Method & Theory in Rhetorical Criticism

Darsey, “Must We all Be Rhetorical Theorists,” 164-181 (ONL) 1) This essay reports a rich variety of goals, or purposes, of rhetorical criticism. Be especially familiar with the positions of Campbell, Bowers, Leff, Eagleton, and Hart. According to Darsey, why is Leff’s position an inadequate defense against the social scientism offered by Hart? 2) Which one of the six problems in contemporary rhetorical criticism that Hart outlines (and Darsey reports and criticizes starting on page 167) seems most plausible or most threatening? What does or might this specific problem look like in the pages of rhetorical journals? #4 – the profusion of terms. As public institutions, oughtn’t the public be able to understand (as well as access) the knowledge produced by land-grant universities? 3) One might imagine that your enrollment in this course announces a preference for your self-identification as a persuasion, Darsey offers a defense of rhetoric. If student of rhetoric of rhetoric,, not persuasion not persuasion.. Against Hart’s advocacy of persuasion, you were called upon to defend your commitment to rhetoric over persuasion, would you borrow from Darsey’s defense? Is there a different, better way to defend a commitment to rhetoric over persuasion? I consider this essay a frustrating heap of jabs, written in a tone of anger, and thereby transmitting a joyless experience in the reader. If we are to believe this Darsey and agree with him as he repudiates his colleague (who seems a rather peaceful scholar himself) in most unfriendly ways, then we are forced to agree with his tone, becoming angry ourselves. Perhaps becoming angry at times, then, with Darsey, as this mode of writing can backfire, and I feel that here, it does.

history v. theory specific vs. general clear differentiation between high and low culture looking at the emerging field of rhetorical criticism does the tone match whats whats at stake? -for him it does.. what is your interest in rhetorical criticism, is it a text or an enduring question? the rhetoric in the clarence thomas hearings is not oratory but a symptom of the racial... “more civilized” than others a signifier that can accomodate -maybe we all have experienced some sort of corporeal response to something crafted (such as watching a ballet) - as humans, we do respond to things that have been very carefully crafted -begins with a poem (high culture) - the words tell us something about the ineffable -we can have a transformative experience -enduring, sublime, trans-contextual experience with a piece of art -but where do we locate quality, is it within the text itself or is it with genres -Darsey would’t let us be moved by the low-culture of the street -the conventionality of modes of a ffect, (the high/low culture war is settled for Darsey) the warning: social science masquerading as rhetoric (an important point) -idiosyncracies: are the connected or disconnected patterns of behaviour, and do they deserve our attention? -starting with the extraordinary singularity (idiosyncracies) of something and drawing out the human dimension within it is worth celebrating, and not trying to apply to all things that object of study’s quality. -the social scientific approach to finding more theory that is applicable to larger items that one text or instance -why does Leff fail? -Leff is saying, you can’t really say much more more about the text, but it is limited. limited. According to darsey, there may be a better way of doing that: thinking thinking in a broader context. We could study that one speech, or we could think in terms of controversy. controversy. Leff’s move was picking two speeches - each of which which is representative (a representative anecdote) and do close textual analysis of this to get a better sense of controversy. A capitulation (in darsey’s darsey’s view) of patterning - as is seen in the social sciences. sciences.

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-he wants us to have to choose that there is a difference (that makes a difference) between Brahm’s German Requiem and a pack of dogs. -snobby title -talking about what Jazinsky is talking about: is our goal to say something substantive about theory?

4) As we glimpse on our curricular horizon a series of approaches to rhetorical criticism that emphasize things larger than single texts (e.g., genres, movements, ideologies), what might we fruitfully retain from Darsey’s cautions?

The knowledge that each movement, ideology, etc, is but a mosaic of individual experiences of particular variety. Jasinski, “The Status of Theory and Method in Rhetorical Criticism,”249-270 Criticism,”249-270 (ONL) 1) In Jasinski’s view, what insights does Leff Leff (p. 257) derive from ethnographic ethnographic inquiry? How might might a rhetorical critic resemble an ethnographic researcher and vice versa?

Jasinski -asks us to think about the relationship between theory and method -method driven criticism and concept-driven criticism (probably the most important lesson to learn from this essay perhaps from the class) -working with a specialized vocabulary Jasinsky: evaluative criticism vs. analytic criticism -in the past evaluative (Black: judicial) was the norm but increasingly it’s analytic -evaluative: the critic says whether its good or bad (judgement) -analytic criticism: criticism: Edwin Black: we should account for for how a text works. disassembling an artefact to see how it works - how do the pieces relate. Meanwhile Zdenek talks about rhetorical criticism and rhetorical analysis -English ppl say rhetorical analysis and Com ppl say rhetorical criticism -using theory as a sensitizing framework rather than imposing a theory -Leff is saying that the rhetorical scholar is like the ethnographer in the careful attn to local details and the subsequent choosing of theory -Leff doesn’t endorse method as something methodical and ordered





2) What are the key differences between method-driven criticism and theory- or concept-driven criticism? How would two different rhetorical critics, one method-driven and the other theory- or concept-driven, produce different criticisms of the same speech? The theory driven critic would use a text to illustrate a theory. The method-driven critic would only amount the knowledge that the prescriptive theory allowed. allowed. The concept-driven critic would give a more in-depth attention attention to conceptual entities and their interplay in a text . text .

How do you narrate the temporality? What do you do first? What next? In a method method driven criticism, criticism, it’s ordered. Generative criticism criticism let’s the text text show you A series of concepts that are related and make up a theory. But a concept is a formalised idea, predicts/defines. Concept-driven criticism lets the text tell us what conversation it is taking place in, then we thicken the concepts. Abduction, this tacking back and forth forth between the text and the concept. -ie. Decorum names a proper set of relations among objects. (Rhetorical term). term). Decorum is a principle that endures across any rhetorical rhetorical transaction. transaction. Making appropriate choices. choices. The forms that it takes can vary, but we can take any sort of text and say ‘what are the specific forms of decorum that we can see being exhibited in this particular text? and if we can abduct decorum, (give 1 definition of decorum) now use this definition definition with regard for the text, now what what is missing from from the concept? let’s tack back on to the concept, thicken it, and we can also say we are thickening our concept of the text. -Decorum in the 1987 eulogies of the deceased member of congress congress (AIDS). Concept that organizes the things that that are going on here. An hour in, someone someone finally says Aids Aids in his eulogy... The idea of decorum (appropriateness: honor the dead, but also also don’t speak ill of the dead). The analysis is concept-driven. Decorum is that concept concept to go to. The main tension tension was what was properly properly private, what what was properly public? -is there a big book of concepts we can go to? -its a process not a method. and you can guide yourself or make your process and that’s what makes makes you unique (similar (similar to an artistic process). process). there’s guidance, but it’s not prescriptive prescriptive step-driven at every turn. Concept: queer decorum Centrifugal force (outward) Centripetal force (inward)

Seems to be inductive (concept-driven) but it’s abductive (as is grounded theory...) Concept-driven: I’ve illuminated something something about the text and about the concept by putting them together. Making soup without a recipe vs. making making one without just using the materials. materials. And i can decide not to make a soup depending on what the materials are. There is Process there, or a pattern in your process, process, but there is not an ordered list of actions. There is something larger than than the text.





the concept of a “bug chaser” (exploring it without empirical proof) give fair treatment to this phenomenon, and does naming it thicken it as well, perhaps incorrectly? ok, so you can thicken a concept and back it up with examples from the text. 4) Jasinski abruptly arrives at “political judgment” (p. 259) as a specific topic worthy of sustained commentary. What does Jasinski accomplish via his focus on political judgment? He confuses and loses me.

Zdenek, “Charting a Course Between,” (ONL) 1) Zdenek organizes his discussion discussion around 6 tensions or dialectics. dialectics. How useful is it to to think about the act of criticism in terms of these tensions? Are there any other tensions he should have emphasized?

2) If there comes a point when the student has to be taught the methods of rhetorical criticism, what is a good way to do it so s/he can achieve a balance between “objective” and “subjective”? (Related to this question, you could also consider page 198 – especially the analogy between student and a young child learning to walk.)

3) What does Zdenek have to say about the relationships between theory and practice, method and object, and method and critic? What are some specific ways in which you imagine these relationships in your current/future rhetorical practice? 4) Considering Zdenek’s objections to method-oriented approaches to rhetorical criticism, what do you see as the weaknesses/strengths weaknesses/strengths of this course (including how it is organized)? I see the coming week’s separation of methods into weekly compartments are potentially dangerous, but I think the nonlinear organization (at least, not historically historically linear to a T…?) helps one to see intermingling. At least, the lack of dates on the syllabus does this. I would like to read something on grounded theory and rhetoric criticism. Contributions to the Fall 2003 special issue of Communicati of Communication on Studies on “What Constitutes Publishable Rhetorical Scholarship?” (handout) 1) In your view, from this collection of readings (by Allen, Brummett, Palczewski, Palczewski, and Jordan et al.) what are twoto-three of the most helpful or illuminating statements statements about how to practice rhetorical criticism? criticism? 2) What are two-to-three of the most troubling or curious statements about how to practice rhetorical criticism?

I like thinking of theory and method in metaphors. metaphors. I don’t find discussing things abstractly abstractly for long periods of time helpful. helpful. I do find metaphors metaphors helpful. For instance, I think of method as the the auto-correcting dictionary in your phone. It frustratingly does not know know all of my intentions, nor does it know every every word I wish to spell. Sometimes, well, well, often, it auto-corrects a word word that I was not trying to spell, and I have to manually adjust my consonants and vowels until until the desired goal is reached. Other times, I am thankful for its existence so that I may be sloppy or not think through through every next word. It’s also helpful for underlining words that have been misspelled misspelled so that I may go back and change them if I wish. However, often times I wish I had the independence to just go out on my own and not rely on a constant mechanical tyrant. We may use our own spellings or types of spellings to display display our character, or particularities. particularities. To do this, however, one would need to dismantle the spellcheck or constantly click to opt-out of a prescriptive and orthodox format.





Personal Preference WHere do you see neutrality being enacted? Think of your reviewers as collaborators -just like faving a dump Whats at stake in the choice of text? What’s at stake in the situation that that rhetoric is being used? -the sense of figuring it out for yourself, but you feel like you’ve learned something. “I don’t care if it’s true...” - our ability to use the good parts of the article in seeing symbolic communication in new ways, or to add value. -not a realist ontology but implicitly conveying a kind of subjectivist epistemology -when i’m doing criticism criticism i dont imagine myself as the arbiter of what’s what’s real and what’s not. sell to me a plausible claim about about this text. not a truth standard, but but a plausible/plausibility plausible/plausibility standard. what justifies making a claim about about a text? can i accept this? Zdenek -alternate pedagogies -how else could a course like this be designed? -topic -topical al orient orientati ation on -vs. -vs. Dialecti Dialectical cal orient orientati ation on (object (objective ive/su /subj bject ective ive,, etc). etc). -(vs a historical approach)

Close textual analysis: can leff, Leff and Utley , Warson, and Johnson all be said to be carrying carrying out the same duties of close textual analysis - leff: a response to the old model, but lacks method, asks the reader reader to be able to do what he does, and to learn from his style

power flows through texts, in that they are no t self-sustained rhetoric travels through every spech how can we talk of the particulars as well as te transitory power that rhetoric provides “it is very difficut to give weight to both simultaneously”

the controversy is deflected by it also tends to fix the particular text outside the larger field of^ intertextual developments. The narrowing of focus, I believe, has some heuristic and pedagogical advantages, but it tends to defiect attention from the scenes of controversy out of which these texts arise and for which they are made.





the controversy is pretty much laid out for you, instead our work then is to negotiate the controversy as dialectics within the close analytic reading methodology.

what is your unit of analysis, what can you come back to - what’s realistically attached to that choice. long vs. short (twitter vs blogs) - keeping them talking to each other - ideographs as text, not text as ideograph. balance like a dialectic - maybe a teeter totter ? (Lou) freedom for example as an ideograph: what other things cluster around it, what has freedom meant, how has freedom changed. mlk’s letter from birmingham birmingham jail is interesting interesting to you (leff) only as it can ideographically trace the origins and meaning of freedom across time and people and space.

the ideograph freedom as appearing the the Entropy side A of djshadow’s preemptive strike “FREEDOM” is shouted out at the end. what by the end of this track has the ideograph exactly come to to represent from who’s perspective and how does it get you to ag ree?????? Leff and Utley Instrumental and Constituitive Rhetoric both say something about text having intentional intentional and extensional dimensions. we put them together in this way so that they do something: produce an effect. effect. a manifestation of the intentional intentional and the extentional, as a flexible. flexible. decorum as a concept is a flexible princible between managing relations relations between intentional and extentional extentional effects. the job of the critic is therefore to judge and analyze and categorize the specific ways that decorum gets played out in two different modes. Letter from Birmingham Jail Disassociation between law and fairness then making a distinction distinction between what nonviolent nonviolent resistance and the violent form. form. Creative tension. tension. the charge has to do with creative tension. Creative tension; your charge holds; but im not ashamed of that because im redefinign creative tension tension within a re-looking at judeo=christian judeo=christian familiar texts. this is a rhetorical more for its way of definining.

The Utley and Leff texts focusing on Persona and how King crafts this with rhetorical choices like, angry vs. forgiving KING’S letter the eavesdropping audience







the letter doesnt only mean something to its intended audience but implicitly touches when the stakes are are high the eavesdropping level adjusts accordingly higher

Method & Theory in Rhetorical Criticism

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