Influences on My Research

Influences on My Research

This is a question I am likely to get: I will need to show how the readings on my list will impact my research. I take this to mean I will need to identify which sources could best support my future research, show how, and explain why. Since my research will be focused on identity (especially gender) and social media, two sources that I will definitely use are Cheryl Glenn’s Rhetoric Retold, Judith Butler’s Excitable Speech, and Kenneth Burke’s Rhetoric of Motives; I will also undoubtedly use some of the many digital rhetoric resources on my Composition Studies reading list.

Cheryl Glenn argues for a broader definition of rhetoric that includes women and other minorities in the rhetorical canon. Such a redefinition calls for a rhetoric of silence to be included. For example, Anne Askew’s refusal to answer her Inquisitor’s questions upon her arrest signify that she was aware of her rhetorical situation enough to realize that speaking would not change her audience’s minds. Instead, she chose not to speak, and in such a refusal denied the Inquisitor power over her. Surely this is not the only occasion when a marginalized figure exercised silence in a rhetorical manner (a typically arhetorical maneuver) . It might be difficult to measure rhetorical silence in social media, since to participate in social media is to interact in some way with the platform or artifacts on it (for example, posting a photo or liking a status, or even simply increase the page visit counter by one more page view), but perhaps there are other typically arhetorical maneuvers used in rhetorical ways.

Judith Butler also has some interesting notions pertaining to identity and language. Specifically, she discusses the military’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy as it pertains to stating homosexual desire and intention. The presumption behind the policy is that a statement of homosexual desire is also a statement of intention to act on that desire, but Butler cautions us not to conflate desire with intention. Such a conflation oversimplifies language. She also points out that the distinction between desire and intention is observed when someone makes a racist threat; it is generally taken for granted that that particular person may not intend to act on the stated (violent?) desire, thus keeping desire and intent separated. This distinction has implications for digital rhetoric, especially considering some of the rhetorical sites I may study in the future (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube comments sections, Instagram, Reddit, 4chan) are some areas where cyber bullying and threats are most prevalent. The distinction also has implications for issues of power and marginalization: if racist threats are written off as desire with no intent, but issues of homosexuality and gender are not, what does that say about who is allowed to express their identity and who is not? Why does the racist threat get to slip by, while the homosexual declaration is penalized? These are issues of identity that will likely appear in my research, and Judith Butler will be able to give me a framework from which to examine them.

Kenneth Burke’s notion of identification is also an interesting concept to apply to studies of social media. Many people (especially my generation and younger) have spent a lot of their lives on social media and use it as a main route for communication with family, friends, and sometimes complete strangers. Users create an online identity for themselves that may or may not match who they are in real life: they choose which photos, tweets, statuses to post; what photos, tweets, and statuses to like, comment on, and retweet; and what pages or accounts to follow or subscribe to. In effect, they choose how they are represented to a select circle of people, usually with the hope of being accepted or liked by them. Thus, users engage in identification in order to choose which artifacts to post to their social media.

Another resources I can use is Bakhtin’s concept of double-voicedness (saying something simultaneously literally and figuratively) as it plays out in social media, especially as it could pertain to Burkean identification: how people say something that can be taken multiple ways in order to both make fun of and refrain from alienating some people.

I could also use Miller’s concept of genre as a social action for some fruitful discussions about digital rhetoric. I co-authored an article that examined how women feel less comfortable writing in certain genres than others because of the kind of knowledge each genre precludes, which is tied to the kind of social action it is meant to perform.

Ideas about Sophistry

Ideas about Sophistry

Plato, Gorgias, Isocrates, Glenn, Kennedy, Burke, Vitanza

Plato

Plato is famously anti-sophistical. In the Gorgias, his Socrates takes on the famous sophist and his followers through a dialogue meant to discount sophistry as a valid rhetorical practice. Plato’s biggest problem with sophistry is that it is concerned with possibility and can only persuade people to belief; he prefers a rhetorical dialectic in which two people converse in order to eliminate error and establish knowledge. In other words, Plato fears a sophistic orator may mislead his/her hearers and occlude the truth for which everyone should be searching. Truth is the ultimate goal, and it can only be found through an internal realization brought about by a dialogue with someone who has already discovered the truth.

Gorgias

An example of the kind of sophistry against which Plato argued is Gorgias’s Encomium of Helen, in which he defends Helen of Troy’s decision to go with Paris and instigate the Trojan War. He brings up several possibilities for why she may have left with him: perhaps she had no choice, perhaps she thoughtfully considered her actions and thought them the best option. Gorgias offers no solutions, but only a string of potential motives for Helen. Thus, he uses language to manipulate his listeners who had previously thought ill of Helen for betraying her people. This is the kind of sophistry against which Plato argues because it does not help its listeners discover truth; instead, it leaves them only with a belief that Helen may be innocent, and they may be content only knowing that possibility and cease to pursue the truth.

Burke

Though he does not define himself as such, Burke appears to be a more modern version of a sophist; like Gorgias, Burke is concerned with possibility. This similarity is most apparent in his discussion of identification. When a speaker engages in identification, s/he works to make the audience believe that s/he is just like them. S/he finds or fabricates some similarity (in beliefs, values, or background) s/he shares with the audience and points it out to them so that they identify with him/her. Burke argues that this is an effective method of maximizing persuasion; the identification does not need to be sincere, but it may be. Here, Burke shows that he is concerned with the possibilities of persuasion and how one may use identification to achieve it more successfully. He does not caution against using identification to mislead; he offers it as a method of potential manipulation.

 

Glenn

Cheryl Glenn’s brief study of the Sophists in Rhetoric Retold appears to contradict Plato’s negative view of sophistry. She points out that they enacted a humanist philosophy that supported the notions of individual responsibility and political and social action. They taught that the gods were not responsible for human actions; instead, individuals were responsible for their own behaviors and dispositions, and were therefore responsible for the actions of the state.

Isocrates

Isocrates enacted the kind of sophistry to which Glenn refers. In his Against the Sophists, Isocrates argues that language is a tool for solving problems; thus, his sophistry was active instead of contemplative. He was interested not only in working toward the common good, but also in creating civic leaders to do so. Isocrates disparaged sophists who used language to mislead people (such as, presumably, Gorgias) and sought to avoid such trickery in his own teachings. He is considered a sophist because he followed the sophist tenet that all knowledge is inherently flawed because it is limited by our human perception. Thus, it is impossible to learn a universal truth, but he Isocrates believed that people should still study a wide range of subject in order to make the best possible decision in a given situation.

Kennedy

In Comparative Rhetoric, George Kennedy defines the conditions needed for successful sophistry: literacy; political, social, and moral changes; conflicting philosophical schools; and the existence of individual teachers who are not part of a state bureaucracy and offer advice to rulers. Kennedy point out that all of these factors were in place when sophism arose in ancient Greece. He also argues that the skepticism and deliberation of possibilities in which the sophists engaged are partially responsible for the advancement of knowledge and understanding in Western culture. The aim of sophistry was often to argue from the weaker side as if it were the stronger (to bask in the possibility), and most social causes (abolition of slavery, women’s rights, for example) initially were perceived as the weaker sides; someone had to earnestly and successfully defend them as if they were the stronger case in order to for human rights to progress.

Vitanza

Vitanza is a self-proclaimed Neo-Sophist. One key aspect of sophism upon which Vitanza draws for his theory echoes the sophist notion of arguing from the weaker side as though it were the stronger; by “weaker” side, I mean that side that is most often disparaged or perhaps thought to occupy an untrue or incorrect position. Vitanza argues that the Third Sophistic of which he is a part must redefine the History of Rhetoric in order to include denegate some of the negated people; in other words, he argues for an inclusive history of rhetoric that makes space for some of the voices that have heretofore been excluded. Vitanza explains that these voices, such as many of the Sophists, have been floating in limbo, in the “middle” or the “in-between,” and deconstructing binaries; he posits that we need to bring them to the center of rhetorical study. Hearkening back to Gorgias, Vitanza offers Helen of Troy as an example of this denegated subjectivity: she rejects the active/passive binary by instead reaching for a middle voice that brings her a sovereign, sublime subjectivity. In working to denegate the negated, Vitanza reveals the systems of power at work throughout the History (and historiography) of Rhetoric as a History of Oppression. Thus, the Third Sophistic redefines notions of power and how it is dispersed.

How I would answer a question on this theme

Plato and Gorgias play nice together (so to speak), and Burke is a kind of modern Gorgias who Plato would have argued against. Glenn and Isocrates also play well together to present a different angle on sophistry. Kennedy can lead into Vitanza by way of explaining sophistry’s tendency to argue the weaker side; and Vitanza represents Neo-Sophistry. Taken together, this can be a snapshot of three different kinds of sophistry: 1) Sophistry concerned with possibility, 2) Sophistry concerned with creating the best world possible, 3) Neo-Sophistry/Third Sophistic concerned with denegating the negated.

Issues of Marginalization in Rhetoric

Issues of Marginalization in Rhetoric

Butler, Gates, Glenn, Pratt, Vitanza

Mary Louise Pratt

In “Arts of the Contact Zone,” Pratt explains that the contact zone is where cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in contexts of asymmetrical relations of power (colonialism, slavery, and/or their aftermaths). She argues that texts produced in the contact zone have disruptive power: if marginalized group of people produces a text from this area of conflict and inserts it into the dominant print culture, they can interrupt the hegemony of the dominant culture. These texts are often parodic in nature (and thus, intertextual), subversively imitating and poking fun at the dominant culture; they are addressed to both the dominant culture and their own community. The distribution of these texts allows them to take some control of how they consume the texts of the dominant culture: they may not be able to control what the dominant culture emanates, but they can decide what they absorb and how they use it. It can also be a way for underprivileged people’s to let off steam and suppress urges for potentially violent outbursts in response to their subjugation.

 

Henry Louis Gates

A product of a contact zone is the Signifyin’ Monkey. Gates explains that the Signifyin’ Monkey is a way for oppressed Black cultures to safely poke fun at the dominant White culture. Signifyin’ is based on the chaos of “associative relations” that appear as playful puns and figurative (often humorous) substitutions that name a person or situation in a telling manner; it delights in the free play of associated rhetorical and semantic relations. In many ways, Signifyin’ (capital S to distinguish it from “signifying,” which excludes the unconscious associations of a word in which Signifyin’ basks) is like Bakhtin’s double-voicedness because the person who Signifies says two things at once: the literal meaning of the word(s) and its/their figurative, implied meaning(s). Thus, in the Signifyin’ Monkey narratives, Monkey (representing a Black person) can fool Lion (representing a White person) into getting into trouble with Elephant. Monkey Signifies on Lion, and the multiple meanings of Monkey’s words trick the Lion into looking like a fool. These narratives are chiasmatic daydream fantasies of power reversal, and they are only possible because of the double (or triple, or quadruple) meanings of the words Monkey says: slaves could tell these stories to each other right in front of their owners and the White men would take them literally and have no or little idea that they were being made fun of. Thus, these contact zone stories provided (and still can provide) an entire subjugated culture with a way to let off some steam by making fun of their oppressors right in front of them.

Judith Butler

Butler argues that words are also agency; by virtue of thinking something hurtful or threatening, your body physically reacts and prepares to enact that threat. In other words, the body takes on the posture or state of the action it threatens and begins to enact the threat. However, the statement itself is not capable of enacting the threat, and so the threat may never come to fruition if the power dynamic and circumstance behind the performative act are not right. In other words, the situation (encompassing the speaker, the spoken-to, and all their contexts of power relations, cultural backgrounds, etc) must be just perfect for the threat to be enacted. For example, the Signifyin’ Monkey is, at the end of the day, an empty threat when performed by slaves. They can tell threatening stories in which a figurative Black man tricks a figurative White man, making him look like a fool, but the situation prevents the Black slaves from literally tricking the White men in the same manner as Monkey tricks Lion.

Butler also points out that the implication behind the phrase “words wound” is that words are capable of inflicting pain or injury in a physical capacity. She also points out that these words place the listener (the one toward whom the injurious words are aimed) in a subordinate social position, which can result in social trauma if the listener is called by injurious word repeatedly. Bulter questions why such words (such a racial slurs or insults aimed at a person’s sexuality) have such power to inflict pain and marginalization. Legal and political discourse tries to tie the words’ power to contexts, but as Butler points out, efforts to censor such language divorces it from context; in making a document describing why a certain word should not be used, one uses the word in a new context divorced from its offensive nature. Thus, the link between speech act and injury is loosened, which opens up the possibility for a kind of talking back or reclaiming of the injurious word. In other words, this loosened link provides the opportunity for the marginalized groups to reclaim the words that marginalize them.

Butler also examines a tension between regulating injurious language and letting it be used freely: on the one hand, regulation of this language destroys some fundamental aspect of language and subject constitution through language; on the other hand, our dependency on constituting our subjecthood via the ways we are addressed implies that there is a need for some regulations. In other words, we are brought into social position and time through being named, so care should be taken in how we name others; however, regulating how people can be named denies language’s basic function: being an expression of thought.

Finally, Butler notes that speech and conduct are conflated in matters pertaining to sexuality, but not racism. In other words, often a declaration of homosexuality (especially in the military) is taken to mean that the person intends to enact homosexual acts; however, in racist threats, the threat is not taken to mean that the person intends to enact them. Butler argues that homosexual desire should not be conflated with the desire of which it speaks since they are not the same thing; one can be homosexual, she implies, without acting upon that homosexuality, just as one can make a racist threat without enacting it.

Victor Vitanza

Vitanza’s work comes after Glenn’s, but also calls for a broader definition of rhetoric that could recognize more previously marginalized voices as being rhetorically important. He imagines an alternative space where the exiled, silenced, and rejected voices dwell and are given a place from which to speak (perhaps Pratt’s contact zone?). He calls this space the “middle” and argues that it denegates the negated by giving them a voice. Vitanza argues that even though these voices have been systematically silenced and negated (and perhaps, by now, even lost altogether), they can still be profitably read in the History of Rhetoric. Where traditional rhetoricians have attempted to define, obtain, and keep power, these voices (the Third Sophistic) have rethought power altogether by placing it in perpetual displacement.

 

 

Cheryl Glenn

Glenn discusses how women have traditionally been excluded from the rhetorical canon, which has replicated the politics of gender that places women subordinately to men. She argues that what we constitute as “rhetoric” should be redefined to include women; such redefinition recognizes that the traditional agonistic patterns were inscribed by males, and recognizes a broader conception of rhetoric as using language in such a way as to make an impression upon a reader/hearer. One aspect of this new constitution involves seeing Aspasia in the same way traditional rhetoric has seen Socrates. No writing remains of Socrates, and we know most of what we know about him through secondary works, notably Plato, yet we do not doubt that there was a Socrates. Aspasia has suffered a similar fate (we have none of her writings and only hear about her through secondary sources), yet her existence is constantly questioned. Under a new conception of rhetoric, Glenn argues, we have to stop doubting Aspsia’s existence and accept her influence on rhetorical theory, just as we do Socrates.

Glenn studies medieval rhetoricians Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe to show how their rhetoric of religious devotion should be included in the expanded conception of rhetoric. Such proclamations were acceptable because they dealt with the only uncontested (at the time) realm of truth: Christian piety. They exploited this as the only commendable road to feminine wisdom and used it to preach through visionary and mystical writings. Remarkably, both women also spoke in the vernacular, analyzed and responded to their audiences, and used experiential knowledge to fuel their teachings to improve the spiritual lives of both men and women. Glen also calls for the redefined rhetoric to pay attention to intentional silence, as in the case of Anne Askew. Askew was prolific in writing and speaking against the Protestant reformation, but when she was arrested and her inquisitor asked her questions, she refused to answer any of them and instead called for him to present his evidence. Such rhetorical silence was powerful in its denial of power to the inquisitor. Her response also shows that Askew was aware of her audience and exigence and knew that she could not use language to change their attitudes, so she denied them any language at all.

Glenn studies several female rhetorical figures from the Renaissance and earlier, but she leaves the investigation open for other scholars to pick up. Under her more broadly defined rhetoric, many subjugated voices, not just women but also perhaps people of other marginalized cultures and ethnicities, can be recognized for their rhetorical contributions, both in the past and present.

How I would answer a question on this theme

I’d start with defining Pratt’s contact zone, then use Gates as an example of how slaves operated in the contact zone in order to through relations of power into question, even if only very slightly. Then, I’d use Butler for an extended conversation of how the contact zone can be a place where marginalized peoples use the language that oppresses them to fight back. She is also fruitful for a discussion of why words hurt the way that they do and what should be done about it. Finally, Vitanza’s Third Sophistic and voices from the “middle” are a useful way to lead into Glenn’s broadening of rhetoric to include more voices that have previously been silenced or ignored.