English 5361: Week 2 Posts - Respond to the reading and future of Rhetorical Theory
The introductory readings for the course show one thing very clearly: rhetorical theory has a long and complicated history. These readings show very clearly the challenge that will be presented by surveying this vast historical field in one semester. Thank goodness this isn't a shortened summer semester class.
Each time period and theorist made a mark on modern rhetoric with centuries of history, debate, conflict, and agreement leading to the modern field. How will the field change in the future? This is difficult to say. In ancient times, rhetoric applied to the oratorical tradition. Then it was, perhaps reluctantly, applied to the written word, that so-called imperfect form of communication with debate centering on lack of memory and inability to question the author.
Now, we are looking at the rhetoric of images or visual rhetoric. Some say that visual rhetoric is not really a rhetorical field and others write books about the rhetoric of imagery. I'm sure that eventually the field will come to an agreement on this through debate, conflict, and eventually agreement, as it has with similar expansions in the past.
What will be next? The rhetoric of the computer desktop? The rhetoric of thoughts? I can't tell, but it will be exciting to find out.
posted by Jessica Badger at
10:36 PM
2 Comments:
Hi, Jessica...
I, too, am grateful that this course is not a short summer one. However, we are going to be covering a great deal of information over a large time period, so I'm not sure we're that much better off. This course is an important one, and perhaps in the future it will be broken into 2 or 3 parts and taken over a longer period. For me, this is the first formal exposure to rhetorical theory that I have had in the program, and I could use some more time.
That said, I wanted to share my thoughts on the different types of rhetoric. Those who exclude visual rhetoric are, in my opinion, not seeing the whole picture. At the highest level. I define rhetoric as the methodology and communication of ideas from one recipient to another. If I am correct, then any type of exchange is rhetoric, from casual conversations to formal reports to advertising images--all are encompassed. I would even add the rhetoric of forms to this list (e.g. the design of an object such as a sleek MAC Air laptop, or better yet a piece of chocolate cake...can't you just taste the persuasion).
The Greeks gave rhetoric a structure, but they were not the only practitioners of the art. I am sorry that in our class we will not have an opportunity to explore the rhetoric used in other cultures, for I do not think rhetoric is an exclusive Euro-centric domain.
If we are to grow as a global society, then an appreciation of rhetoric and its effective use must be encouraged and supported. I'm hoping that in this course we learn about the tools that we need to do so.
I'd like to add to your comment about, "Some say that visual rhetoric is not really a rhetorical field and others write books about the rhetoric of imagery. I'm sure that eventually the field will come to an agreement on this through debate, conflict, and eventually agreement, as it has with similar expansions in the past." Like you and Debbie, I think that recognizing visual elements as rhetorical elements is a no-brainer. Personally, because of the way people interact with technology, receiving visual messages from their phones to digital billboards, I think studying visual rhetoric is the most important thing to do as a TCR practitioner. In the future, I really hope to see a pattern of academic collaborations between graphic designers and TCR practitioners.
It's really cool to see how much things have changed. As Debbie notes, the visual design of Apple products makes for a compelling argument in certain markets...I wonder how the ancient Greeks would have discussed things like web design and Flash-based documents (ex. interactive training manuals). From there, it's kind of fun to imagine how ancient non-Western rhetorical thoughts would proceed.
We have a lot of questions to ask and figure out, so it's definitely good to have a whole semester.
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