In the readings for this week there seemed to be some interesting overall layover in the articles as well as some lone wolf topics that touched on the hinges of rhetoric and digital concepts. I first did a close reading of Wysocki’s Chapter 5 article on The Multiple Media of Texts. It seems that the overall argument in this context was the large difference in analysis between literal text readings and screen readings and how they offer different analytical presentations when considering the format (specifically that of a webpage). Wysocki layers her response in terms of font, image, sound and interpretation, to give an enlightened experience when interacting with a web page. I then read Sturken’s article The Wall, the Screen, and the Image: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Sturken positions her argument in the concept of cultural memory and its dialogue in the “screens” of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and how it is represented and presented throughout the history of the war and its own history in Washington D.C. Faris’ article How To Be Gay with Locative Media: The Rhetorical Work of Grindr as a Platform builds on rhetorical spaces and identity through dating apps - specifically Grindr becoming more than just a dating app. On building itself as a “lifestyle platform” that engages on identity, the community at large is open to new experiences, identity creations, and physical spaces. In perusing Navigating the Soundscape, Composing with Audio the overall argument seems rooted in audio interpretations and recordings that present genres and systematic processes in sound creation for students. Hallenbeck’s article Objects, Material Commonplaces, and the Invention of the “New Woman” seems to be arguing for the rhetorical focus of objects and their impact on society, especially as it is associated with the body (human subjects) and how it has shifted. The impact of the bicycle (and tricycle) is Hallenbeck’s primary focus and how it shapes cultural identity and gender expectations in society. I then read through Hawhee’s Bodily Pedagogies: Rhetoric, Athletics, and the Sophists’ Three Rs. Her article is positioned on looking at the connection of rhetorical training in ancient Greece as well as athletic training in terms of rhythm, repetition, and response. Her focus is constituted on the rhetoric as a bodily art that encompasses the mind as well. It is with Hawhee’s article that I will look into a bit more closely first.
Hawhee intrigued my reading here in that it picked at some of the core concepts I have been thinking about in my own graduate training in this program. What first intrigued me was coming across the term melete - specifically being defined as “...the means of cultivating ethos [character]” (150). Hawhee asserts that melete is accessed through practice and training - as it is in the gym as well as in the school setting. She bridges this gap that the body and mind are in separate settings, but are used in similar manners to function at a high performance level. I was intrigued by the presence of kairos here. The concepts of rhythm, repetition, and response are accessed in a kairotic manner. Since the character is individualized, the essence of learning kairotic timing is not formal: “As Isocrates contends, no system of knowledge can teach kairotic response; rather such response emerges...different opponents, different subject matter, different times and places” (152). This emphasis on training and acknowledgment guided me through understanding how rhetoricians need experience, but that experience cannot be limited - it must be extensive and versatile. Similar in learning how to ride a bike…
Hallenbeck works to define the “new woman” of the late 1800’s in identifying through the advancement of the bicycle. She asserts that the antithesis, gradatio, and the antimetabole work to establish the difference between men and women in body structure: “...how the relations among objects/bodies are in part articulated through their relative qualities helps to track the evolution of arguments and social meanings available in a material-rhetorical world” (201). Hallenbeck uses the bicycle as a platform to discuss identity, society, place, and athleticism, similar to how Hawhee utilized the gymnasium to expose the rhetorical process in the young scholars under the tutelage of the sophists. As the bicycle and the gym are utilized as rhetorical reference points in both articles, Sturken obtains the Vietnam Veterans Memorial as the construct that gives an analytical perspective of history, art, and place. The scribed names in the wall serve as a memorial rather than as a monument - which creates a dissonance in itself in its place in Washington DC. The names themselves, “...act as surrogates for the bodies...yet the bodies of the living Vietnam veterans have not been erased of memory. Rather, they embody personal and cultural memory; their bodies are those of survivors” (132). I was struck by how the wall itself contains a piece of American history that is unable to be forgotten, and is contained in a memorial that represents that unforgettable nature. In an analytical sense, the object becomes timeless as we move further and further from the event itself. Which poses two questions I have in mind:
Questions:
1.As time dates all material things, how do we relate to the objects that become obsolete/new and improved in our culture?
2. Does our identity become an extension of a device we use daily, or can we distinguish our identity without its seamless use? (the smartphone with images, video, and data that contains our life stories?)
Hawhee intrigued my reading here in that it picked at some of the core concepts I have been thinking about in my own graduate training in this program. What first intrigued me was coming across the term melete - specifically being defined as “...the means of cultivating ethos [character]” (150). Hawhee asserts that melete is accessed through practice and training - as it is in the gym as well as in the school setting. She bridges this gap that the body and mind are in separate settings, but are used in similar manners to function at a high performance level. I was intrigued by the presence of kairos here. The concepts of rhythm, repetition, and response are accessed in a kairotic manner. Since the character is individualized, the essence of learning kairotic timing is not formal: “As Isocrates contends, no system of knowledge can teach kairotic response; rather such response emerges...different opponents, different subject matter, different times and places” (152). This emphasis on training and acknowledgment guided me through understanding how rhetoricians need experience, but that experience cannot be limited - it must be extensive and versatile. Similar in learning how to ride a bike…
Hallenbeck works to define the “new woman” of the late 1800’s in identifying through the advancement of the bicycle. She asserts that the antithesis, gradatio, and the antimetabole work to establish the difference between men and women in body structure: “...how the relations among objects/bodies are in part articulated through their relative qualities helps to track the evolution of arguments and social meanings available in a material-rhetorical world” (201). Hallenbeck uses the bicycle as a platform to discuss identity, society, place, and athleticism, similar to how Hawhee utilized the gymnasium to expose the rhetorical process in the young scholars under the tutelage of the sophists. As the bicycle and the gym are utilized as rhetorical reference points in both articles, Sturken obtains the Vietnam Veterans Memorial as the construct that gives an analytical perspective of history, art, and place. The scribed names in the wall serve as a memorial rather than as a monument - which creates a dissonance in itself in its place in Washington DC. The names themselves, “...act as surrogates for the bodies...yet the bodies of the living Vietnam veterans have not been erased of memory. Rather, they embody personal and cultural memory; their bodies are those of survivors” (132). I was struck by how the wall itself contains a piece of American history that is unable to be forgotten, and is contained in a memorial that represents that unforgettable nature. In an analytical sense, the object becomes timeless as we move further and further from the event itself. Which poses two questions I have in mind:
Questions:
1.As time dates all material things, how do we relate to the objects that become obsolete/new and improved in our culture?
2. Does our identity become an extension of a device we use daily, or can we distinguish our identity without its seamless use? (the smartphone with images, video, and data that contains our life stories?)
You ask some big relevant questions at the end here, Brian! The question of how we relate to obsolete/new and improved objects is engaged by movements like the "post-digital" (which started in the arts but is making its way through other fields). Regarding identity and technologies, Haraway's notion of the cyborg is one direction you might go --
ReplyDeleteKeep hold of these threads, as they'll remain relevant. Thanks for your good thinking here!