Layers of Photoshop and Rhetorical Understandings: Reflecting on a “Spaceship” Schema

Creating the schema was both useful and frustrating. It brought to the surface the complexity of trying to understand how and why we think and operate in the world—through actions, through our values, through our conceptions of rhetoric, philosophy, conversation, and social practices. Even though the schema specifically addressed just “one” perspective of rhetoric (Perelman and Olbrects-Tyteca’s…but certainly influenced by others) , it was exceedingly difficult to depict the nuances of understanding and knowledge making. To help show this complexity, Kamila and I worked through a couple of different dimensions: 1) the concentric circles of the schema signified an outward explosion of thought and insight and 2) the layers for the various components—that can be disassembled and reassembled—show the connections and tensions over/through time.

Kamila, at some point during our work on the schema, named the file “Spaceship Schema” because it somewhat resembled a spaceship from Star Wars (especially when it had grey tones and was less filled in). I’ve been considering the image of a spacecraft with regards to the material we have been grappling with, and I think it actually works well as an illustration of “New Rhetoric” in the context of previous perspectives and current/continued critiques. I like the way it suggests an acceleration of ideas, an exploration of unknowns, and a sense that this perspective is a tiny dot in a vast expanse. To further illustrate this complexity and sense of vastness, our schema is actually quite large (it’s set to print as a 24” x 24” document). Even so, I felt as though we “ran out of room” to include the aspects and detail we wanted. For example, I wanted to better articulate the relationship between philosophy and rhetoric (that acts as part of the exigence of Perelman and Olbrects-Tyteca to undertake a new view of rhetoric), and Kamila had a great idea for using blue and green gradients to help blend the two areas. However, I couldn’t figure out how to do this effective, within the constraints of time (my time to work) and space (the material space on the screen/in the document).

I am particularly intrigued by the continued importance of Classical Rhetoric as we continue to shape the discipline. Perelman and Olbrecht-Tyteca reached back (circumventing the “Ramus Blockade”) and worked both with and against the grain of Classical Rhetoric. Perelman’s (and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s) question illustrates this building and rearticulating on a classical foundation: “is there a logic of value judgments that makes it possible for us to reason about values instead of making them depend solely on irrational choices…” (1389). Classical ideas served as a foundation that could be built on and pushed against as the relationship between philosophy and rhetoric were renegotiated. This “reaching back” to Classical Rhetoric is present in more current scholarship. Susan Jarratt’s Rereading the Sophists offers a feminist critique of rhetorical perspectives from before Plato and Aristotle. It also begins to reveal the (mis)representations of particular views through lenses over the course of history. Additionally, Colin Brooke’s Lingua Fracta articulates the classical rhetorical canons in terms of the digital age, remediating each canon to better demonstrate newer forms of and platforms for rhetorical understandings.

Reflecting on these moments of “reaching back,” critiquing, rearticulating, reformulating, and renegotiating makes me think that the schema Kamila and I created needs to have a much more expansive yellow section. We offered some initial connections to the critiques we saw in the readings from the past couple of weeks (from Condit, Asante, and Dearin), but I can imagine that we’ll quickly find additional critiques to apply to Perelman and Oblrechts-Tyteca’s model of New Rhetoric. I can also imagine that we could continue to problematize and challenge the connections between those critiques to provide additional depth. With this in mind, I would like to offer the following images as representations of how Kamila and I built our schema. I would like to further investigate the idea of layering understandings as we move forward throughout the semester. I think I will keep the visual of the Photoshop layers in the back of my mind as a way to build through the often opposing views, disruptions, and tensions that occur within and through rhetorical perspectives, theories, and practices.

My original sketch of the layers of New Rhetoric.

A screenshot of the Photoshop document for the schema. Please note the layers in the small window on the right hand side. We ended up with a total of about 30 layers of text, shapes, colors, and other various connections.

The full schema with layers that include Classical Rhetoric, Perelman and Olbrect-Tyteca's "New Rhetoric," and more recent critiques surrounding these conceptions of rhetoric.

The schema with only the portions specific to Perelman and Olbrecht-Tyteca, to illustrate the way we layered materials and the way the schema changes when we remove some of those layers.