Post theory
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This document outlines a presentation on rhetoric and theory. It discusses rhetoric as a techne or method according to Aristotle. It then examines rhetoric as a discipline and method according to Covino and Jolliffe. Next, it explores rhetoric's historical superficiality and critiques. It analyzes the work of Roland Barthes and Group Mu positioning semiology at rhetoric's deathbed. It also summarizes Bender and Wellbery's concept of "rhetoricality" and the modernist return of rhetoric. Finally, it considers whether post-theory involves characteristics of rhetoricality through entangled theoretical and rhetorical work with reflexivity.
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Rhetoric: techne, dunamis
Today's Date Sub Topic 1
Rhetoric Semiology Rhetoricality Conclusion
Aristotle, The Art of Rhetoric:
“Rhetoric does not deal with any one definite
class of subjects, but, like Dialectic [is of general
application]; also, that it is useful; and further; that
its function is not so much to persuade, as to find
out in each case the existing means of
persuasion.... Rhetoric may then be defined as the
faculty of discovering the possible means of
persuasion in reference to any subject
whatsoever”](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/post-theory-140418101042-phpapp02/85/Post-theory-3-320.jpg)
Post theory
- 1. 1 Rhetoric and/as/in Theory Monica Westin Theory/Post-Theory Conference Rhetoric Department University of California, Berkeley April 18, 2014 Today's Date Outline Rhetoric Semiology Rhetoricality Conclusion
- 2. 2 Today's Date Contents Rhetoric Semiology Rhetoricality Conclusion Contents Rhetoric: Techne, Discipline and Method, Historical Superficiality Semiology: Roland Barthes and Group Mu at Rhetoric's Deathbed Rhetoricality: The “modernist return” of rhetoric Conclusions: Does “post-theory” involve characteristics of rhetoricity?
- 3. 3 Rhetoric: techne, dunamis Today's Date Sub Topic 1 Rhetoric Semiology Rhetoricality Conclusion Aristotle, The Art of Rhetoric: “Rhetoric does not deal with any one definite class of subjects, but, like Dialectic [is of general application]; also, that it is useful; and further; that its function is not so much to persuade, as to find out in each case the existing means of persuasion.... Rhetoric may then be defined as the faculty of discovering the possible means of persuasion in reference to any subject whatsoever”
- 4. 4 Rhetoric: Discipline, Method Today's Date Sub Topic 1 Rhetoric Semiology Rhetoricality Conclusion Covino and Jolliffe, Rhetoric: Concepts, Definitions, Boundaries “not a content area that contains a definite body of knowledge... the study and practice of shaping content” ● Rhetorical theory ● Rhetorical criticism ● History of Rhetoric
- 5. 5 Rhetoric's Superficiality Today's Date Sub Topic 1 Rhetoric Semiology Rhetoricality Conclusion ● Topics of invention: common topics ● Sophistical vs. Philosophical rhetoric ● Superficial thinking vs. Superficial methodology ● Lack of theoretical commitments vs. counterpart to theoretical commitments ● Foucault and the problem of “critical rhetoric”
- 6. 6 Semiology at Rhetoric's Deathbed Today's Date Sub Topic 2 Rhetoric Semiology Rhetoricality Conclusion Roland Barthes, The Old Rhetoric: an aide-mémoire:“Old rhetoric is set in opposition to that new which may not yet have come into being...” Group Mu, A General Rhetoric, 1981:“Today rhetoric appears not only as a science of the future but also as a timely science within the scope of structuralism, new criticism, and semiology.... We shall see that all rhetorical operations rest on a fundamental property of linear discourse”
- 7. 7 Today's Date Sub Topic 3 Rhetoric Semiology Rhetoricality Conclusion Rhetoricality: “Modernist Return” Bender and Wellbery, “Rhetoricality: On the Modernist Returns of Rhetoric” from The Ends of Rhetoric (1990) “modernism is not an age of rhetoric, but of rhetoricality... of a generalized rhetoric that penetrates to the deepest levels of human experience... bound to no specific set of institutions. It manifests the groundless, infinitely ramifying character of discourse in the modern world. For this reason, it allows for no explanatory metadiscourse that is not already itself rhetorical. Rhetoric is no longer the title of a doctrine and a practice, nor a form of cultural memory; it becomes instead something like the condition of our existence.”
- 8. 8 Conclusions & Inferences Today's Date End Of Presentation Bender and Wellbery, cont: “There can be no single contemporary rhetorical theory... rhetorical study is irreducibly multidisciplinary.... No single theory can detach itself.... Rhetoricality, then, also designates the partial and provisional character of every attempt to know it” Post-Theory: doing theoretical work under the conditions of rhetoricality? Theoretical work entangled with rhetorical invention and rhetorical analysis? A return to superficiality, with reflexivity?