On “Views from a Distance: a Nephological Model of the CCCC Chairs’ Addresses, 1977-2011” by Derek Mueller

This article uses word clouds to discuss the terms and concepts most often emphasized at the CCCC conventions’ primary presentations. The argument hinges on the idea that we can learn a great deal about how Composition ebbs and flows based on the metonymical representation of the speaker and what he or she has to say. This method is accessible at a glance, but when digging into the clouds, we must remember context alters meaning. For example, Mueller talks about how the word “internet” shows up during several 90s speeches, but depending on when and who it’s spoken, the context reflects either suspicion or excitement.

The article reflects how pattern recognition can sometimes be easier to see when presented in a visual format as opposed to words on the page shaped into paragraphs. The reason being is that down words–words that show up in speeches but have little use to the word cloud–can saturate a speech, drowning or at least dampening the major nouns and verbs in the address. This use of the cloud is an example of applying visual rhetoric to help us translate and transmit verbal rhetoric. The program, developed by Chirag Mehta, is designed to help use list formats as a supplementary tool for consolidating large swaths of information in an easy to read manner.

This allows us to see that a shift in perspective allows us to squeeze more info out of the info provided to us without sacrificing the mental cognition that rewards us when we read or hear a speech.

Notes On ” ‘/’ and ‘-‘?: An Empirical Consideration of the Relationship Between ‘Rhetoric’ and ‘Composition’

This article by Eric Detweiller dives deeply into the subtle difference between what we as scholars mean when we use the words “rhetoric” and “composition” in our journal citations. The point he makes is interesting in that he lays out an ongoing argument in the field of where one word ends and the other begins. Both terms possess a myriad of denotations and connotations and get used interchangeably depending on the speaker or writer.

The goal is to sift through the recent disagreements at conferences and in journals about how the words get used and then formulating a system that categorizes the various journals that scholars in the Rhet-Comp field publish into either R or C publications. After laying out his methodology, he studies the scholarly tendencies of the different publications such as which scholars get cited the most, what publications are quoted most often, what key words show up most often.

The combination of word clouds, euler diagrams, and other charts gets a little confusing, but does show that both groups value Kenneth Burke whereas for example, Bakhtin shows up more in the C publications and Aristotle more so in the R ones. The point is that there is a subtle but clear divide in terms of which scholars get used as evidence when forming arguments, and from that data (and similar distinctions) one can if one wants divide the two fields, not so much by dictionary-style definitions or theoretical analysis, but by quantity information based on word choice and scholarly representation.

The article is long, and one would doubtless quote from every aspect it but would potentially quote extensively from a specific section or two, using data gained from this study that parses the metonymy from the metaphor in the discussion between the discipline(s) of Composition and Rhetoric.

On Simulacra and Simulations by Jean Baudrillard

This article examines the nature of reality as it relates to the various expressions that either reflect, distort, hide, or replace it. Baudrillard explains that a simulacra is the image separating the viewer from the thing, creating a type of prism that affects the truth of that which is trying to be seen. A collection of a simulacra can be a simulacrum like, for example, Disneyland. It is the representation of a world kept alive by the myriad simulacra it creates and perpetuates, creating a self-preserving loop. Another example Baudrillard uses is that of Watergate–the scandal through which we came to understand Nixon’s lawbreaking. Watergate isn’t what happened; it’s the framework through which we viewed what happened. The hypereality of the chain of events is what happened. And to a large extent, we cannot know it, and that is largely true with most events. This is why historiography has value: we need to understand how we shape the simulacra and how the simulacra shapes what we see.

Baudrillard takes his concepts one step further by philosophizing on how the simulation provides its own prism, yet instead of a funhouse mirror, it acts more as a watch that is five minutes behind. Its verisimilitude has enough in place for us to act on it, but it is not the real thing. It contains enough of the real thing, that it can fool us, but can it satisfy us? The example he uses is that of bank robbery, where he charges the reader to simulate a bank robbery and see what happens–someone will inevitably behave as if it is real and in so doing ruin the bubble of the simulation. Hence the problem with simulation as a simulacra of reality: we too easily burst the faux reality because someone else behaves as if it’s hyper reality. And, on some level, at a certain point, hyper reality invades the simulacra and the simulation that we create.

The significance of this discussion is that much of power is protecting the illusion of the simulacra from those who benefit less from it. Baudrillard argues that in many cases that which is behind the power is merely a tacit agreement that the power exists, a tacit agreement that may have been hard fought for, but may also be paradoxically firmly rooted and fragilely held. This is why simulacra–the stories surrounding the simulation–must be well produced and held firm.

On On Pop Music by Theodor Adorno

This article includes much of the philosophy of the Frankfurt School, which discusses popular music in relation to classical or standard music. Adorno aims to distinguish the difference between the two in a way similar to Ang Ien separates Mass Ideology and Populism. The idea is that popular music–which for Adorno was including but not limited to jazz and ragtime–contained a pseudo individualism that essentially misled an audience into thinking the music contained variety when, in fact, the myriad sounds were more of a parlor trick that repackaged the same things with only slight variations.

He argues that pop music rewards “the distracted listener,” one who can enjoy the music without fully investing in it. The “distracted listener” can superficially enjoy music absent of its history and intricacies. Adorno does not argue that popular music serves no purpose, but he does wonder aloud about its effect upon music as a whole and the culture at large. He does not predict one way or the other but does hint that catering to popularity was becoming easier whereas standard music, despite its growing availability, was falling behind in influence.

He leans towards an either/or ethos and yet he is unclear as to why the two are mutually exclusive–one can enjoy music built for distraction and music built for full engagement. Overall, Adorno believes that good standard music forces artists to into creativity while good popular music forces artists into imitation. The argument, of course, is a reflection of the shifting mores present during the interwar period; music was, for Adorno, a physical reflection of that.

On Dallas and the Ideology of Mass Culture

I couldn’t find the full article, which apparently is a chapter in a book that my school’s library has but not in online form. Anyway, I read enough about the article that I can at least discuss some of the ideas, but I admit if I could’ve gotten the full version, I’d have a stronger grasp of Ien Ang’s concepts.

The article analyzes a series of letters from Dutch viewers of the 80s night time soap opera, Dallas. Ang concludes that there are four types of viewers whom she calls the Ideology of Mass Culture. The first type dislike the show because its obvious commercialism and marketability make it too packaged, empty intellectual calories that may be entertaining but add little else of value. The second type enjoyed the show’s appeal but watched it through the prism of irony, essentially gaining enjoyment from either the fact that they’re not supposed to like it or from a sense of superiority where they make fun of it. The third type uses their enjoyment as a way of finding their place on the mass culture spectrum, understanding that their enjoyment is partly ironic but also partly genuine because despite the caricatures presented the show contains character arcs and relationship themes they as viewers can identify with. The fourth type adhere to a general populism that states it’s up to the viewer to decide what’s good and what one enjoys.

The four types reflect locations on a cultural map that reflect the anthropological prisms through which people view popular but potentially feckless content that amounts to the equivalent of entertainment fast food.

Would like to give a shout to Chloe Villaneuva’s Prezi and Allen John Guanzon’s ISSU project on it for providing some general outlines.

Notes on Writing without Teachers by Peter Elbow

Peter Elbow’s book discusses the value of writing groups in which writing is evaluated without the expectations of the traditional teacher-student-classroom relationship. In his introduction, he provides a brief personal memoir on his background as both a student and teacher of writing, a background in which inadvertently developed his theory of the “believing game” where one writes without fear of correction, rejection, or any other type of limiting instruction. The concept–freewriting–is designed to get sentences on the page–wordy and clean, ambiguous and clear. From there, one could edit, sloshing through the sludge of poorly written material, finding the fertility of the well written.

He contrasts the “believing game” with the “doubt game,” which is the more traditional way of looking at writing specifically and education generally. The “believing game” is more prescriptive and can hinder the bloom of thought because it creates hesitation in the writer who is trying to work along the expectations of a professor who may not fully understand the message the writer is trying to present, a problem added to by the fact that the writer themself may not know. And sometimes, the only way to arrive at knowing is to work through the unknowing.

Elbow relies on two metaphors with the “believing game,” growing and cooking. Growing is the work the writer does alone; cooking is that which is done with the group. The growing borrows from the gardening metaphor because the freewriting is a type of planting and the scaffolding upon the good–or at least helpful–writing leads to the growth. The cooking concept refers to the group dynamic where ideas simmer through clear, honest feedback and a collaborative culture. When I say collaborative, I don’t mean that Elbow is saying the writers within the group co-author each other’s work but rather the writers within the group are committed to communicating clearly what they understand and what they thought while reading the text. It’s not a place to pick at grammar or quibble over conceptual meaning, both of which have their place in the “doubting game,” which Elbow repeatedly explains also has value but not at the same time and in the same way as the “believing game.”

The book ends with an appendix containing series of essays in which Elbow seems to anticipate and troubleshoot some of the objections that other academics might have about his ideas. Elbow understands that language has meaning but that meaning exists because of the gestalt we bring to it, and because of that, we should plug into that gestalt when writing (especially in the early stages) so that we can add to the knowledge zeitgeist of which we all are part of.

Notes on The Shallows by Nicholas Carr

This explores, as the subtitle suggests, “What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains.” Carr’s book, which is an extension of his Atlantic article “Is Google Making Us Stupid,” is an element of intellectual history that explains how an increase in communication technology have shaped our cognition and metacognition. Inventions such as the printing press and the clock have changed the rhythms of our daily lives as well as the dissemination of thought. The internet has done what both of those inventions have done but in a more compressed space of time. It perhaps does not have the wide reaching influence that these two works have, but it is still growing and still influencing at a much greater rate.

Carr book ends his argument by discussing Marhall McLuan’s seminal work, Understanding Media, a text that explains how new communication technology does not work in conjunction with the older version but overtakes it, forcing it into obsolescence. In between his use of McLuan’s work lies a great deal of research on how we absorb and reflect information. Carr dives into how monks of the Middle Ages recording ancient texts, exploring how something as simple as spacing between words relieved some of the cognitive work of reading, making it a faster, more effective way of relaying thought. One of more intriguing chapters discusses how print books have been the one piece of communication technology able to withstand the onslaught of computers and smart phones. To be sure, this book was written in 2010, which is before much of the mass closings of book stores. And although the print book may be a dying medium, there does seem to be a definable floor that books won’t fall below. Essentially, books will survive in a way that newspapers and magazines may not fully be able to.

Another invention that has shaped our brains and our understanding of the world around us is the compass specifically and the field of cartography generally. Even the reading of landscapes has changed over time. Carr acknowledges that such progress has demystified the world and made many aspects of life more convenient. But he argues–as is a theme throughout the book–that something is lost with the efficiency. Is the wonder and mental cognition that occurs when individuals discover a new landscape an aspect of humanity that gets lost when a place is just a blip on a page or a street name on our GPS.

The book ends with a question of whether we can swim further away from the shores of human limitation but that we are swimming in shallow water. He often returns to T.S. Eliot’s “The Wasteland” and “Choruses from the Rock,” poems that lament the automated changing of the world that perhaps allows us access to collective knowledge while short-circuiting our ability to create personal wisdom. Carr ends without an ambivalent stance about technology and the internet. He admits that he is no exception in his dependance upon and love of the bounty the internet has to offer. But he wonders aloud if the price at some point becomes too steep for us to invest in.

Notes on Mythologies by Roland Barthes

This book is a collection of short essays on various aspects of French pop culture during the late 1950s. The second part of the book–“Myth Today”–is the more relevant aspect of the text because it moves away from the brief editorial format and into a scholar approach into language and communication, explaining the concepts of signifier and sign, of speaker and language, of writer and text. He dives into a discussion on semiology and the myriad ways language is generated beyond words. Unlike Alexander and Rhodes’ On Multimodality, Barthes is less concerned with say technology’s influence on language and more symbols–analog and other types–that add layers to meaning. For instance, what does it mean to have a black Frenchman saluting the French flag? That image is steeped in meanings that beg to be unpacked. Remember, this is 1957 so this example would’ve provided much thought fodder in a ways that it wouldn’t in 2020. But I think Barthes would say the image could still work but in different ways because of the meaning we as the signified bring to the sign. Audiences shape information, too. And depending on the breath and longevity of the sign, they may do so more so than the author. Consider the writing of Karl Marx. There’s the writing of Karl Marx and what the writing of Karl Marx have become. Both demand their own study.

All this said, we must circle back to the eponymous first part of the book because some of his pop culture points survive as salient discussions both in academic study and in pop scholarship. The opening vignette, “In the Ring” explores the differing virtues presented in professional boxing versus that of professional wrestling. The two serve different purposes in the audience’s minds, and although the two occasionally overlap in the minds of its audiences, taking on a metaphysical quality that go beyond the physicality of winning and losing, wrestling more, often than not serves as the extension of a moral play more so than boxing. For instance, to exaggerate one’s pain in the boxing ring would likely be a mistake and a cause for alarm whereas in the wrestling ring it is a necessary beat within the play between the two characters.

Other essays include “Toys” where Barthes laments how the advanced technology of play may make games more fun but also blunt imagination and perhaps even an element of authenticity where play becomes more about the toy than what the toys are supposed to lead to–an appreciation of the world around them as they transition into adults who become stewards of that world. “Milk and Wine” serve as metaphors for the French see the world versus other Western powers. One cannot take these mythologies literally but one must take them seriously because they serve as shorthand for how we see and understand the world but not necessarily of how or why the world operates.

Notes on On Multimodality: New Media in Composition Studies

This book, like the title suggests, discusses the role of multiple literacies in college writing courses. Jonathan Alexander and Jacqueline Rhodes draw on a number of sources that research the role of technology in the college classroom such as Adam Banks’ Digital Griot and articles from journals like Kairos that special in the field. The book lays out our general relationship with media and then dives into how video essays are becoming more popular in composition pedagogy as well as the strengths and limits of that form of writing. It further explains how the need for inclusiveness shapes the use of media for both the teacher and student. Video games, specifically role playing games, are a focus as well, with the authors showing how public discourse needs to be taken into account when having students produce writing that exists largely in a vacuum.

Alexander and Rhodes ground their work in the theories of Patricia Bizzell and Peter Elbow, showing how the conversation surrounding multimedia use is a continuation of, not a departure from, seminal composition studies. They also explain how techne, the fifth of the five aspects of ancient rhetoric, becomes more important when juggling ideas on different platforms within the same text, tying into the work of Aristotle. They essentially explain how logos has traditionally been privileged in classical rhetoric, but with the expansion of multiple means of communication, the other aspects have grown in importance, not just in formal argument but also in the teaching of it.

The book ends with a chapter on the Virginia Tech mass shooting in 2007 and how public discourse evolved through the multi forms of media, the speed of which, and the directions of which were largely novel. The authors used it as an example of how ideas get created and reshaped by the platform upon which they appear and the myriad ways one could respond, how an idea can both adequate and inadequate at the same time because it addresses one aspect of an argument without examining other forms used in the same argument. On Multimodality hopes to equip students and professors with ideas that lead to a better understanding of how to engage in a world of ever growing media.