(No part of this reinterview may be published elsewhere without written permission from victor j. vitanza and
lynda haas.) --Full Copyright notice at end of each file, starting with haas1 file.
The PreText Conversations held a Re/In/View with Lynda Haas, beginning July, 1997. The subject of the reinvw is/was her article
"The Daughter's Seduction; or, Writing with the Rhetors,"
forthcoming in PRE/TEXT 15: 3-4.
On Tue, 29 Jul 1997, Sims, Linsey C. (EXCH) wrote:
> I suspect that another aspect of Lynda's discomfort is the apparent Lindsey, Bingo. I agree. I suspect that people in the discipline of Speech are better at connecting words as calls to action. This issue of 'action' has been raised repeatedly on this list and especially when we started the previous version of this list several years ago. The discussion always gets to the point of people not wanting (for a variety of reasons) to "do" anything to back up their words. Perhaps that is one of the downsides, or trained incapacities, that comes with literacy instead of orality. Who knows? What seems most important to people *are* their careers, their standing in the profession, which is understandable, given the forces of a capitalist market. And as you suggest, there is the basic composition class that, more often than not, is disconnected altogether from acting with or in terms of the outside. In any case, we have tried and tried to the point of embarrassment to get something organized and without results. Suggestions? An action to change this lack of action? Thanks for your note. vv
VB: No, I wouldn't limit my comments to what you call "a particular kind of academic (theory) speech/composition." And I find it likewise "fascinating" that you qualify your analysis and counter evidence with the phrase "as a rhetorician." How many "non-academics" do you know who will spend hours, if not lifetimes, examining the power of language, and of that number, how many do you supose would consider that activity a significant contribution to society? And how many "non-academics" do you know who will examine language or a particular discourse, for instance, as though it were a new species of crayfish? >With the obscene amount of advertising cramming every available time/space, Is advertising crammed with words? Last time I looked, it was crammed with everything but words... >with the obsessive amounts of lawsuits and litigations, I suppose you'd include in this group those lawsuits that so many politicians are fond of calling "frivolous." >with the ridiculous amount of time I spend xeroxing and filing information, That the information exists and is copied doesn't stand as evidence that that information is valued to the same extent that verbal information would be for the academic, and as far as that goes, I imagine the academic would be interested in it, i.e., find it significant, for reasons other than why office personnel copy and file it. >with the absurd number of hours we spend in this new cyber-(hyper?)reality, That "we" is a rather limited one, isn't it? I don't know whom you mean by it, but I do know that the memebers of the "we" who spend much time on the internet are limited to a very small portion of the population, and they are likewise limited in terms of income. >with the careful but determined elimination of my rights as a worker in a work place to protected speech, One could argue that the fact that they want to eliminate your rights to protected speech suggests that they don't care what you have to say and (to be crass about it) wish you would just be quiet and do your job... >with inflationary demands on educational background qualifications of workers, and with those inflationary demands comes grade inflation, and with grade inflation comes graduation inflation, and with graduation inflation comes the attitude that students merely have to put in their time and then they'll deserve a degree. And I find it likewise "fascinating" that you qualify your analysis and counter evidence with the phrase "as a rhetorician." If my assertions were so far off the mark, why would you have to resort to such a specific appeal to ethos? Or is everyone in the "real world" a rhetorician, even though they may not know it? PShaw
I'll write it plain: what good is R/C academic Hi Lynda and group (delurking)-- Before this re/inter/view, I associated your name with film studies rather than R/C--from your Disney collection (which I know of but haven't read), and from an issue on David Cronenberg which I proofread for Postscript. I'm very curious to know . . . . ____________ what, if any, difference(s) do you see between R/C academic writing and academic writing on film, and ____________ would you level similar critiques against both of them vis-a-vis their "real world" political efficacy? And their phallogocentrism? One reason I ask this is that David's discussion of the (historical) relationships between the academic, the pedagogical, the journalistic and the popular stopped short (deliberately?) at the popular, a place where film studies often begins. I don't intend to shift this discussion into film unless others want to, but it seems like (one) useful way of situating R/C discourse in relationship to academic discourse in general--a situating which I would need before I could even attempt an answer to your question. Johanna Schmertz
Victor writes, "I suspect that people in the discipline of Speech are better at connecting words as calls to action." This is an interesting comment (are you thinking "speech-act" Victor?), but I wonder if the precedent for transmuting (or reducing) rhetorical action into inaction wasn't set by Plato's rhetorically inactive but oh so discvrsively active appropriation of rhetorical discourse, and by the rather deft way he stuffed rhetoric like a pair of socks into the suitcase of philosophy. And within the space of half a dialogue. Consider: by the time we get through the three speeches in "Phaedrus," we have pretty much the history of rhetoric's enfolding into philosophy. What follows is commentary, in case we didn't get the message. Did Plato's invention of philosophical discourse (Socrates's second speech) occasion the necessity of academic discourse (the commentary that follows)? If a Platonized academic discourse is mostly commentary, isn't it also, by design, meant to foreclose action (activism), to be, in a sense, inactive (inert, inconsequential, incommunicado), mere repetition measured against something that ought, by its own rights, to be not in need of explication? This, too, is an old question. A. (not The) Bloom made the bestseller list (the lucky stiff) by, essentially, trashing the idea that discourse was something that could get something done, could change things, could induce its speaker to find that elusive thread that moves between word and act (invention) and follow it to where it goes. Bloom actually had the gall(s) to complain about the democratizing of higher education, which (democratization) I wouldn't necessarily say equates with Lysias's speech or Socrates's first speech, but, being a speech that, in Plato's opinion, anyway, resists commentary (or invites multiple commentaries), it might also resist the kind of oppressive philosophizing that I think a lot of people on the right (and perhaps even the formerly liberal now neocons) think ought to be the objective of academic (now the -k fits) discourse. There are a lot of people in academia who think that we academics haven't done enough (or enough of the right things) to communicate (is that a speech word or a rhetoric word?) who we really are and what we really do to the tax-paying public, and maybe we haven't. But reading Lynda's article, which I liked very much, reminds me that when you have someone like Fob "I Never Met a Decalogue I didn't like" James for governor (Alabama) and a whole lot of other people who think like he does, maybe there's no point in trying to explain yourself. (I'm assuming for the moment that an Enlightenment subjectivity would be a precondition for the task of explaining.) Actually, I don't believe that. That we can't make ourselves understood even to the most obtuse detractors of academia, though maybe the pages of College English aren't the place to do it. Then again, Ellen Cushman's "Rhetorician as Agent of Social Change" (CCC 47.1, Feb 96), or some of Geoff Sirc's work, or Greg Ulmer's "Teletheory" (I, too, drove a truck for my father, and I've been to Little Bighorn) may provide the kinds of models for the academic discourse that does act on its academic readers and act out its authors commitment to change in the non-academic world. A question for Lynda, or anyone who wants to answer. When writing for academic publication, do you think of non-acdemic readers reading your work (as seems to have happened with your co-workers), and do you make adjustments just in case? Those of you who went to MLA a few years ago in San Diego may recall finding a note at the podium asking that you send a copy of your paper to.......the American Enterprise Institute. Wonder what they were after. Frank Walters
In a quick response to PShaw's questions 1)How many "non-academics" do you know who will spend hours, if not lifetimes, examining the power of language, and of that number, how many do you supose would consider that activity a significant contribution to society? That depends, I suppose, on what you mean by 'contribution to society', but quite frankly, after having worked at two major international advertising firms, I have found quite a number of people doing just that - examining the power of language. Also, as an onlooker to a friend who is a political consultant, I would say the same about this field as well. 2) And how many "non-academics" do you know who will examine language or a particular discourse, for instance, as though it were a new species of crayfish? Book reviewers come to mind. A number of my 'non-academic' friends and I used to get together and read exerpts from books and discuss them quite carefully, thoroughly, including the language used in the books. Diplomats and negotiators also come to mind. I'm not quite sure why it is so hard to imagine that what we do, by theorizing, can't be seen as part of the greater social discourse about language, its use, its effects, and its employment in particularly _kairotic_ moments of selling, reporting, deal-making, inspiring, agitating, etc. -TheVoidBoy
Actually, let me back up: I received a post from someone, and I thought it contained an exerpt of a response from PShaw to my previous post. As an inhabitant of AOL, I have a sneaking suspicion that about 10% of my mail from Pre/Text does not get to me. I know at least 75% of my posts to Pre/Text don't make it back to me. So if I mistook the letter's author, please forgive me. Still, there were a couple of questions posted to me I liked to address. I hope I haven't confused the discussion by doing so. ************ To Lynda: This has probably already been asked, but I would like to get back around to this: _____How has your experience in both town and gown worlds showed you concerning the impact of gender in academic *and* corporate communication, how do they compare, and what we can learn/teach about this? -TheVoidBoy
31 JULY 97
Vadim: _________How is Derrida et alia being used to sponsor "the new lucidity"? . . .by promoting an economy of the "introduction to"? How else? David
I will respond to your final question (and leave the marvelous post to inspire other comment(arie)s - I just got through writing an article I'm now shopping around to the likes of QJS (later, possibly Phil & Rhet), an article inspired my Victor's (a)musings in his tome. I was interested in Helen as a subject (abject?), and wanted to explore the question of subjectivity in PoMo (I keep thinking of the local California Native American tribe by that nomer in my neck of the woods whenever I see that word). I decided what I would do, for the first time, is try to encorporate as broad an audience (of non-specialists) as possible. It did and did not work. On the one hand, a lot of people have enjoyed reading the drafts and got an idea of the kinds of issues, and my reasons for responding to them the way I chose to. On the other hand, everybody felt that they needed to read Victor (and the others I mentioned) in order for them to completely appreciate my argument. I'm not sure if the latter is true (though it means more sales for Victor), but it was apparent that my audience construct had a bit more under the belt that the empirical audience that read the work. Mixed audiences are very tricky things, and especially so when confronted by mass media systems. I've decided, in light of my experience, that my audiences, though broader than before, are not going to include people who don't have at least some smattering of the reading behind them that I do. Or, perhaps a better way for me to work - my audiences will be carefully composed of a broad range of scholars and students in a number of fields I traverse (religious studies, rhetoric, historiography), but will also allow for the possible entry of others who are new to the issues I will be considering. The question, of course (as a dyed-in-the-wool Perelmanian/Olbrechts-Tytecan I am), just what exactly do we mean by 'non-academics', because often even 'academics' (broadly speaking) are not included in the audiences our arguments construct. -TheVoidBoy
On Tue, 29 Jul 1997, Sims, Linsey C. (EXCH) wrote:
VV wrote The division between "real" world and "school" has always seemed so strange to me. Politics, action, always seem to take place somewhere else--often in a nolstalgic past (for we all know today's students have no politcs, not like in the good old days--he says with irony). Likewise, we get the continual buzz about language of academics being disconnected from the "real" world. It is as if we should all go back to the plain style doing plain things--build with your hands, dig in the earth--get waist deep in cow manure, get your head bashed in a picket line, work to keep Ted Kennedy's suspenders on--then you are "real," doing real action. Two truncated points: One: Althusser pointed out to us a bit ago that there is no more powerful ideological industry than education. Every time we walk in a class, we are doing real political and social and ideological work. The key question is, why is it that ideology always displaces education (particularly language education) as elsewhere from the real? Or more to the point, what was Plato afraid of? Two: Don't you get tired of the U.S. bent for anti-intellectual rant. Yeh, it is important to march on the streets for more money for AIDS research, sure we need to fight for clean air and water, can't beat fighting for worker's rights. But isn't it important for some people in our society to theorize these things. To pull ideas together and think about alternative possiblities. That is, can't we see a need for intellectuals (however stupid we may be). And if we are so willing to tell Jameson to get with the program and simplify his language, why not tell that to Morrison and Joyce, Faulkner--come on, just tell the story--enough of disjointed narrative--we just want a story we can understand. We are rhetors, for gosh darn sakes, not everything is written for everyone, nor does it need to be. That is, what's so wrong with liking to read foucault, cixous, burke, hegel, emerson, stewart? I mean don't you get tired of Atlantic Monthly, New Yorker, Nation version of things? Wouldn't you like to push it a bit deeper, tussle and play the thoughts? The argument isn't that we want language at the center, the idol on the alter--but why is the drive in our culture so strong to decenter it? to place it outside of the "real" and "action"? What is the ideological work being done? Dean Rehberger,
...the more and more i follow our discussion about academic writing(s) and the value of teaching students academic writing(s), the more and more i think there is a fundamental flaw in the notion about What the public would want us to do. ...can you imagine what the public in the D/FW area would think and then attempt to do if i were successful in getting my colleagues to teach students to be ethical and political thinkers/activitists 'everytime' they wrote...and in getting students to set down their writing and place their bodies on the line? look, the public, whether it wishes to admit it or not, has a heavy and hidden investment in our teaching students Fogarty's notion of current traditional rhetoric (grammar, mechanics, coherence, etc.); the public wants us to teach a classroom form of composition and not one for the polis, unless it is a kind of composition that feeds the corporations tech writers and professional writers _as_ the corporations would define that kind of writing. i think if you look at the matter of value from this point of view, academic writing has tremendous value for the public, for it keeps us out of their way and it keeps their kids out of the streets while others can work and it keeps our students from having to be untaught and then retaught by the corporations. Lynda, Lynda, Lynda ... Where are you? Where did you learn what you know about what you are presently doing? Perhaps, partly at Spoon and where else? it's an olde story, isn't it? though we already know these things, we do not say them. when it comes to teaching electronic discourse (broadly defined), it's another matter, right? Or so it seems. in the past three years i have been teaching junior, senior, and graduate level seminars in electronic discourses. at the undergrad level, one comment keeps popping up over and over again in my evaluations: at last, someone is teaching something practical! !!!! but what do they mean by that? i have asked the students and they say: well, i can now do websites and i can earn some extra money. or i can go to work with one of the local firms and get a good job doing html, etc.!! little do they know or understand! when students and i have worked on experimental or more 'academic' projects, they see the practical value but also other future... for the lack of a better word...other future 'practical' values. or at least that's the daily self-delusion that i need! what greg is doing in electronic discourses (and some others of us are similarly or differently attempting) are seen as immediately practical or as perhaps potentially valuable. we will see! but at that time, i hope that we are still on down the road in non-practical land. it is part of my temperament to be a topologist who would try to make a configuration that no engineer could ever find a practical application for, but would desire to continue and continue to try. what a perfect private/public relationship! vv
...notice that Lynda said she was asking her question in "plain English". which in part i take to mean that she wants we-academics "to justify" (her words) what we do in terms of plain English. ...and yet, most of the posts in response to her question have been in 'academic English' with occasional quotes from idols of academics. ...moreover, everytime that someone uses academic English in defense of academic English, someone begs a rule of academic thinking, namely, begging the question. (there are other similar traps here.) ...of course as Dean just pointed out and others in passing have suggested, there is no such thing as "plain" English or 'plain' anything, but again this is academic talk. the public is not interested in any of this talk about ideology. ...but we continue to speak badly of tom sprat... ...Now, Lynda knows there is no such thing as plain English. So why did she ask and phrase her question in the manner that she did? why did she invite us into this trap; why did we agree to cooperate? (i really dislike these insidious and invidious questions that corner you in such a manner that you cannot respond in an acceptable way to the asker and the audience!) this is another example of playing the shell and pea game without the pea. ...So again, why did Lynda ask this question? i will not venture an answer, though several come to mind. Lynda, what say you? vv
Among other interesting things VV said: This has certainly been my experience in the past year too-- maybe we got some of the same students, transfering from Texas to Oregon and back to Texas again, eh? But really, what's so bad about learning something "practical," anyway? When students say something is "practical," aren't they saying that something that was prior to the course unclear, abstract, "merely" theoretical is now clearer? In other words, can't "practical" also mean "I learned something and have made it understandable to me?" I mean, I think my intro to lit crit students last year saw by the end of that quarter that critical theory had "practical" applications in the writing they would have to do for other classes and such... I guess the trick is convincing students that some of this stuff that seems so "impractical" ain't so after all. --Steve
Two ideas have come to light regarding the movement from academic to public discourse. First is the idea that we need to more effectively bridge a perceived gap (that we need to speak a "plain" public language). Second is the idea that perhaps it is a good thing that we DON'T do that; the public would not like what we do were we able to adequately convey its full significance, scope, and import. Two points come to mind. First is the ole adage, courtesy of that old fogey, A.Pope, about "A little learning is a dangerous thing/Drink deep or taste not the Perrier spring" (I almost hate to bring him up, but that really means I getting a perverse pleasure out of it). What could we possibly convey to the public that would in any way measure up to the years of commitment (more or less) most of us have put into our educations. To do that, we have all had to become certain kinds of people. That also means, not 9-to-5ers in the established notion. For the larger public to "understand" us, what we do, etc., would require them to in some part be us. This is not possible, or, at least, not possible in the sense that could remain who they are. They would become something else. (And this leaves out the whole Heideggerian riffage we could do on "understanding" being a nasty word). In their transformation, their becoming-academic if you will, we see precisely IDEOLOGY at work (and perhaps an insight into what D&G mean when they say that there is no ideology). The second point derives from the first. Being that they cannot remain who they are (of course these terms, us and they, are completely indefensible, but so what?) and understand us, they are bound to misunderstand us. And many are bound to be strongly struck by an array of feelings loosely centered on negativity toward what we do. The Voters Strike Back. Indeed, I would want to claim that this is pretty much the climate we now find ourselves in. Liberal universities, awash with bogus classes and PC policies that sane people find ludicrous, marxist professors, yadda yadda yadda (and isn't John Leo just the best at ferretting out every possible potential outrage for the neo-leo-conservative set? -- I say this due to his slamming of R/C a few months ago in US&WR). So maybe its a good thing that many of the things we think and theorize remain beyond the public's sphere of cognizance. But, doesn't this also mean that in a certain very real sense, we as academics will always be cutoff from the political motherlode? (And I don't mean money.) And, if so, what does 'action' mean for us as academics. (Beyond what little influence we have over our students, that is.) Thomas Rickert
I confess to wanting to throw the golden apple among the god/desses here, but reading this does remind me to ask: Do the words cultural capital have any resonance? That is, why are we conversing about this issue on the level of "use value" without noting that the sharks, my code for presidents of NBC et.al., very well know and can read and 'get' the most esoteric of discourses of many sorts. And, they have a corporate discourse as arcane as any academy discourse, as do astrophysicists using math whom I've spent hours over-hearing while THEY make fun of pomo stuff. Making fun of, that is, is one thing. Having the credentials to be a shark is another. The two go together. Having no access [that word] to any esoteric discourse is a sure way to get left at the middle management level, guys in the office who have time to make fun of . . . , but the people running the world [usually to no good effect, in many opinions] know exactly what academic discourse 'means.' They don't like what it 'means.' So they call it inaccessible. And within the academy, as I suggested before, this same tactic works quite well. What I don't get is why people on this list would cooperate with that tactic themselves instead of analyzing its rhetoric. Susan
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