I will work my interpretation and am told I am wrong and would be graded as such?
Gut response: DM breaks out into hysterical, semi-maniacal laughter. More measured response: if you haven’t figured it out, I’m a postmodernist. I do not believe in certainty. There is no such thing as the one, pure, unquestionable Answer. This does not mean there is not *bad* answers. An answer, an interpretation, has to be grounded in exposition. Show me your work. Show me what you are reading. Tell me in specific detail what that reading means. No enthymemes here. Syllogism. Spell it out. But if you tell me that Plato is advocating a form of rhetoric that aims to sustain democracy and empower the weak, I will fucking tell you you are wrong. As I indicate below, you could tell me that and earn a B! But I will tell you that your answer, while not Right, is definitely wrong.
You said the goal is to incorporate all the readings. If I were to not include one or two, whether accidentally or purposefully, what would the penalty be?
Honestly, I’m not sure. Here’s the thing. I’m on this big anti-racist writing assessment kick. I can talk about that more later. But the central tenet of that pedagogical theory is that we reward students for making an honest effort. We articulate the expectations, but then we evaluate work less on whether it demonstrates mastery and more on whether it testifies to an authentic engagement. Now some of you might bristle at the idea that I can “see” “authentic” (if I’ve done anything so far this semester, it should be to trigger your sophistic Spidey sense when you come across such an arbitrary term) engagement. But, here’s the thing, it is actually less problematic to gauge engagement than it is to propose to rubric and measure “mastery.” Just trust me on this.
All of this is a long way of saying that if you write 8-10 pages, and you mention every reading, and your paragraphs have claims, and they point to some evidence (a passage in the reading), and you don’t treat the theorists like marbles, but try to weave nets, and it looks like you have revised the paper a few times (I’ll the version history in Google Docs to measure both how long you worked on the paper and how many revisions you made), then you get a B. If you do all that stuff and I say something like “this comes off as really smart–Oh! look how carefully she read that passage–I never noticed/thought that before–I don’t agree, but damn that’s a strong argument” then you get an A. I will offer some formal kind of rubric later.
If we have to include a reference to every reading, do they all have to be quoatations, or can they be brief references to something a particular reading had?
Don’t quote unless you need to. There’s a time for close reading and a time that you can paraphrase (which still requires a page number, right?). Space is limited. When I am drafting a theoretical paper like this one, it is 50% quotes. Seriously. But by the time I’m done, it is maybe 10-15% direct quotation.
Is it too slim an idea to use all the readings to create my own metaphor for what rhetoric is and how it is used?
No! This sounds like an intriguing inventive strategy. I could see how you might analyze other metaphors, to tie them to key ideas/terms. But that analysis of other metaphors is a prelude to your own metaphor, which is grounded in other theorists/theories/ideas.
How tightly connected do you want the points and connections of readings to be? Obviously they have to connect somehow, but I’ve assumed you don’t want 8-10 pages of rambling… like how do you plan a paper like this and its connection points?
This is a *very* tricky question for me to answer. I tend to think of a paper as a map. I do this, because I think of argument in Aristotle’s terms of “commonplaces.” That is, if we are going to argue “who is the greatest quarterback of all time?”, then there are “places” that argument has to visit: Do wins matter? Superbowls? Quality of coach and system? Quality of other players? Then there is the question of stasis, which we’ll talk about on Tuesday after you’ve read the Carter. The brilliance and frustration of writing is charting an ingenious and engaging path through these questions. Citing the most famous positions (get, it, places!). Anticipating other people’s turns (more puns!). This will most assuredly start as aimless (too much!) rambling. That’s why we have a shared writing space and “quizzes.” But you need to craft it, tame it, hammer it, into a path.
How do I join a conversation that has been continuously discussed for millenia? Am I supposed to contribute something new to the table?
Kenneth Burke. Also, let me reiterate the goals of this project, and the first half of our course. I understand that what I am asking you to do is incredibly difficult. I am not insensitive to the difficulty. I’ll remind you that about 25 years ago, I was where you were now. I had not read anything other than novels and poems. And someone handed me Aristotle’s Poetics. And then Freud. And then Marx. And then Nietzsche. Derrida. Foucault. ETC. We all start somewhere. I assume this is your start. It won’t be pretty. I hope it is not your end. The goal of the paper is for you to have an opportunity to jump in and give it a go.
Can we use the OED when writing our paper? Not to define rhetoric but other terms, like logos, ethos, pathos, kairos, etc?
YEE-IKES. Tricky one. Here’s the thing–the OED definitions have gravitas and we know they trace their sources. But I hope I’ve demonstrated how fucking slippery these terms are. For instance, what would Aristotle make of this definition of ethos? What would Plato say? What if your whole paper was structured around interpreting how the ancient rhetors we have examined (P, A, G, I, C?) might respond to this OED definition of ethos?
Can rhetoric happen without ethos?
What does ethos mean? Whose ethos? Keep mapping it hot shot
Papers: Style
Do you have a preference in citation style?
I’m cool with MLA, APA, or Chicago. But honestly, as long as I can track your sources, I don’t really care. It is much more important that you use “I” in your paper so I can clearly differentiate where a source ends and where your thought begins. We’ll talk about this more later.
Canvas Quizzes
I’ve put a series of “quizzes” into Canvas.
Jim Corder, “Argument as Emergence, Rhetoric as Love”
My standard questions:
- Group One: [sections 1-3]: What does Corder mean by the idea that we make narratives? Why do said narratives complicate traditional notions of argument and rhetoric?
- Group Two: [sections 4-6]: How can we describe Rogerian method? Why is Corder skeptical that such a method can be useful to rhetoric?
- Group Three: [section 6-7]: Looking at section 7, would your frame Corder as an optimist or pessimist? What do “we” have to learn (and who are the “we” of this section’s final paragraphs)?
- Group Four: [Section 8]:What do we make of section 8? Why is this story here? What does it exemplify or reinforce?
- Group Five: [Section 9]: What does it mean to be “perpetually opening and closing” (29)? How can such a position help us be better? How does it tie to the other advice offered in this section?
I have a thing for us to read.
For Next Class
After reading your questions, I want to change the homework for the weekend. I’d still like you to read Lanham’s “The Q Question.” I’d also like you to read the Carter piece on “Stasis and Kairos.” My plan for Tuesday is to go back and discuss the Sullivan piece on ethos and epideictic alongside Carter, and then to dig into the Lanham. The Lanham is long, and weird at first. But I think it gets more accessible as you go. He’s trying to trace two different rhetorical traditions–but he’s going to be walking through 20th century theorists you likely haven’t heard of. This gives you an opportunity! Which team would Plato play for? Aristotle? Gorgias? Callicles (and whose Callicles!).
I’ve decided that we are not going to read the Latour. I might lecture on Latour a bit next Thursday. But I re-read the Latour yesterday and I think it is both too dense and moves us away from our focus on ancient rhetoric. For next Thursday, I’m going to give you a choice. If you are interested in “sophistry,” in a relativistic ontology/epistemology (in postmodernism or feminism, then read the second chapter in the McComiskey–I’ll get a .pdf of that up soon).
Or read the Grassi, which is really one of my favorites (he talks about the roots of Renaissance Italian rhetoric, which picks up Cicero and is more “sophistic” than Platonic/Aristotelian). If you dig the Lanham, then go to Grassi. Isocrates and civic fans will like this one. If you are interested in team Civics, but Grassi is too much, then read the Barlow on Cicero.
For those who are really struggling and want some sense of grounding, read the Herrick. I teach Herrick in 201 as an introduction to the basic foundations of rhetoric(s). Herrick traces four different understandings/purposes of rhetoric. As with Lanham, you will be able to play the “who goes where?” game.
Regardless of who you read here–simply understand that the “trickiest” theorist to categorize is Aristotle. Do you see him as close to Plato? Or is he closer to Isocrates? And what are the questions I need to ask to start making these comparisons? What questions matter? HINT #1: I have given you a list of these questions. HINT #2 (especially for the folks who read Grassi): Which question matters to you?
If you are on team Plato, then read this. And fear not, one of my former graduate students (I chaired his MA) is a true disciple of Plato. My job is to teach you how to think, what constitutes a thought, not what to think.
