(update on 12/6) As promised, I include an image from our whiteboard matrix last class!
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| [click to enlarge] photo credit: A. May |
For our 12/1 discussion, please note the following change to our final reading assignment:
- Miller "The Mobility of Trust" -- cancelling / though this is a great chapter in an excellent book, so be sure to keep it on your radar at some point, even if not this semester
- Vasaly, Delagrange, Haskins -- please read all of these, but be prepared to discuss any 2 of the 3 in depth
- Foss/Griffin, Hawhee, Hart-Davidson, et al -- please reread the article that seems most in conversation with the 2 selections you made above (I'll ask you to bring all three of these back, but in the interests of considering where we are left, theoretically, after "standpoint," and how feminist and material theory often work together in rhetoric and composition, it will be good for you to have revisited one of these pieces closely. That one piece can either align with your 2 choices above or present an opposing view or simply complicate the conversation.)
I am deciding between several activities to help us focus that day, but you can most likely count on our working in a "matrix of concerns" at some point, especially to finish out the following set of questions:
- What would you--or what should we--identify as the principal postmodern dilemma for rhetorical theory, based on our explorations of Cultural Dis/Identification, Cultural Dis/Location, and Rhetorical Subjectivities and Objectivities? Where do you think we are left, in other words?
- A few weeks ago, I mentioned that we managed to challenge the default positioning of standpoint through the various metaphors offered by Gates, Anzaldua, and Trinh, but I postponed our discussion of how. This week, let's take up that question again. If we were to try to do the kind of research that Jarratt describes, what other ways would we have to position ourselves? What questions are we empowered to ask? What attitudes are we encouraged to transgress?
- Around the mid-semester point, we surveyed notions of "ideology" for one or more notions that could fit the projects of Richards, Burke, and Crosswhite. How might you revise your stance on what you think "ideology" is in rhetorical theory or practice, or what "ideology" should preclude or entail?
- After this week's readings (on the spatial and digital), how do you feel compelled to revise or expand your own notions of feminist rhetoric? Feminist criticism? Feminist social epistemology?
Finally, some placeholder links that may factor into our discussion next Thursday:
- The Rome Reborn project
- Josh Jones's critique of spatial reconstruction projects
- Jane Alexander's The Butcher Boys (info)
- Butcher Boys (assorted views)
- Jane Alexander (artist's bio) (article 1) (article 2)
- Sharon Daniel and Eric Loyer's Public Secrets (Vectors journal)
Have a wonderful break,
-Dr. Graban
