COMM 300 EXAM 3
Herrick (Reading)
- According to Herrick, ______________ is "a philosophy of language that, by questioning stable meanings, contributes to the postmodern condition." Answer: Poststructuralism
Borchers (Reading)
-According to Borchers, critical approaches to rhetoric are interested in looking beneath the surface of the text, to "make the invisible visible."
Why do some feminists criticize attempts to identify a uniquely feminine rhetorical style?
-feminine rhetorical style: gentle suggestions, being relatable, telling vulnerable stories about themselves -confuses gender for power; something that not women- but people without power- partake in. "the slave style"
What is the role of rhetoric for postmodernists?
Rhetoric becomes the center of postmodern life. We use it to: -construct identities -persuade others of the existence of truth -to perform scientism -to advocate for ideals as "progress" what progress COULD look like - a return to rhetoric's ancient past - postmodernism sounds a lot like sophistry - Remember Gorgias: "Nothing exists, if it exists you cannot know it, if you know it, you cannot communicate it"
Edwin Black
Second Persona - The ideal audience member, the person the rhetorical text coaches us to become
Fourth Persona
The hidden audience a text "winks" at -it's not always safe to let people know who you are so you very carefully address those who you identify with
Ideology
The ideas and mental imagery that we use to make sense of the world - How things should work -how the world is divided up -what is a good reason for acting
Patriarchy
interlocking system of institutions, cultural practices, and attitudes that perpetuate sexism
Jacques Derrida
introduced différance
Jean Baudrillard
introduced simulacra
Marx predicted a workers revolution. What happened? How does Gramsci explain the failure of oppressed people to revolt against their masters?
it never happened
How do rhetoricians incorporate postmodernism in their studies of genres and structures
structures (like genres) evolve always involve questions of power who can speak what topics can be discussed how can one speak about the subject rhetoric perpetuates, revises or attacks these structures structures are human-mad, evolving, and culturally specific artifact and structure mutually influence each other
Appropriation
taking cultural practices as one's own making it yours
How is the word "queer" used in queer theory?
unusual, non-normative
Karl Marx
: (1818-1883) Before 1970s: - Marxism rarely taught in the US universities Reason: Cold War - Rhetoricians studied the mechanics of persuasionMostly studying "how this works" - Forbes Hill sparks outrage Context: Using Aristotle to analysis a speech of a President - *the speech was to stay in the Vietnam war (the longest war they have been in at that time - Should be looking at: The moral value or what is the consequences - ideology - Thinks: Worker people are not very well treated in capitalist countries - "Why don't people revolt" - People walking around with all these ideology that stop us from doing certain things (not normally aware of it)
Judith Butler
Gender Performativity - - Judith Butler - gender is a thing we continually do, which eventually comes to feel "natural"
Cogito
I think therefore I am What defines us is our ability to think
Heteronormativity
Ideology that view straight sexuality as the only normal way of being
Intersectionality
Kimberle Crenshaw- recognition of the interconnected nature of systems of power - ex: class, race, sex, gender, etc. - if you care about equality, you have to care about ALL - Results in black feminism, post colonial feminism, eco feminism, etc.
Molefi Asante:
Proposed Afrocentric Rhetoric -Rhetoric: an art that produces harmony and balance - Communal orientation - Call - and response participation
Philip Wander
Third Persona -Beyond how someone's persuasion works and instead ask who benefits from their persuasion. Rhetoric/money/politics connection needs to be looked at. - The erased or negated subject position; the person ignored or rendered invisible - who is going to benefit from it
Second Persona
This ideal audience member; the person the rhetorical text coaches us to become (Edwin Black)
Base/Superstructure
Base- The base produces institutions that - provides security -train workers - ensure supply or labor materials and demand for products Means of production (technologies, resources) Relations to production (Jobs, relationships between jobs) Ex)Slavery, feudalism, capitalism Marx calls this the Base Structure- Marx call these institutions and ideology they produce the superstructure
Storey (Reading)
- According to Storey, what is now understood as postmodernism was developed in the 1900's -According to Storey, ______ is a 'system of ideological fiction' that allowed the West to maintain hegemony over the East. Answer:Orientalism -Storey connects Orientalism to a genre of movies about ________ in the 1980s. Answer: The Vietnam War
Differentiate between liberal and radical feminisms
- Liberal feminism tries to reform the state in order to produce freedom while Radical feminism seeks a total reformation of society in order to produce freedom for women
How does the concept of intersectionality change feminism?
- connecting feminism with other important social issues and interests
Michel Foucaul
- focuses on what is true -Introduced discursive formations - Power/knowledge -Introduce Biopower -Theorized sexuality as an important object of biopower
How does an Afrocentric rhetoric differ from that of the Western tradition? What about an Asiacentric one?
- if we started somewhere else, we would have gotten a different story (a different definition of what rhetoric would look like) Western: persuading people African communication is different - Creates harmony, audience is encouraged and allowed to speak back to the speaker.
How does Foucault think about power? How is this different from the way most people think about power?
- power is a force that is both coercive and productive -power is relational - disciplines bodies, thoughts, and actions discipline tells us what we shouldn't do -relational- you can have a lot of power in one relationships and none in another -power in inextricably linked your knowledge - unwritten set of rules about the production of knowledge- who, where. and how they can talk about it.
Eagleton (Readng)
-According to Eagleton, literature is a part of the superstructure. - According to Eagleton, this concept describes "the way men live out their roles in class-society, the values, ideas, and images which tie them to their social functions and so prevent them from a true knowledge of society as a whole." Answer: Ideology
Meyer (Reading)
-According to Meyer, feminism is a rejection of domination and oppression and a critique of social systems or practices that assert power over particular individuals or groups of individual - According to Meyer, the scholars known for developing "invitational rhetoric" are: Answer: Foss and Gill
Approximately when did these "waves" occur?
-First wave: late 19th century/early 20th century Liberalism Feminism - Second wave: 1960s through the 1990s Radical Feminism - since the 1990s, connecting feminism with other important socials issues and interest - Introduces Intersectionality
What kinds of work do postcolonial scholars do with rhetoric?
-Notices the way the oppressors use rhetoric to convince that they're superior -investigate practices of colonization othering, cultural appropriation, tokenism - investigate strategies of resistance and adaptation strategic essentialism Hybridity ex: people in Louisiana with a background combo of white settlers, indigenous natives, mexican immigrants, black people speak Creole as a result. - Investigate De-colonization taking back your culture can we go back to pre-colonization?
Why would a feminist want to study rhetoric?
-Patriarchy; rhetoric persuades us of certain truths and they can see that rhetoric is a vessel for patriarchy
How can we see postmodernism as an extension of modernism?
-modernists had deep skepticism and a desire to see proof for old superstitions -postmodernism is even MORE skeptical about old assumptions and superstitions -postmodernism extends modernism's skepticism
How does poststructuralism respond to structuralism?
-questions the nature of structures -structures may exist outside of individual rhetorical act BUT... -Derrida point out: -they change overtime -the genre of rap has changed overtime - Migos rap is different from Nas rap - they are not universal by nature - they are not 'outside' of us
What is wrong with attempting to "write women into the canon"?
-tends to assume that our definitions of eloquence were already good enough. Assumes we should use mens' excellence as the standard for women when maybe there are other ways of being persuasive that don't sound like that.
Antonio Gramsci
1891-1937 -Imprisoned by Mussolini's government in 1926 - Economic elites control the production of ideology - Hegemony in Gramsci's words: " the supremacy of a social group manifests itself in two days , as 'domination' and as, intellectual and moral leadership"
Louis Althusser
1918-1990 -French Marxist -Interpellation -The primary function of ideology -It is the process of "consituating" concrete individuals as subjects"
Kathleen Hall Jamieson & Karlyn Kohrs Campbell
1978 Rhetorical genres are: "Groups of discourses that share substantive, stylistic and situational characteristics" "A constellation of forms" - One part of a genre can be the same part in another genre
Jagose ( Reading)
According to Jagose, queer studies focus on on mismatches between sex, gender and desire. -In recent years 'queer' has come to be used differently, sometimes as an umbrella term for a coalition of culturally marginal sexual self-identifications and at other times to describe a nascent theoretical model which has developed out of more traditional lesbian and gay studies - part of its polítical efficacy, depencls on its resistance to definition, and the way in which it refuses to stake its claim, since 'the more it verges on becoming a normative academic discipline, the less queer "queer theory" can plausibly claim to be' - The rapid development and consolidation of lesbian and gay studies in universities in the 1990s is paralleled by an increasing deployment of the term 'queer'. As queer is unaligned with any specific identity category, it has the potential to be annexed profitably to any number of discussions. Like many critical treatments of queer, however, this study reads it largely in relation to the more stable, more recognisable, -While there is no critical consensus on the definitional limits of queer—indeterminacy being one of its widely promoted charms— its general outlines are frequently sketched and debated. Broadly speaking, queer describes those gestures or analytical models which dramatise incoherencies in the allegedly stable relations between chromosomal sex, gender and sexual desire. - The recent intervention of this confrontational word 'queer' in altogether politer academic discourses suggests that traditional models have been ruptured. Yet its appearance also marks a continuity. Queer theory's debunking of stable sexes, genders and sexualities develops out of a specifically lesbian and gay reworking of the post-structuralist figuring of identity as a constellation of multiple and unstable positions
How can we see it as an attack on modernist beliefs in the self, truth, science, and progress? (It would be smart to compare how modernists and postmodernists think about these ideas)
Attacks the cogito; "I think therefore I am"; what defines us iso our ability to think so postmodernist attack this by saying: -no objective "self" -self is a human construction-a product of rhetoric - we are always constructing ourselves; endlessly producing ourselves -Attacks truth -truth is perspectival - what could be true to someone may not be truth for other - attempts to represent truth always fails -there's no good way of describing the truth - Baudrillard: simulacra - a copy without the original - signifiers that mean nothing and aren't real -a photograph is a copy of a real thing but now, with AI, they can be a copy of nothing - Derrida: difference - combination of differ and defer -to compare 2 things - to put things off Attacks neutrality of science -Is science really neutral? objective and/or valuefree? objectivity impossible - quantification obscures subjective judgements about what to count and what counts -values always guide the methods and objects of study -science will tell you how you should do something but not whether you should do it -Attacks progress - Progress always based on some value or dreamed goal - a lot of the worst stuff done in this world has been done in the name of progress and improvement - always subjective - It's only progress for SOME people
Explain Marx's critique of capitalism
Capitalism is the best mode of production yet but ... - Like all economic systems, it produces haves and have nots -The employees extract surplus value from employees by holding the means of production hostage -Produces and deepens inequality -exploitative and unstainable
Postmodernism
Chronologically after modernism and is an extension of modernism -even more modern than modernism and a critique of modernism
How does Marx understand the idea of class?
False: rich vs poor people. - talking about the relationship of who works and who take the values (relationship of value) - slave : slave owners - worker : owner
What major issues were feminists fighting for?
First wave: late 19th century/early 20th century - Liberalism Feminism tries to reform the state in order to produce freedom for women -Focuses on formal legal and regulatory protections - Start fighting for suffrage (right to vote) -Even when they got the right to vote in 1921, most of them didn't because they didn't have anyone to vote for that represented them or they weren't educated on politics Second wave: 1960s through the 1990s - Radical Feminism seeks a total reformation of society in order to produce freedom for women - Includes legal and regulatory goals, but also many others - They realize that it's not just the law that's holding them back - Most women have more time on their hands with new technology to assist them - Introduces Patriarchy -Women weren't/aren't raised to ask questions that demand their worth - Introduces Gender Performativity Third wave: since the 1990s, connecting feminism with other important socials issues and interest - Introduces Intersectionality - Kimberle Crenshaw- recognition of the interconnected nature of systems of power -ex: class, race, sex, gender, etc. - if you care about equality, you have to care about ALL -Results in black feminism, post colonial feminism, eco feminism, et
What is heteronormativity?
Ideology that views straight sexuality as the only normal or being
Edward Said
Introduced Orientalism
Interpellation
It is the process of consituating concrete individuals as subjects -Is a (mis) recognition, we are "hailed" to take up an identity by ideology
Power/Knowledge
It's the same thing power is inextricably linked to knowledge
Gender Performativity
Judith Butler- gender is a thing we continually do which eventually comes to feel "natural" - can mess with our sex/identity
Explain Marx's materialist theory of history
Materialism: Theory of human history connects the social and cultural to the economy -We must satisfy certain needs to survive -In every era, society organizes around a specific mode of production to satisfy these needs - All humans always have basic needs so we divide ways to get the work done
What is biopower? (Foucault) How is it related to human sexuality?
Pre-modern governments rule through punishment - Modern governments rule through the management of life ( Government tries to manage life into the right direction) Sexuality as an important object of biopower - not usually in terms of punishment, but norms and management - individual bodies are made more useful, efficient and more docile (bootcamp) - At the collective level, experts design interventions to manage the population to eat, mate and live and live better.
Yoshitaka Miike
Proposed Asiacentric Rhetoric -Communication is a reminder of non separateness - Rhetoric as a moralizing and harmonizing force
Why would people who care about race and ethnicity be interested in rhetoric?
Rhetoric is the thing we use to invent it
Exploitation
Taking something from somebody else- Marxs' main complaint with the economy now. You work and somebody else takes what you make for them because they own something.
Explain the Base/Superstructure concept
The Base produces institutions that: - Provide Security - Train workers - Training to understand that this mode is natural -Ensure supply of labor, materials and demand for products - steady supply of labor; offering green cards - demand for products by advertising Institutions produce Ideology - the ideas and mental imagery that we use to make sense of the world - how things should work - how the world is divided up - what is a good reason for acting - who is deserving of rights, protection, value, etc - Marx calls these institutions and the ideology they produce the Superstructure -terrible cake but the icing is great
The Feminine Style
Unique way that women used to be persuasive (gentle/careful, subtle hints) - Personal tones, anecdotes as evidence, inductive reasoning, audience interaction, the identification between speaker and audience
Orientalism
a "system of ideological fiction" is a matter of power -has constructed a 'knowledge' of the East and a body of 'power-knowledge' relations articulated in the interests of the 'power' of the West -Describes the relationship between the West and the East -A binary opposite for the West's self-image -the far East is imagined as mysterious, exotic, dangerous, irrational, etc.
Simulacrum
a copy without the original - signifiers that mean nothing and aren't real - A photograph is a copy of a real thing but now with AI, they can be a copy of nothing
What is a discursive formation, and how is it related to communication?
a set of rules that determine: -who may speak -about what -how one must speak -what locations/institutions can house that speech determines who can speak about something to create truth
What is queering?
an attempt to provide an alternate meaning of a text, which challenges heteronormativity ( look for other meanings that are not are really there)
Define the two major classes produced by capitalism?
bourgeoisie- the capitalist class who owns most of societies wealth and means of production proletariat- workers or working class people , regarded
Why would a Marxist want to study rhetoric?
for a marxist, rhetoric is superstructural- it transmits and "sells" ideology, helps prop up unethical systems -rhetoric keeps us interested in the system - Ideology has material consequences - ideology tells us who matters, what matters, what is possible, and how we should behave - Marxist rhetoricians still look at the mechanics of persuasion they also -identify the ideology carried by texts -consider the people/groups that benefit from rhetoric - rhetoric keeps persuading people to continue to participate in this bad situation. He says poor people don't think they're poor or exploited- they think one day they'll own their own porsche so why would we want to change it?
Michael Warner
is an ideology that views straight sexuality as the only normal way of being - Being straight isn't just about being heterosexuality: includes gender expression, sexual practices, monogamy, courtship, reproduction
When, roughly, did postmodernism appear?
no one really knows when it started but probably after the end of WWII between 1950 and 1974
According to Althusser, what is the major function of ideology?
offer you an identity
Describe common ways that whiteness operates rhetorically, according to Nakayama & Krizek
often presented as a lack of race/ethnicity they don't identify with a race/ethnicity important consequences: just ordinary or normal - unmarked but still white just American an un-racialized ideal their critiques: we start the history on rhetoric in Ancient Greece because white Western rhetoricians had no interest in Rhetoric from other parts of the world when life began a lot earlier in other parts of the world.
Hegemony
ongoing process of creating and managing public consent to the status quo
Strategic Essentialism
political tactic in which minority groups, nationalities, or ethnic groups mobilize on the basis of shared gendered, cultural, or political identity to represent themselves ( from google) -playing into the stereotype to gain a temporary advantage
How do queer theorists critique traditional categories like sex, gender, and sexuality?
queering is different queer.
How have race and ethnicity been defined traditionally?
race has been traditionally defined as supposedly physical, unchangeable features such as skin tone ethnicity has been traditionally defined as supposedly about shared identifications with symbols, values, practices such as speaking the same language
How do rhetorical scholars understand race?
race is simultaneously nonsense but also important even thought there is no real biology
Charles Morris III
the 4th Persona - the hidden audience a text "winks" at - Coming up with a language is common for everyone, but a hidden message that certain audiences would understand
Tokenism
undercutting calls for inclusion with symbolic or perfunctory gestures -taking some small number of the group they're oppressing to make them seem nicer and inclusive
Biopower
we are always trying to manage life -modern governments rule through the management of life
Hyperreality
when you can't tell the difference between the real and the copy without an original
