Section Two - Constructing Discourses and Communities
In "Appeals to the Body in Eco-Rhetoric and Techno-Rhetoric" Jimmie Killingsworth constructs a continuum that bridges “earth-to-human” and “human-to-machine” relations. While indebted to Donna Haraway and characteristic of what Sharon Crowley ascribes to the postmodern goal of resolving “dualisms into continua” (78), Killingsworth provides a new angle on these perennial concerns. For example, he contends that there is increasingly an “erasure of the body in techno-rhetoric” (79). While detailed in his examination of how “techno-rhetoric resents the body and seeks to remake it in the image of the machine” (83), his premise is especially revealing in light of the changing nature of reading and writing practices—as detailed in earlier chapters. However, it seems that either some techno-rhetoricians are underrepresented in their view on this matter, or, and this is more likely the case, more detailed explanations are needed to account for how the body mood is augmented in the digital prosthesis of cyberspace.
What is perhaps most evocative is Killingsworth’s ability to ask, in regard to the body, and specifically the erotics of technology, “What is the appeal? What holds the attention? What moves us? And why?” (90). At the same time, Selber poses intertextual answers. For instance, in order to answer these questions posed by Killingsworth, we may refer back to Sirc who earlier in the collection quotes Longinus to argue that “what transports us with wonder is more telling than what merely persuades or gratifies us” (64). Framed a different way, Sirc suggests that we should guide writing by interest--if not ecstasy--and that we should move away from upholding arbitrary standards of correctness in the first-year composition classroom. In this way, Sirc answers Killinsworth’s rhetorical question by creating assessment practices built on interest, passion, and the body.
In "Unfitting Beauties of Transducing Bodies," Wysocki also focuses on the rhetorical nature of the body. Her focus is specific to the persuasive ways of shaping behavior and identity “that are non-linguistic and that appeal, usually quietly and without direct address, to bodies and feelings rather than articulated logics” (94). While Wysocki offers an extensive historical background, summarizing eighteenth century aesthetic logics, her aim is to construct a foundation for how we might sensuously engage each other through our texts. The purpose of this new direction is to bind our bodily perceptions with our ethics.
In "The Rhetorics of Online Autism Advocacy: A Case for Rhetorical Listening," Paul Heilker and Jason King connect rhetoric and autism. This connection is located in the fact that both rhetoric and autism focus on language use in the social realm. Heilker and King use this connection in relation to rhetorical listening to reflect on the construction of online discourses and communities. I believe they are correct in positing that these spaces have the potential to “change reality by mediating the thought and action of people both within and beyond these communities, altering how they perceive of, conceive of, and respond to autism and autistics” (131). Heilker and King most succinctly provide an example of how to construct communities by connecting rhetorical theory with technology.
In the last chapter of this section, "Narrating the Future: Scenarios and the Cult of Specification," John Carroll provides a rhetorical understanding of information technology. Interesting enough, he claims that “the most important business of design always lies in the future, in envisioning and developing possibilities, and in anticipating and managing problems” (146). Carroll furthers a vision of the rhetorician as a designer of possible discourses and communities. This is a considerable departure from our disciplinary past built on providing a rhetorical analysis of existing literary artifacts.
