ENG 4020 Rhetorical Theory & Practice: SCDs

Short Critical Discussions (30%)

SHORT CRITICAL DISCUSSION #2 - (ANTI)SIGNIFICATION & TEXT/UALITY

Due 3/22/18 by 11:00 a.m. to Canvas

Purpose and Task
For this second short critical discussion, I will ask you to put two or more theoretical texts into conversation with each other and with other texts in order to build an argument that is inspired by our (Anti)Signification or Text/uality paradoxes so far. Putting them into conversation requires that you do more than simply comment on them, compare them, dis/agree with them, or formulate an opinion about them. It generally requires that you carefully and expertly synthesize them into a clear, thesis-driven discussion that is non-obvious and vital. The purpose of SCD #2 is three-fold:

to make a discovery, i.e., to craft an interesting and coherent argument based on some curiosity, question, or problem that arises from reading a couple of our texts or theorists together;
to demonstrate a nuanced (even sophisticated) understanding of particular terms or concepts that can help you develop that discovery; and
to hone your critical writing skills in the essay format.

Prompts
I would much rather have you invent and realize your own reason for writing; however, I offer some prompts in case you feel stuck. Please remember that the prompts are just that—suggestions, inspirations, or jumping-off points that will eventually lead you to a more specific realization. That more specific realization (a.k.a., thesis or discovery statement) should not simply answer the prompt; it should reflect a discovery that advances your thinking.

Choose one of the key terms in the title of a critical text below, then discuss its development, meaning, or significance in another text where it does not explicitly appear in the title. For example, you might take the term “discourse” from Bakhtin's title, and then consider how his text and another text treat discourse differently. Or, you might take “understanding” from Locke's title, and then consider how his text and another text articulate critical differences about understandings. The possibilities are many! You may use the backgrounders to help you, and feel free to demonstrate the difference on a case study to help persuade your reader why the difference matters.
Imagine that you were booking guests for a trans-historical talk show (anything is possible!) and you had to justify two of our critical theorists to appear on your show in order to discuss the various ways that the signification paradox has influenced a definition of “language” in their own epistemes. How do their individual projects enhance or illuminate each other, intersect or diverge? Use the backgrounders to provide historical and conceptual background so that a 21st-century reader can better understand the intellectual contexts in which these theorists worked.
Discuss how at least two of the theorists below are concerned (explicitly or implicitly) with this question: “What is genre?” Although the question seems easy, I'd like you to complicate it. For example, do the theorists treat genre as if it was only a matter of form over function, or as some aspect of function? Do they imply that only certain combinations of texts, signs, or agents can be considered “genres”? What differentiates genre from “discourse” or “text” in their arguments? Who determines what genres circulate and how they evolve? Feel free to demonstrate your discovery on a case study to help explain to your reader why it matters.
If there is one thing that all of these authors address, to one extent or another, it is the possibilities and constraints of form. What (new) meaning does “form” take on in this unit of our course? For example, how do our theorists revise or expand their own notions of traditional forms of writing? When does the form become the function, or vice-versa? Does creation precede form, or do forms help creations be realized? (Note that "form" may be interpreted as "picture" or "design" or "image" depending on which texts you use.) Using at least two of the critical texts below—and drawing on backgrounders or case studies as needed—discuss how your authors might answer this question about form.

Here are your options for critical texts:

Bakhtin “Discourse in the Novel” (pp. 259-331, excerpts)
Bawarshi “The Genre Function” (excerpts)
Burke “The Rhetoric of Hitler's Battle” (pp. 191-211)
Locke “From Essay Concerning Human Understanding” (pp. 814-27)
Lakoff and Johnson “From Metaphors We Live By” (Web)
Landow “Hypertext and Critical Theory” (pp. 35-42)
Longinus “From On the Sublime” (pp. 344-58)
McCloud “The Vocabulary of Comics” (pp. 38-45, 50-53)
Mitchell Picture Theory (excerpts)
Sousanis Unflattening (excerpts)

Here are some reference texts you might find helpful:

Relevant pages from The Bedford Glossary
Bizzell/Herzberg background on “Enlightenment” (pp. 798-99)
Smith background on “Locke” (pp. 215-18)
Schuster “Mikhail Bakhtin as Rhetorical Theorist” (pp. 594-97)
Rivkin/Ryan background on “Structuralism” and “Deconstruction” (pp. 53-55, 257-61)
Richter background on “Marxism” (pp. 1198-1201)
Richter background on “Reader Response Theory” (pp. 962-65)

Characteristics and Evaluation Criteria

This assignment is worth 150 points. Here are some specific criteria I will use to evaluate it:

Argument and Thesis
For a critical discussion, “argument” does not necessarily mean “position” (i.e., pro/con, agree/disagree, good/bad, right/wrong sense of argumentation). It means a specific or nuanced discovery that can only be arrived at through careful synthesis. Your argument should be guided by an original thesis statement that is not simply a restatement of the big question, and does not simply state the obvious about the texts you are reading. If your thesis is complex, it may take a few sentences to articulate all of its points. This is perfectly natural. But please don't make us wait until the end of your essay in order to realize that discovery.

Textual and Contextual Evidence
You’ll want to develop your discovery by drawing a lot on the critical text(s) you have chosen, using examples well, and employing in-text (parenthetical) citations where needed, especially where you paraphrase concepts. The essays we have read are very rich, so I encourage you to read broadly into them, and try not to just fixate on a single paragraph, or repeat the same passage over and over. Please do not just echo the examples back to me without demonstrating that you can extend them. Rather than just relying on what you think is “common knowledge,” use the reference texts to provide essential background. Please cite specific incidents, images, and other textual details. In a discussion this brief, please try to avoid extensive block quoting.

Originality and Situatedness
Think of this SCD not as a regurgitation of what you have read, but as an original discussion of a unique and specific problem. Some of our collective goals, as a class, are to learn to argue specifically, to question our own assumptions, and to strike a balance between letting the theorist speak to us and speaking back to the theorist. This means making careful observations, providing context details, and avoiding broad generalizations or vague claims (e.g., “Nowadays, things are much better for women writers,” or “All texts are now multimodal in the age of remediation”). Instead, I'm asking you to make situated observations (e.g., “In the kind of standpoint feminism that Karlyn Campbell writes about,” or “In Gunther Kress's notion of multimodality, ...”), and this may seem difficult at first if you've never before been asked to justify your claims in terms of the text.

Introductions and Reader Awareness
Give your argument a critical and imaginative beginning, i.e., a sense that you know what you want to say and why. You can be artful; you need not just summarize the contents of your essay. Whatever you do, your introduction should help us understand the discovery that prompted you to write, and it should help us understand our investment in reading. While I fully encourage you to make use of the OED Online, it is not enough to introduce your essay simply by writing “According to the Oxford English Dictionary …”

Organization and Coherence
How you organize your critical discussion should ultimately reflect the argument you want to make. This includes a clear introduction and conclusion, useful transitions, and adequate development of each point. Your thesis may act like a “thread” for your main and supporting points, and each paragraph should be well focused and guided by something like a topic sentence that helps your thesis to unfold.

Language and Style
Your discussion can be confident and still carry a balanced tone, with neutral language and strong sentences. Your use of terms should be thoughtful, even elegant. You should not need to rely on excessive metadiscourse, “I think/feel/believe,” or “In my opinion” statements to carry your argument forward. It should always be clear who is saying what. Try putting dense or complicated language into your own words, and be sure to report names and titles accurately. No patterns of sentence- or paragraph-level error should get in the way of meaning. Spelling and punctuation should be precise.

Title and Other Discourse Conventions
Ideally, your title should reflect what you are trying to argue (it doesn't always have to state what are you are arguing) and may even contain layers of meaning. Metaphors, ironies, parodies, are all fair game, as is creativity that is rhetorically sound. Citation conventions should be accurate. Aim for ~3-4 pages single-spaced with your “Works Cited” in MLA format. This means that the final draft should be: Word-processed in a legible 11- or 12-point serif font, and formatted to include 1-inch margins. No cover sheet is necessary, but your name, due date, and course information should appear at the top left of the first page. Please create a header or footer with your last name and page number on all remaining pages

Start early and feel free to send questions my way!
-Dr. Graban

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SHORT CRITICAL DISCUSSION #1 - AGEN(T)CY

Due 2/3/18 by 11:00 a.m. to Canvas

Purpose and Task
For this first short critical discussion, I will ask you to put two or more theoretical texts into conversation with each other and with other texts in order to build an argument that is inspired by our Agen(t)cy paradox. Putting them into conversation requires that you do more than simply comment on them, compare them, dis/agree with them, or formulate an opinion about them. It generally requires that you carefully and expertly synthesize them into a clear, thesis-driven discussion that is non-obvious and somewhat vital. The purpose of SCD #1 is three-fold:

to make a discovery, i.e., to craft an interesting and coherent argument based on some curiosity, question, or problem that arises from reading a couple of our texts or theorists together;
to demonstrate a nuanced (even sophisticated) understanding of particular terms or concepts that can help you develop that discovery; and
to hone your critical writing skills in the essay format.

Prompts
I would much rather have you invent and realize your own reason for writing; however, I offer some prompts in case you feel stuck. Please remember that the prompts are just that—suggestions, inspirations, or jumping-off points that will eventually lead you to a more specific realization. That more specific realization (a.k.a., thesis statement) should not simply answer the prompt; it should reflect a discovery that advances your thinking.

Discuss the role of either individual or community in at least two of the critical texts listed below, using our reference texts to provide necessary background. The terms “individual” and “community” may not appear explicitly in the critical texts you select, so it will be up to you to show evidence of where they are implied, and to demonstrate how they complicate agency, or create some kind of critical dilemma. Please use a case as part of your demonstration to help an unfamiliar reader understand the significance of the dilemma.
Discuss what you see as one of the fundamental challenges of agency according to at least two of our critical texts, and apply that challenge to a case from our readings or from outside the class. By “fundamental challenges,” I mean, a specific pair of concepts that you think is responsible for the agen(t)cy paradox, based on how two of our theorists wrestle with it. I am not asking you simply to discuss the problem of agen(t)cy in one of our cases. I am asking you to consider how two theorists help us to differentiate between things like author and agent, agency and power, participant and witness, discourse and agency, self and other, etc., and then to demonstrate that difference through a case.
Imagine that you were booking guests for a trans-historical talk show (anything is possible!) and you had to justify two of our critical theorists to appear on your show in order to discuss the various ways that the Agen(t)cy paradox has influenced a definition of “rhetoric” in their own epistemes. How do their individual projects (e.g., Aristotle’s classification of virtues, Ong’s distant audience, Campbell’s historical agency, etc.) enhance or illuminate each other, intersect or diverge? Use the reference texts to provide historical and conceptual background so that a 21st-century reader can better understand the intellectual contexts in which these theorists worked.
If there is one thing that all of these critical authors address, to one extent or another, it is the authorizing of authorship or readership. But what does this involve? Where does authority lie when it comes to critical texts: In Authors, or writers? In the circulation of discourse? In the acts of writing? Or reading? Or interpretation? Is it inherent or conferred? Freeing or oppressing? Using at least two of the critical authors below—and drawing on reference texts or cases as needed—discuss how they might answer (or fail to fully answer) this question of what it means to authorize.

Here are your options for critical texts:

Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics (pp. 3-25, 117-141)
Barthes “The Death of the Author” (pp. 868, 874-877)
Booth “Types of Narration” (pp. 145-65)
Burke “Literature as Equipment for Living” (pp. 293-304)
Campbell “Agency: Promiscuous and Protean” (pp. 1-14)
Foucault “What Is An Author?” (pp. 904-914)
Heilbrun Writing A Woman’s Life (pp. 11-24)
Ong “The Writer’s Audience Is Always a Fiction” (pp. 9-21)

Here are some reference texts you will most likely want to use:

Relevant pages from The Bedford Glossary
Herrick background on “Foucault” (pp. 246-252)
Richter background on “Foucault” (pp. 1326-1330)
Richter background on “Structuralism and Deconstruction” (pp. 832-834)
Smith background on “Feminism in the Postmodern World” (pp. 337-346)
Smith background on “Feminist Critique” (pp. 346-349)

Characteristics and Evaluation Criteria

This assignment is worth 150 points. Here are some specific criteria I will use to evaluate it:

Originality and Situatedness
Think of this SCD not as a regurgitation of what you have read, but as an original discussion of a unique and specific problem. Some of our collective goals, as a class, are to learn to argue specifically, to question our own assumptions, and to strike a balance between letting the theorist speak to us and speaking back to the theorist. This means making careful observations, providing context details, and avoiding broad generalizations or vague claims (e.g., “Nowadays, things are much better for women writers,” or “All texts are now multimodal in the age of remediation”). Instead, I'm asking you to make situated observations (e.g., “In the kind of standpoint feminism that Karlyn Campbell writes about,” or “In Gunther Kress's notion of multimodality, ...”), and this may seem difficult at first if you've never before been asked to justify your claims in terms of the text.

Introductions and Reader Awareness
Give your argument a critical and imaginative beginning, i.e., a sense that you know what you want to say and why. You can be artful; you need not just summarize the contents of your essay. Whatever you do, your introduction should help us understand the discovery that prompted you to write, and it should help us understand our investment in reading. While I fully encourage you to make use of the OED Online, it is not enough to introduce your essay simply by writing “According to the Oxford English Dictionary …”

Organization and Coherence
How you organize your critical discussion should ultimately reflect the argument you want to make. This includes a clear introduction and conclusion, useful transitions, and adequate development of each point. Your thesis may act like a “thread” for your main and supporting points, and each paragraph should be well focused and guided by something like a topic sentence that helps your thesis to unfold.

Language and Style
Your discussion can be confident and still carry a balanced tone, with neutral language and strong sentences. Your use of terms should be thoughtful, even elegant. You should not need to rely on excessive metadiscourse, “I think/feel/believe,” or “In my opinion” statements to carry your argument forward. It should always be clear who is saying what. Try putting dense or complicated language into your own words, and be sure to report names and titles accurately. No patterns of sentence- or paragraph-level error should get in the way of meaning. Spelling and punctuation should be precise.

Title and Other Discourse Conventions
Ideally, your title should reflect what you are trying to argue (it doesn't always have to state what are you are arguing) and may even contain layers of meaning. Metaphors, ironies, parodies, are all fair game, as is creativity that is rhetorically sound. Citation conventions should be accurate. Aim for ~3-4 pages single-spaced with your “Works Cited” in MLA format. This means that the final draft should be: Word-processed in a legible 11- or 12-point serif font, and formatted to include 1-inch margins. No cover sheet is necessary, but your name, due date, and course information should appear at the top left of the first page. Please create a header or footer with your last name and page number on all remaining pages

Start early and feel free to send questions my way!
-Dr. Graban

Pages

SCDs