Who gets to Decide what Rhetoric is?

I am semi-puzzled between the discussion that we had in class on Thursday, and Jackie's article "Disciplinary Landscaping, or Contemporary Challenges in the History of Rhetoric." As I understand now, Jackie and Gesa are looking to include women in the rhetorical tradition by recovering lost texts. They seek to discover these women's rhetorical theories in order to enhance the field of rhetoric. They want to not only include western women, but they want to globalize this project to include women's texts around the world.

I asked this question in class on Thursday: "Are they finding a goldmine of rhetoricians globally?"

Kate answered: "It depends on your definition of rhetoric."

Does it? Does it really? I feel like that was a very short answer to a really important question.

Throughout the semester, we have been studying these texts that mostly argued about the same things: eloquence, the cannons, ethos, logos, pathos. I was led to believe that this is what rhetoric is, because that is what we studied the vast majority of the semester in a Rhetorical Theory class.

Then we studied a few people who did not write about rhetorical issues. They wrote about slavery, women's rights, etc. So I tried to examine how these people were using eloquence, cannons, ethos, logos, and pathos, because I thought that was the purpose of reading it for this class. But when does this stuff stop being rhetoric? Is t when the author is no longer trying to persuade someone? Is it when the subject matter is not about cannons or eloquence? It seems to me like Jackie and Gesa want rhetoric to be an extremely inclusive field, possibly to the point where absolutely any words ever written or spoken are rhetoric. Maybe even body language?

I'm struggling with this concept.

Jackie and Gesa

I would like to comment on: “we take note that women are indeed being more systematically included as a normal part of the rhetorical-studies landscape.” (131) I guess I have a question before I make the point I was originally going to: the writer here says “being more” and it makes me wonder is Jackie and Gesa are implying that studies in woman’s rhetoric are now being given the proper attention. Whereas in the past women were seldom associated with rhetorical practices. And I tend to think that is correct based on what we have discussed in class.

But back to the original quote, which goes on to define where women are receiving recognition: textually and contextually.  The term textually refers to the range of texts being produced that are considered worth recognition. I feel that the types of texts women were allowed or able to produces were very limited. Thus making it easier to systematically include them in rhetorical studies. From the texts we have read in class I have found than women generally did not write, and if they did it much of their text revolved around religion. Contextually refers to the context of the women who wrote the piece; the social circle they operate in, or how they practice discourse. Take for example Aspasia, whom was not of true Greek decent, rumored to be a prostitute, and none of her works has survived to provide proof of her rhetorical abilities. Many people have been skeptical of Aspasia’s work and thus not placed a high level of significance on her work. However more significance should be awarded. It is noted several times that Aspasia helped teach Socrates what is now know as the Socratic method. I believe that more or equal significance should be placed on Aspasia’s work, since we heavily rely on Socrates for understanding rhetorical practices.

Later on Jackie and Gesa are discussing the evidence-rich approach and something interesting is said: “Thus, we make rhetoric, rather than just women’s rhetorics, visible as a multisensible, multidimensional action affected by sociopersonal decision making within sociopolitical context.” (135) I agree that Jackie and Gesa strongly care about women’s rhetoric, however I believe that Jackie and Gesa love and care about all rhetoric. Also after reading this sentence I felt that male rhetoric, but lets just call that rhetoric, enhances feminist rhetorical practices. By having rhetoric it allows for a standard to be based off of. Women’s rhetoric is now, more than ever, being held up and compared to traditional rhetoric. I could be wrong but I feel as if less significance is being placed on the gender of the writer than the actual written document.

Rhetoric: for the masses?

Something written in today's readings caught my attention more than the rest. In "A call to action", Royster speaks to her experience as an editor at SAGE journal. She highlights the importance and personal gratification arising from striving to publish a journal which was "accessible to women from all walks of life."

This brought to my mind an important issue--well, perhaps not an issue, but certainly something worth pondering: how does rhetoric relate to the masses, to those not from the academic world? It does apply, this we know. But the texts and rhetoricians we have studied so far have certainly not concerned themselves with the masses. It was good to see Royster make a point about this in an otherwise very academically oriented piece of work.

This was especially interesting to me because it is an issue I hope to explore in my own project, both for myself and for anyone bored enough to peruse it. We do indeed see rhetoric all around us in our everyday lives--indeed, it is hard to go far without encountering some form of persuasive communication. But how does this "everyday rhetoric" compare with the formal theories and astute rhetoricians we've encountered in our academic lives, in this class?

I really want to explore this relationship, so as to find the importance of rhetorical studies. it's really been a struggle for me so far. This probably sounds weird, but I'd really like to speak with Royster on the subject. From her work, and from what others have written on the blog, it seems like something she too holds to be important.

Feminism=Multidimensional Examinations

I'm really getting stuck on the term feminism. Mainly, the connotations and implications that are involved with the term. I understand that for feminists, especially women,  there is a special pride in the word, something that shows their emerging rhetoric and philosophy. But, feminism for me is not limited to females or even a more feminine way of looking at the world. The past descriptions of feminist thinking such as a strong emphasis on harmonization, activist movements, and intuitive thinking are all contained in this rhetoric, but they are just a part. This is not to take anything away from women, because they did spearhead this emerging rhetoric, but I think that the special function of feminism is the connectivity that it fosters, and when the term feminism is invoked, it doesn't create a connectivity for the male reader, but a distancing, something that seems to imply that it is outside the realm of masculine thought.

I almost feel like there is a tad bit of resentment for the past two thousand years of western rhetoric. I say that with more than a little sarcasm but if this new emerging rhetoric is called feminism, then what came before could be called masculine. And yes, male rhetors did distance the female, basically saying that feminine ideals were lesser, but, if feminism is called feminism, which I do think is the new rhetoric for the 21st century and beyond, then it is hindering its own connectivity by its exclusionary word and in a sense reversing the chain of command. If feminism does become mainstream rhetoric what will happen will be nothing short of the disdain for previous "masculine, exclusionary rhetoric" and the past two thousand years of rhetoric will go up in smoke and be devalued.

These new ways of examining text and our world that Royster and Kirsch propose are different from what has been previously valued. The two points we looked at today, critical imagination and strategic contemplation, are seemingly far from previous Western rhetoric, but actually they are tied closely to previous rhetoricians ideas. Critical imagination could be seen as a tool for kairotic inspection, and strategic contemplation as a tool for invention. But, these two concepts create different relationships than ones we have previously seen and frame the argument in a different way, making them valuable. And that is exactly what feminism for me is all about. It is still rhetoric and deals with persuasion in ways that are tied to previous rhetoric but the frame of reference that we use to look at it is shifting, maybe using feminine qualities, but more importantly reshaping previous rhetoric and showing how the past two thousand years of rhetoric can still be applicable as our subjectivity and exclusionary models of society begin to break away and a new interdependent and collaborative oriented rhetoric begins to emerge.

Critical Imagination

"We use critical imagination as a tool to engage, as it were, in hypothesizing, in what might be called 'educated guessing' as a means for searching methodically, not so much for immutable truth but instead for what is likely or possible, given the facts in hand" (Royster 71).

While this quote is right at the beginning of the readings for today it is one that strongly resonated with me as I continued to read the rest of the chapter. Critical imagination, by Royster and Kirsch’s definitions, is what both limits and assists feminist rhetorical practices. As stated in the text; “My desire was to help the students to create a narrative and descriptive database from which they might think more viscerally about Ellis and his associates…. I fashioned writing activities designed to help them push their imaginations, to contemplate various details of the experience, to speculate about possibilities” (Royster 82). The use of critical imagination creates this idea of truth by utilizing narrative to create individuals that a class can relate to in an effort to formulate papers and discussions based on what can be perceived at the time.

Considering my paper is dealing with the entire idea of truth, critical imagination feels like a concept that deals exactly with what I wish to talk about. While it can have elements of truth to it, it is not trying to define truth. Instead, it can utilize various methods of discussion—such as narrative—to depict someone’s idea of what could be truth. Through doing this it creates a semblance of reality and makes us perceive truth. Yet it is not—as they define in the text—truth. It is simply a lens with which we can view everything. I will be keeping this idea as I go about writing my paper and expanding on it a bit further.

Modifying Traditions

While reading these two chapters, I repeatedly felt as though the authors were writing with the intention of pushing back against the restrictions caused by traditions, while not rejecting traditions themselves per se.  For instance, their choice to employ almost-informal key phrases (such as ‘tacking in’ and tacking out’) as well as first names in reference to themselves surely reflects the wish incorporate personality and experience into academic writing...which is somewhat unconventional.  

Critical imagination and strategic contemplation perhaps work to similar purposes.  Within the fifth chapter, it is written that critical imagination (or CI) “mandates that researchers engage their topics in multiple ways, using dialectic and dialogic approaches and imagining ways in which historical subjects might have left traces of a stream in places where we may not have looked, looked closely enough, or may have overlooked” (79).  Modifying traditions is necessary for the acquisition of new or lost information.

Concerning stategic contemplation, the authors come out and admit that it's a bit of a departure from academic norms; for instance, they explain that “whole notion of making the time and space to sit and think or to talk about doing so as a normal part of scholarly methodologies has seemed unintelligible” (86).  Now that they've pointed it out, this fact does seem odd.  After all, it’s usually viewed as helpful for authors of prose and poetry to slow down and reflect upon their work before completing it.  Why isn’t this attitude likewise applied to academics? 

In class, we’ve been discussing the role of narration in rhetoric, and how older rhetorical texts are generally prone to feature less while more recent pieces often contain more.  Since strategic contemplation also calls for relating one’s life experiences to those of another person, I’d venture that the authors of Feminist Rhetorical Practices certainly approve of narration as a means of cutting past artificial restrictions as well.    

Novel Applications

            The chapters in Feminist Rhetorical Practices did a nice job summarizing what we have been working toward all semester in this course.  While their ideas of “tacking in” and “tacking out” provided readers with the necessary groundwork for understanding the rest of their theories.  I thought their more important analyses came in chapter six, which is essentially an extension of five. The following quote got me thinking about the current rhetorical landscape and Royster and Kirsch’s argument there has been a huge shift in subjects addressed.  The text reads, “ [the] process of paying attention, of being mindful, of attending to the subtle, intuitive, not-so-obvious parts of research has the capacity to yield rich rewards.  It allows scholars to observe and notice, to listen and hear voices often neglected or silenced, and to notice more overtly their own responses to what they are seeing, reading, reflecting on, and encountering during their research processes” (85).  Would we as scholars have the same questions, making the same observations within rhetorical, compositional and literary studies if not for this infusion of diverse thought processes?  It is an interesting assertion, though I’m not entirely sure these research practices are entirely new, but rather specifically relevant.  I feel like I make most of the moves Royster and Kirsch suggest in my weekly blog posts in this and other classes, by applying modern situations to the more fundamental theories of rhetoric.  I feel like such comparison brings out a lot of the subtleties brought up in these authors’ depiction of critical imagination as well as strategic contemplation.  I understand the importance of reviving old ideals to understand they were being elucidated through a certain lens and perhaps uncover other attitudes and ideas of the time.  To understand that these were not the only claims, but the only claims being made is an important insight these authors have provided us.  Again, I don’t necessarily consider this any sort of revelation, more a building on a rhetorical archetype, but this particular interpretation helps to specifically identify what we have been doing from the get go with our rhetoricians.  Perhaps having this knowledge will allow us to go even more in depth, into the minds and lifestyles of those responsible for the creation of our evolving modern ideals.