"The challenge is to be adventurous enough in our
thinking to take a different path, to find a different viewpoint, and to
critique the terms of engagement so that a different sense of the
landscape can be made visible, can be deemed valuable, and can become
instructive in the re-en-visioning of what constitutes knowledge" (Royster 14).
Suddenly that quote that's been sitting on our website since the beginning of this class makes so much more sense. Wading through the style of the language that Royster uses is still a bit hard in some spots, but I think I've grasped her concept of using landscape as a metaphor about repositioning the way we look at rhetoric - at least, in the way I've interpreted it which is to mean, basically, going back over the landscape to take a closer look at things and find ones that we've missed.
A large section of this actually reminds me of how Patrick (I think?) was thinking of framing his critical discussion - by re-examining time periods that focus on male rhetoric and doing more research on the women rhetors of those eras (I think - Patrick, correct me if I'm wrong but that was the gist I got from your explanation). I particularly thought about that while reading the part detailing Enheduanna and her works. I feel like priestesses are a good place to start when re-examining the landscape of the impact of women in rhetoric because of their elevated status in ancient societies. This is almost a side note, but I'd love to look at the rhetoric of women who were wives to famous authors (only because that's where my focus lies) in the late 1800's, early 1900's because they usually are pushed out of the limelight, achievement wise.
If you see this comment... are there any wives of famous writers who lived around the turn of the twentieth century that you particularly had in mind?
ReplyDeleteAutumn, I completely agree with where you are going here. It is so interesting to be taking a second look a this text and seeing that if you viewed it one way, you now view it another. Or if you didn't get it before, now you do. I think that the simple concept of change is something that is so important to embrace when being a student of rhetoric. This text is also a way to look at that page of different definitions of rhetoric and to be able to understand why here are many different interpretations.
ReplyDeleteAs far as your feelings toward the the eras of female rhetors, this is a very interesting concept. It was so interesting to me to see exactly how far back the history of women's rhetoric goes. I wish I could take a course simply designated to that.