The main "controversy" I see so far (or one I'll invent for discussion) might be a gap between those who are radically contextual and those who admit ideological motivation to what they're doing.
1: To explain, I think some of us are saying that we are trying to purposely rewrite history, to tell another tale than "History." Our motivations are to break up old narratives, help the marginal folks in History gain some prominence (esp. against race/class/gender bias), or maybe as Gorgias said of his Encomium, amuse oursleves. Do any of you all claim one of these specifically as your primary motivation?
2: Others of us claim to be focusing on an object and deriving any theory or approach we have from that object. My guess is that everyone would at least claim some motivations to their work, at least for the sake of interest in the object they study. However, they would prioritize the object first, and profess to hold no preconceived framework. Are there some of you out there?
Despite my "Ode to Arendt," I usually profess #2 first and then back it up with #1if pressured to admit my historiographic biases. What about the rest of you?
Friday, February 12, 2010
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Thanks Brandon for that much more succinct and provocative (and effective!) summary:
ReplyDeleteI'm of two minds, two question-begging minds:
1. To say you are interested in rewriting history, or History, seems to already posit an object. However,
2. Saying that seems to reveal me as inescapably participating in the first approach you outline.
And yet even though I feel like my work participates in this approach or rewriting--whether for equity or amusement, I'm not always sure--I'm also driven by the sense that those who I'm writing back to, those who's narratives I'm attempting to rewrite, are just wrong, rather than standing in the way of the breaking up of oppressive narratives.
But here's a question back at you, and for the rest of the group: Do you think in what we've put down thus far, that we've been unable to move past this dichotomy?
not who's narratives--whose narratives
ReplyDeleteoppressive apostrophes
I'll offer a different perspective on common threads (controversies?) than the one Brandon has offered that might get past the stated dichotomy. It seems to me that one productive separation in different dicussions about history and rhetoric going on here is the object under study. For example it seems that there are:
ReplyDelete1. people like me, maybe Christopher, whose object is rhetoric itself and ideas/factors in history that come to bear on rhetoric: defining it, complicating it, etc. then there are,
2. others, like maybe Brandon, Whitney, and others who have an historical object (historical debates about the formation of banks, native american education, etc) that are not necessaily rhetoric per se (i.e. texts about rhetorical theory like Sheridan's Lectures on Elocution or Nietzsche's Lectures on Rhetoric) but have aspects to them that make rhetorical interpretation of them a particularly productive/fruitful interpretive lens, especially for learning something about history.
Could this separation produce any insights into defining or doing history that might help us out here? Does this separation help outline a philosophy of history, individually or collectively among our group?
The separation itself and the question you lead into with it seem extremely productive--I don't know that this answer will be, but here goes.
ReplyDeleteI guess like above I would say yes and no, and then again yes--bc by your own description in an earlier post what appeals to you about approaching rhetorical (intellectual) history is the chance to contextualize it (or at least that's what's driving you at the moment). Christopher is cagier, placing everything on Barthes, but in the midst of teaching Barthes's essay on French wrestling of the 1950s to first-year comp students, I have a sense that every effort to think about the thing (idea-object-rhetoric) itself, as it were, really can't help but make that disciplinary thing a historical object. At the same time the bringing of rhetorical methods to bear on historical objects is definitely an effort to intervene in the course of the idea of rhetoric itself. Inadvertently or advertently. Maybe.
I think the distinction Liz makes certainly exists in a very real way. Maybe we would call the two positions rhetorical objects and rhetorical methodologies? But of course, as Daniel points out, the distinction happily (or frustratingly—depending on how many hours you’ve been at the keyboard) falls apart as a scholar starting from either position works to ultimately inform the other. Liz asked if the separation helps outline a philosophy of history of rhetoric, but building on Daniel’s comment, I guess I would ask if it’s the blurring of that separation that starts defining the philosophy. With rhetoric’s status as both a productive and interpretive art, the objects and methods of study can become one and the same. Is that a unique disciplinary feature?
ReplyDeleteDaniel and Alexandra have a good point (the blurring of lines between rhetorical objects and methods as a beginning point for defining our philosophy [of history?]) and this leads me to another, perhaps fundamental question (or productive dichotomy, if one tends to find dichotomies productive, which clearly I do ;)
ReplyDeleteAre our musings on rhetoric and philosophies of history:
1. looking at how rhetoric as a field of study *generates* a philosophy of history? OR
2. Are we looking at how rhetorical ideas/concepts/methods intersect with so called Philosophies Of History (lets say POH) generated outside rhetoric-properly-bounded? Examples of these coming to mind because they have shown up in our discussions here would be Hegel, Hayden White, etc.
I suspect, from reading over our posts, this group is doing both and might this be a productive organizing scheme? Might it not? Thoughts?
Liz Kimball to Liz Kalbfleisch: If I had to choose one of your two options, I'll go with your second option, because as useful as rhetoric has been to me as a place to start (a commonplace, a stasis, a scenic lookout), I think we limit ourselves too much, or get stuck in foolish disciplinary boxes, if we act like "our" perspective on rhetoric is somehow strikingly different from any other philosophy's way of looking at things, particularly given the linguistic turn in general.
ReplyDeleteI think your term "intersect" is key. Our rhetorical understanding is _as_ useful for reading other philosophies of history as it is for reading primary documents.
I totally agree with you, Liz Kimball (seriously, what are the chances of us ending up with two Liz K's? I'll be Elizabeth for clarity's sake).
ReplyDeleteThat said, my work in 18th century rhetoric leads me to see some extremely interesting possibilities for rhetoric generating a philosophy of history (a la, looking at the figure of Lord Shaftesbury, via Grassi's idea of rhetoric as a form of history). Or if not a proper POH, an idea of rhetoric that takes up many of history's concerns: the particular practices and beliefs of human communities at particular points in time. So, I suppose certainly not a POH along the line of Hegel or White, but perhaps an idea of history that is both Rhetoric's own and intersecting with other POHs?
Okay, i'm going to stop now, because I think I'm possibly beginning to draft my presentation.
Elizabeth
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ReplyDeleteI should add...how might the ideas here connect up with Brandon's original 'controversies'?
ReplyDeleteMy original binary seems less important than this new discussion.
ReplyDeleteWe don't think that a "Philosophy of History" is anti-rhetorical? Wouldn't rhetoric disavow one of those and replace it with the ancient dictum: "shit happens"? Or more robustly, "contingent events occur in time before (and behind the backs of) judging audiences based on traditions they've inherited that frame their moral/ethical sense through prior instantiations of discourse."
Sorry, maybe POH includes such a thing. But from Hegel and the other Germans who talk about such a thing, I think there is a heavy normative/ progressive/positivist dimension that I think rhetoric is--or, let's put people and normative expectations in here... most rhetoricians should be uncomfortable with.
Hope my pragmatic/humanistic worldview isn't repulsing any of you real philosophers.
I think on both the questions of discipline--especially insofar as discipline determines genre--and also on the question of whether rhetoric stands in opposition to history or to a philosophy of history, Christopher's post from a while back is quite pertinent.
ReplyDelete