A REINTERVIEW with Richard Lanham, 1 (only one file).

The PreText Conversations held a Re/In/View

with Richard Lanham  about his book The Electronic Word

during 1995.

 





vjv->rl: future anterior 
 
In reading _The Electronic Word_ , I noticed that you echo back to
much of your earlier work, e.g., back to _Motives of Eloquence_.
While this is a common practice among many authors, I sensed,
however, that you especially interweave your past texts with the
present text. There appears to be  a definite continuum. This has
led me to think--to wonder--what might be in _EW_ that points to
the future.

It is conventional to save this kind of question for the near end of an
interview, but I find it difficult to wait. Hence:

_____What are you thinking and working on now  and how is it a
continuation, if so, of _EW_ as well as other previous works of
yours.

********

I find this (my) question unsatisfactory, for it does not complicate
the issue enough for me so as to get at what I want to know. The
question--a very traditional one, though out of order, as I suggested--
assumes that reading an author's works moves from past to pre-
sent to future, in that traditional continuum. If, however, some of
us read and reread an author's work, there is something else
rather perverse that *can* take place.

*Metalepsis*:

As a case in point: I read _M of E_ when it first appeared. Then
"The Q Question" in _SAQ_ when it appeared. And eventually read
_EW_ (in which "Q Quest" is included). Since my first reading of
 _EW_ I have reread the first two chapters of _M of E_ several times
... which has had an effect on my *re*readings _EW_. (When _M of
E_ first appeared, I read your discussion of 'homo rhetoricus' with-
out, of course,  my present knowledge of anything 'electronic,'
especially  words. Or more so, especially  "electronic selves" [persona,
prostheses, etc.].  And I can say the same about your later dis-
cussion in "Q Quest" of 'virtue' as "virtuosity.") Reading time can loop
back around and be anachronistically productive.

Hence, the continuum works heuristically (reviving) in both directions.
This description, to be sure, is fairly coventional in its own right, though
it can and has been seen as too problematic for reading and
writing about history. As a 'convention' it's called, in some circles,
metalepsis -- cause becoming effect; effect, cause. In other circles,
'negative deconstructions' (reversals).

But let's turn now to my revived question:

*Prolepsis*:

_____As best as you can understand your own reading and writing
processes, your incorporation of events around you, etc., What are
you thinking and working on now for publication that might contribute
to our futher revaluation of your work up to and including _EW_?

_____... that might in the midst of our asking questions (presently)
contribute heuristically to our thinking and asking (in the future)?


--victor

 



ral->vjv: feedback and feedforward 
 

Victor,  How does what I'm doing now feed back on my earlier work? A very
penetrating question.  I can't give it a full answer here at the end of a
hard day but let me make a start.  I cited my own earlier work in EW because
I thought it fit, but also because I have grown weary of being asked why I
have "changed fields" so much, starting out in Renaissance rhetoric, then
writing a book on Tristram Shandy, and so  veering off into the 18th century,
flirting with Classics in MOE, then  going off into composition and now into
computers, not to mention my long closet career working for the lawyers.  I
was trying to point out that I really haven't changed "fields" at all, that
I've been puzzling about the same cluster of ideas (the "Q" question,
stylistic self-consciousness, the "choice of utopias" that I talk about in
that essay on More and Castiglione in _Literacy and the Survival of
Humanism_, and so on) from the beginning, when I first stumbled across
selfconscious rhetorical figuration in Sidney's Arcadia.  It all constituted
a central focus in my own mind but no one else could see it because the
"Renaissance" folks didn't know about the "18th-century" stuff, and neither
about the comp. stuff, and so on.  So, what am I going to do next: somehow
gather these issues into a clear central focus that a general reader can
understand. It is percolating along under the title of The Economics of
Attention right now.  One of the arguments that I'll try to develop is the
need, in a digital universe, for a more sophisticated theory of communication
(or style, if you want) than the C-B-S theory that still dominates most of
the communications world.  So that argument reaches back into a book I wrote
20 years ago called _Style: An Anti-Textbook_, whose arguments I would like
to reintroduce into the current debate.   I'll do some more reaching back, I
think, especially to that More-Castiglione article.  A digital version of the
second edition of my _Handlist of Rhetorical Terms_ is in production now at
the Univ. of Calif. Press, so I suppose that is putting past and future
together.  I've done a script for a CD-ROM on multimedia, now in production
at Calliope Media, that looks backward as well as forward.  I sure would
like, too, to get my _Analyzing Prose_ back into circulation, in a digital
form.  I may make it part of a CD-ROM that would include the _Revising Prose_
books as well.  That project is on the docket for after Christmas.  I'm
teaching a course here at Tulane that may, deo volente, be the start of the
"rhetoric of the digital arts and letters" I mention about in EW.  I'll reach
back once more into the past, and call it a night.  Years ago I wrote a long
book on the undergraduate curriculum.  It turned out to be no good and so I
never published it, threw it away in fact.  But the interest never left me
and now I find myself working with a group at the School of Information and
Library Science at Michigan called "Vision 2010" that is trying to chart the
future of scholarly information 15 years from now, and back come all the
concerns and issues I wrestled with in that unsuccessful curriculum effort.
Enough for now.  Maybe I'll return to this when I've mulled it over.  Do
let me know the right way to address my replies to the conversation we are
beginning.  
Richard Lanham

 




chb->rl:the "S" question

 
Your work has served to clarify for me one of the central dichotomies
that constitutes the polarization of philosphy and rhetoric, namely, the
split between a central and social self (sometimes identified in your
writings as a Romantic central Western self vs. a selfconscious unstable
protean social self).  As Victor mentioned, as early as _Motives of
Eloquence_ we could see the oscillation you call for between homo
seriosus and homo rhetoricus at work.  In the _EW_ you are now positing a
bi-stable oscillation between these two notions of self as a possible new
"useful miracle" with which to initiate new ways "for us to talk to one
another" (145, 151).  Finally, as you move toward a more sophisticated
theory of communication, you re-define rhetoric itself as an "economics
of human attention" (227).  My question is this:

_____ Since you introduce some "real proposals" in the end of _EW_ during
the conversation with a curmudgeon (i.e., a new administrative structure,
a new informational structure, and a new curriculum), are you ready to
posit a "new" third (and more) notion of the self?  How, in other words,
does the self change in an electronic age?  Do you see a bi-stable
oscillation among more than 2 kinds of self emerging?  How would you
characterize "self" in relation to the ways digitalization affects it?
Is there, in your mind, the possibility of homo cyborgicus?

Cynthia Haynes-Burton







cgb->rl: Hypertext revisted

 

My question might initially be best asked in the following way:
_____How have the last few years of books/articles about hypertext
affected your perspective on it, if at all? I'm thinking here of Michael
Joyce's _Of Two Minds_, George Landow's _Hypertext_, the essay
collection that Landow edited, _Hyper/Text/Theory_, and Greg Ulmer's
latest, _Heuretics_.

Let me build. Both your own book and Landow's make a big deal out of the
word "convergence," a concept with increased currency thanks in part to
New Age spiritology and chaos theory. But I get the sense that the two of
you use it in different ways.  Please correct me if I've misread you, but
I got the sense that your usage of it was more prepatory--in other words,
I understood your convergence to be speaking of the social factors that
have aligned to "make the time right" for a return to the rhetorical
paideia (the moon is in the seventh house, Jupiter aligned with Mars,
etc.). In Landow's book, convergence doesn't seem to lay the groundwork
for ht; rather, it is the operative metaphor for ht itself: on the one
hand we have texts, on the other, post-structuralist critique.  The two
then converge, coalesce into a near-Hegelian synthesis of the binary,
leaving the best thing since sliced text. Perhaps I would sound-bite it
in this way: Landow is presenting THE answer, while you are trying to
build an answer of no-answers.

I could go on with each text (and more besides), but I'm interested in
hearing what (if any) revision or deepening of your own theories of
hypertext have resulted from the attention hypertext has received for the
last few years. Are there authors you find to be more
accurate/useful/informed than others? How might you distinguish your
project from their own? etc.

Some subsidiary q's:
_____What has changed in your composing process as a result of
multimedia--do you view that process now as hyper-?
_____How much involvement do you find yourself able to maintain with the
new technologies? Do you have a page on the WWWeb?
_____How important is it for current graduate students to be fluent in
digital rhetoric--do you see departments of English/Rhetoric/Textual
Studies moving in that direction? in the future? (Is this a vested
interest question or what?)

I've always got more questions, but that's enough for now. Thanks.

Collin Brooke

The University of Texas at Arlington

cgb1046@utarlg.uta.edu








tm->rl: future(s) of English

 

Professor Lanham, in chapter 5 of _EW_, and in other portions of the book,
you spend a good deal of time exploring how electronic technologies are
working to change "English," as an academic discipline, in a *theoretical*
sense.  You don't spend nearly as much time addressing how these technologies
might impact English departments, including composition specialists, in an
*economic* sense.  My question, then, is:

_____Do you feel that, in addition to the welcome changes "the electronic
word" will bring about, there are any changes, especially in the economic
realm, we should be wary of, or even attempt to resist?

Tim Mayers

Department of English

University of Rhode Island

tmay9225@uriacc.uri.edu







hdk>rl: Newtonian interlude

 

In "Twenty Years After" you note the return
of the rhetorical paideia after "a long Newtonian
interlude."  This idea of a Newtonian interlude as
a sort of contingent parenthetical moment in "our"
history is intriguing.  Much of your work before
 uses such a concept
implicitly to herald the return of the repressed,
that is, rhetoricity.

_____Would you please comment further on this notion?  Do
you see a cyclicality involved?  Was the "interlude"
a one-time aberration from a steady state?

_____Is a rhetorical world different from a Newtonian world
in terms of its dynamics?

Hans Kellner









ral->hdk: Newtonian interlude
 

hdk:

In "Twenty Years After" you note the return
of the rhetorical paideia after "a long Newtonian
interlude."  This idea of a Newtonian interlude as
a sort of contingent parenthetical moment in "our"
history is intriguing.  Much of your work before
 uses such a concept
implicitly to herald the return of the repressed,
that is, rhetoricity.

_____Would you please comment further on this notion?  Do
you see a cyclicality involved?  Was the "interlude"
a one-time aberration from a steady state?

RAL. Yes, I think so.

hdk:

_____Is a rhetorical world different from a Newtonian world
in terms of its dynamics?

RAL - Yes.  The best way I know to think about this problem, or at least the
way I am trying to think about it now, is in terms of the change from an
industrial society to an information society.  The rhetorical world implied -
I'm really still trying to work this out - an information society.  The
rules, the central units of value, pieces of information, were the same.
 They behave very differently from units of physical matter.  Maybe this is
why the digital information space observes no laws of gravity and we fly
through it!

ral







ral->chb: the "S" question

 

CHB: Since you introduce some "real proposals" in the end of _EW_ during
the conversation with a curmudgeon (i.e., a new administrative structure,
a new informational structure, and a new curriculum), are you ready to
posit a "new" third (and more) notion of the self?  How, in other words,
does the self change in an electronic age?  Do you see a bi-stable
oscillation among more than 2 kinds of self emerging?  How would you
characterize "self" in relation to the ways digitalization affects it?
Is there, in your mind, the possibility of homo cyborgicus?

RAL.  Interesting question.  I've thought about the Cyborg question a little
but have nothing useful to say.  I think the place to look for a fundamental
change in self is in what the neuroscientists will find out in the next dozen
years.  Thanks for reminding me to think about this.

 






ral->tm: future(s) of English

 

tm:

_____Do you feel that, in addition to the welcome changes "the electronic
word" will bring about, there are any changes, especially in the economic
realm, we should be wary of, or even attempt to resist?

RAL:  The teaching of digital literacy will be taken up by the start-up
private sector training schools like Phoenix U., and, if the traditional
universities don't do the job, taken over  by them as well.  The same kind of
training, but broken down into individual applications, will be undertaken by
the business training sphere.  The real  learning in the field of multimedia
is taking place nowadays mostly in the creative firms themselves, especially
the computer graphics firms.  The composition world should be "wary" of the
training sphere because it is going to eat its lunch.  English departments
should worry about the multimedia world only if they think it of interest or
importance.  Nowadays, mostly they don't.

 
ral









ral->cgb: hypertext revisted

 

CGB:

My question might initially be best asked in the following way:
_____How have the last few years of books/articles about hypertext
affected your perspective on it, if at all? I'm thinking here of Michael
Joyce's _Of Two Minds_, George Landow's _Hypertext_, the essay
collection that Landow edited, _Hyper/Text/Theory_, and Greg Ulmer's
latest, _Heuretics_.

RAL - No, not much, though I have not read Heuretics.  In fact, Landow takes
me to task in a review, I forgot where, for not reading enough in this area
and no doubt he is right.

CGB:

Let me build. Both your own book and Landow's make a big deal out of the
word "convergence," a concept with increased currency thanks in part to
New Age spiritology and chaos theory. But I get the sense that the two of
you use it in different ways.

RAL - Yes, you are right.

CGB:

Please correct me if I've misread you, but
I got the sense that your usage of it was more prepatory--in other words,
I understood your convergence to be speaking of the social factors that
have aligned to "make the time right" for a return to the rhetorical
paideia (the moon is in the seventh house, Jupiter aligned with Mars,
etc.). In Landow's book, convergence doesn't seem to lay the groundwork
for ht; rather, it is the operative metaphor for ht itself: on the one
hand we have texts, on the other, post-structuralist critique.  The two
then converge, coalesce into a near-Hegelian synthesis of the binary,
leaving the best thing since sliced text. Perhaps I would sound-bite it
in this way: Landow is presenting THE answer, while you are trying to
build an answer of no-answers.

I could go on with each text (and more besides), but I'm interested in
hearing what (if any) revision or deepening of your own theories of
hypertext have resulted from the attention hypertext has received for the
last few years. Are there authors you find to be more
accurate/useful/informed than others? How might you distinguish your
project from their own? etc.

RAL. I'm more interested nowadays in things like data-driven visualization
and sonification.

CGB:

Some subsidiary q's:

_____What has changed in your composing process as a result of
multimedia--do you view that process now as hyper-?

RAL. Nothing much.

CGB:

_____How much involvement do you find yourself able to maintain with the
new technologies? Do you have a page on the WWWeb?

RAL. Not nearly enough.  No, I don't have a web page (blush - it is even more
humiliating than having no car phone).

CGB:

_____How important is it for current graduate students to be fluent in
digital rhetoric--do you see departments of English/Rhetoric/Textual
Studies moving in that direction? in the future? (Is this a vested
interest question or what?)

RAL. Very important, but I doubt if many will become so.

ral





[moderator, unfortuantely, we had to cut short the re/inter/view because of unforseen circumstances.]


 
 
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