In From Text to Action, Paul Ricoeur describes the notion of distancing in the act of textual interpretation. That is, when a reader reads a fictional or a poetic text his world is re-arranged, and his ego is metamorphosized. “The metamorphosis of the ego,” in other words, “implies a moment of distanciation [distancing] in the relation of self to itself” (Riceour 88). That is, when we read a fictional piece we are made aware of the possibilities in which we can inhabit, or dwell in the world anew. The recognition of those new possibilities allows us to distance ourselves from our everyday understanding of the world, as well as our everyday understanding of ourselves as dwelling in the world. In our reading of a fictional or a poetic piece, our being is disturbed in that our usual way of interpreting reality is shaken by the sudden influx of new ways in which we can now reestablish our connections with the world.

Here interpretation becomes paradoxical in that on the one hand it severs our relationship to the world and to ourselves, and yet at the same time it also de-severs our relationship with our experience as being in the world. The very act of interpretation, in other words, distances us from the singularity in which we had once conceived ourselves as inhabiting the world. But in the act of distancing, interpretation ironically brings us closer to the multiple ways in which we can inhabit, or dwell, in the world.  Textual interpretation articulates the interconnectedness of beings with other beings. The disclosure of interconnectedness of beings in the world, and with one another, including our own being, brings us closer to our ontological situation as entities that are thrown into the world as always already bound by relations of significance and relevance with multiple entities in the world. Interpretation then merely discloses, and intelligibly articulates, the multiple ways in which we had always already been in relationship to the world.

What is challenging to me in this paradoxical connection between interpretation as distancing, and interpretation as an act of de-distancing (de-severing), is the idea that a) whether interpretation merely points out the interconnections that are always already established/establishing between multiple entities in the world, or b) whether interpretation constructs interconnections between multiple entities thereby producing new worlds. In other words, is the act of interpretation merely a discovery of beings as beings already interconnected and hence meaningful in their connections with the world? Or whether in the very act of interpretation a reader or an author creates meaningful connections between entities and their world? I believe that these two approaches to textual interpretation can have significant implications on our sense of agency as interpreters. The notion of an interpreter as either a discoverer or a creator also brings up interesting questions regarding the active or the passive agency of an interpreter and her interpretations.

Recently I watched “Peaky Blinders” on Netflix. I was struck by one thing in particular. They use songs to set the mood and do so, I think, very effectively. They use a song by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds that I have been a fan of for a long time and they do so in a way that I really dig. It is the theme song. The song initially gets associated with Thomas Shelby, the leader of the Peaky Blinders gang and well-decorated British soldier from the Great War. This to me, is a keen example of intertextuality and polysemy. The song has its meaning that the band assigned to it. It has meanings for the director of Peaky Blinders too. That meaning was then tied to Tommy. There is also, of course, the meaning of the song that the viewer has. That then ties certain meanings to the show and to Tommy Shelby.

They also, a bit later in the series, start to incorporate covers of “Red Right Hand” by other artists to maintain a meaning but simultaneously adjust the mood. The meaning shifts again for the song with the use of the covers. Most notably, PJ Harvey recorded a cover of the song specifically for the show. There are also remixes used in the series to alter the mood of  certain scenes. It made me think of D’Angelo’s adaptation category for intertextuality. The song is adapted to suit the purposes of the show. Not to say that this is novel to this particular television show, but I found it an intriguing mix of contemporary music to set the mood and give more experiential quality to post-WWI Britain.

PJ Harvey’s cover

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds Original

BBC Two site featuring the music used in “Peaky Blinders”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p028b95c/members

What burden of proof rests on the polysemous critic? How can I prove which meanings are supported by a text, and which are not? This innocent question has led me to question the nature of human consciousness. Help.

So you see where I’m coming from, I’m going to begin with a digression about a painting. I first saw it as it was re-printed and referenced in Simon Schama’s fantastic book, Landscape and Memory. It depicts a window that looks out over a well-kept garden and lawn. Inside, in front of the window, is a painting. The painting is of the garden and lawn that the window looks out over. Anyone in the room can only see the painting, not the actual garden and lawn beyond. The painting is more or less faithful to the actual scene on the other side of the window. If you only ever saw the painting and not the actual lawn, you might confuse the painting’s scene for the real thing.

This, allegedly, is the nature of our consciousness: we never see the world itself, but only the best painting of the world that our brains can put together from whatever senses are available to it. And we get so used to navigating the world by our painting that we forget what we’re really looking at. We only ever see representations of the world, never the world itself. What would it even mean, anyway, to really “see” the world, given that our usual metaphors for encountering the world come through the physical senses?

Polysemy, according to Leah Ceccarelli, is “the existence of determinate but nonsingular denotational meanings” in a text (399). Different people experience the same text and come away with different statements of fact about that text’s meaning.

To me, that seems like a decent metaphor for how humans make sense of everything.

Humans all react to the same world-text, but we all live in our own simulation of how that world “factually” exists. Our experience is determinate—we are bound to our senses. Yet we find nonsingular meanings in that experience. Meaning, like in polysemous texts, is “multiple, but not limitless” (398). In the human condition, as in polysemy, “we acknowledge diverse but finite meanings” (398).

This seems like a sensible consequence of our relationship with the world. We constantly tack back and forth between input and thought, discovery and invention. Our criticism is rooted in such a process, where meaning is made in a conversation between the text and the sense we make of it. Perhaps meaning is, ultimately, that process. Meaning, in other words, is neither objective nor subjective, deterministic nor relativistic; meaning is contingent. And which is the rhetorician who would not agree with that?

Fortunately, at the end of all this business about consciousness lies a more pragmatic question for polysemy in rhetorical criticism. If polysemy is fundamental to how humans react to the world, isn’t polysemous criticism rigging the game? If we look hard enough, shouldn’t it always be possible to find multiple meanings authorized by the text and expressed in discourse about the text? And if that is true, even if only in part, how can I then prove which meanings are more supported by a text than others?

Food for thought. Hopefully, that last question packs some weight even if we pick holes in the hastily assembled thoughts above. Expanding these thoughts into defensible shape would require more space and time than we have here, but I hope I’ve said enough to spark your interest and input.

Throughout my educational life, I’ve heard teachers caution students of the potential “inter-relatedness of everything.” Their warning was not an indictment of New Age mysticism, although the anxiety seemed to be the same: if you set out to search for connections everywhere, you risk finding connections everywhere. My teachers (typically Philosophy professors) seemed concerned we would never return to class. In the face of infinite connections, they feared, we would be intellectually paralyzed. One professor described it as trying to analyze a pond by searching for each individual drop of water that makes up the pond. Do not drown in the endless search for every potential drop. This danger was especially relevant for writing assignments. How could we create a coherent and critical argument when every dimension of every topic had potential connections to every other topic? This danger seems even more real in the”age of information,” where we try to navigate through the “eternal return” of hyperlinks and footnotes. I am only slightly exaggerating to make my point.

The theory of “intertextuality” seems at risk of stretching itself too far and making scholars miss the proverbial forest for the trees. Frank J. D’Angelo, in his synthetic article “The Rhetoric of Intertextuality,” defined intertextuality simply as “the relationships that exist between and among texts” (33). Each concept he covered, however, implied different sets of relationships. If I choose to analyze Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark as a parody of 1940s cinema, then I will be looking at a different set of texts than if I read the same movie as a pastiche of masculinity, WWII narratives, and the “great American hero.” There certainly would be overlap, but there would also be much disparity between these two analyses. For my paper this week, I am analyzing my text in relation to texts from the organization that funded it, the Rockefeller Foundation. I believe that the “intertextuality” of these texts helps shed light on organizational, political, and anthropological ideas underlying my object. But where do I stop? To understand the Rockefeller Foundation’s role in shaping sociology and anthropology, should I mention the unique way that J.D. Rockefeller and his family came to support a specific method of social analysis? Should I go into how sociologist Howard W. Odum’s own thinking evolved as an anthropologist in such a way that it aligned, roughly, with the Rockefeller’s? Perhaps the way that the author of my text, Odum’s protegee, had different experiences in the field and took a slightly different approach than his teacher?

I believe one possible answer lies in Mary McClintock’s essay, “‘Is there a (Non-Sexist) Bible in this Church?’ A Feminist Case for the Priority of Interpretive Communities.” During her discussion of intertextuality she states, “The meaning of a text is the creation of an interpretive community. Meaning is constrained by communal rules for reading” (225). Thus, we can delimit the range of connections by reading a text with a specific “social location in view.”  Intertextuality opens up the range of possible connections, but at the same time acknowledges a foundation, a grounding, a limitation for possible interpretations. I could explore the infinite connections of social anthropology, Southern sociology, and the Rockefeller foundation, but it would have diminishing returns. Knowing which interpretive community to investigate takes a lot of labor. In order to be directed to the right spot, we must have a research question that is informed by extensive research. Otherwise we risk being constantly thrown about the waves of information.

Over the past several weeks I have greatly appreciated the rich history of rhetoric that we have covered. This process helped to answer some of the myriad questions and ambiguities I have about the field. That being said, I also found this week’s readings on narrative as a way to both continue my understanding of rhetoric and apply the particular subject of narrative to the discipline, particularly with Karma Chávez article “Beyond Inclusion: Rethinking Rhetoric’s Historical Narrative.”

In this article, Chávez elucidates the narratives of the field and how they act as norming mechanisms. She argues that the field of rhetorical studies perpetuates a narrative of strictly Western perspectives and values of citizenship. The common sense assumptions between citizenship and politics and what rhetoric does is troubling for Chávez as it “obscures and implies about whose rhetorical practices are worthy of engagement, whose rhetorical practices can serve as the material basis for rhetorical theory, and what modes of rhetorical practice as well as rhetorical theory and criticism matter” (164).

Instead of merely including disparate voices, she urges a fundamental reconstruction that breaks away from its historical narrative. One of the key arguments for pushing against the idea of inclusion is that “all inclusionary logics seem to share the fact that they reinforce the existing structures and tend to obscure the structures’ flaws” (166). Chávez implores that in order to subvert the recurring dominant narratives, inclusion is not enough.

Reading this specific article had the effect of (almost) feeling like I read four distinct articles. Her process of describing three different approaches to alternative narratives from Flores, Davis, and Griffin and Foss provides a broad insight into the field from a new perspective that I had not been exposed to. I think Chávez raises important questions and issues. If we are to thoughtfully and critically engage with our texts and the moment in history that they live in, perhaps we should just as thoughtfully and critically consider our field.

Karma Chavez’s piece got me thinking a lot about the stories we tell ourselves in communication studies and how many of them are distorted or blatantly false. A few immediately come to mind. Speech teachers marched out of the English conference in 1914. Philosophy is too formalistic and can’t deal with practical argumentation, which led to Toulmin, Perelman, and Olbrechts-Tyteca. Edwin Black killed Neo-Aristotelianism with his dissertation.

What function do these stories serve for us? Chavez suggests that our disciplinary narratives serve to, well, discipline us. I agree that to some extent our readings of canonical texts from the last century of communication studies get filtered through these stories. Forbes Hill’s argument is seen as Neo-Aristotelian criticism (even though such a word didn’t exist until Black invented it). We still explain the importance of Toulmin today as his engagement with probability rather than formal certainty of philosophy. We celebrate our war of independence against the English (departments), even though now they are our greatest allies.

However, the stories may yet serve another purpose. Perhaps they are legitimating narratives. Distinctions against philosophy and English show that we serve a unique function in the academy. The revolt against Neo-Aristotelianism legitimates our current disdain for method. Maybe the stories of our field help conceal disciplinary insecurities. If that is the case, then they deserve extra scrutiny.

In the essay by Lucaites and Condit that we read for this week, they discuss three types of narrative: poetic, dialectic, and rhetorical. I am particularly interested in the differences between poetic and rhetorical narratives.

A poetic narrative exists for the purpose of formalizing “the temporal and spatial relationships between the persons, objects, and concepts of a universe of discourse so as to create a pleasurable or entertaining experience” (3).

By contrast, a rhetorical narrative “exists for a purpose beyond its own textuality” for the “enactment of interest” or the “wielding of power” (3-4).

The authors go on to describe the difference functions of each type of narrative throughout the essay, using points of view (rhetorical narratives act as a lens through which the audience can view the situation, whereas poetic narratives stand alone as an expression of beauty), position of the author (rhetorical narratives are univocal, with the speaker, author, and narrator occupying the same position, and poetic narratives invite multiple perspectives because of various interpretations), and position of the audience (rhetorical narratives lack plot resolution because they ask the audience to help in creating meaning, whereas poetic narratives invite passive observation of characters interacting).

I recognize these formal differences as important, but I am ultimately unconvinced that a narrative can be truly poetic, with no rhetorical qualities. To be fair, I don’t think this is what Lucaites and Condit try to argue (they say discourse is often parts of different narratives combined), but their work sparked the question in my mind.

Can a narrative exist for purely poetic, expressive purposes? Or must language, because it is symbolic and created by humans, always function rhetorically? Does the type of narrative depend on the function of the audience (meaning, is a narrative rhetorical only if it persuades an audience to think a certain way)? Does an audience have to recognize it is being persuaded for persuasion to occur (I argue, definitely not)? It seems like, as rhetorical critics, we could always identify the rhetorical function of any narrative. But, I might think that simply because I am a rhetorician.

I cannot think of more serendipitous timing for our week on rhetorical narratives than this article published on Inside Higher Ed’s gradhacker blog titled “The Narratives We Give Ourselves in Graduate School” by Anjali Gopal. In the essay, Gopal focuses on how we as graduate students construct narratives of what it is, exactly, that we do in graduate school and why we do it. At the end of the piece, she concludes the narratives we construct about ourselves and our time in graduate school often focus on self-sacrifice and putting life on hold temporarily: narratives that shape our identity and purpose through relationships, work life, stress, skills, and the scholarship we engage with on a daily basis.

It’s easy to get caught up in analyzing the text in front of us: engaging it, interrogating it, questioning it, examining it, or when all else fails, waiting for it to speak to us on its own terms. Some of the scholars we read this week, like Tasha Dubriwny, point to composite narratives as an empowering joining of individual stories to raise consciousness to develop experiential knowledge. To simplify, many voices joined together reciting the same words is much easier to hear and make sense of than a room full of individuals telling their own stories in their own ways. We as critics and as graduate students rely on a relatable collaborative narrative to relate to each other and engage in shared experiences. But narratives are not something that exists somewhere else: we create and co-construct our own individual and combine narratives as a graduate community.

Gopal’s essay makes a salient point Dubriwny and others from our readings this week miss: narratives can change with little effort. She ends her post, saying “The other good thing about narratives is that they can be easily shaped and re-shaped to fit our desires and goals. . . The narratives I develop. . . can guide my growing sense of identity and purpose. If we manage it well, graduate school doesn’t have to be a case of putting life on hold—it can be a pretty great training ground that encompasses both our professional lives and our personal ones.” In addition to cultivating our critical voice by attending to narratives in textual analysis, it may serve us well to attend to the narratives we create, sustain, and contribute to the formation of as a graduate student community.

Perhaps because Bonnie Dow opens and concludes her article “Response Criticism and Authority in the Artistic Mode” with an explanation of Christopher Columbus “discovering” America, and today being the contentious holiday named after this explorer, I am inclined to continue the conversation we started in class about her article. I specifically want to dive into how she uses the idea of community as a bulwark against what could be considered bad criticism.

Dow’s turn towards identifying critics as artists and creators instead of investigators and discoverers does have its appeals. This reframing opens up a possibility for a number of meanings to be created and interpreted. I found this perspective, which was admittedly new to me, refreshing, yet I still maintain a myriad of reservations about this approach. However, I did find that her description of “criticism in the artistic mode” as a way to “move us, to interest us, to create works that make us think about our world in new ways” to be provocative (347). This quote also demonstrates the enactment of my experience with her text. Dow’s argument inspired me to think about criticism in a new light, which I appreciate, but I worry that her explanation of how a sense of checks and balances in criticism operate to be problematic.

In class, we briefly touched on how Dow uses “community” as a way to help ensure creative authority and interpretation is maintained in a way that coincides with the field. She argues: “We do not distort at will, because, our artistry, what we make of the materials with which we work, the text that we authorize, is always subject to the approval of our community” (343). Dow further emphasizes the centrality of the academic community by stating: “We do not toil solipsistically, or, if we do, we are subject to correction through the judgement of our peers. Criticism, like art, is ultimately a social act” (343). It becomes clear that Dow views the interpretive, academic community as a means of checks and balances.

Dow also emphasizes that it is not just the creation of criticism that is valuable, but it is also what the criticism has to offer to the community. She makes it clear that this is a dialogue, and that the “community answers back” to the criticism (346). This demonstrates how things such as peer reviews and debates within the community act as gatekeepers for the criticisms that get disseminated.

Dow’s notion of checks and balances through a collaborative and community driven mode sounds very nice. I also like the idea of someone not just thinking about what he is accomplishing, but what he is contributing to research as a whole. However, I can’t help but be a little skeptical that works being assessed by a whole community is only an ideal and perhaps cannot be realized.

Although I am admittedly new to academia, it seems that when talking about community, Dow is envisioning it too broadly since it appears that the people who make decisions about what does and doesn’t get published is in fact quite small. She implies that access to the means of dissemination and publication are practically equal among all scholars, but this idea is in tension with tradition, prestige, and norms. Those who perhaps don’t fit within the constraints might face more difficulty in gaining exposure. Also, under Dow’s system, protections for dissenting opinions would need to be in place to help ensure that the community does not silence heterodox opinions. Even though community checks and balances is an enticing premise, in reality it does not seem readily possible.

Hi everyone,

I have been thinking about our class this week as I work on a paper for another class (sounds counterintuitive, yes). I am reading Amy Poehler’s comedic memoir, Yes Please, for my course project in my English class and I find her preface applicable to our current writing projects, because she discusses the difficult process of writing a book. Before I share that text, I have a few reflections on criticism as we move from readings on context and into another week of writing.

If you are like me, you are left with questions about authority as a critic after finishing our readings this week. I think a common source of insecurity that I often feel is related to justifying my choice of text and my choice of context to include in my argument. Why this text? Why discuss these particular influences? How can I do justice to my text and represent it most faithfully? How can I craft the smartest argument, or the one that others will find intriguing? In the spirit of “lifting the veil obscuring the critic’s artistic license,” (Bonnie Dow), I thought I would encourage us to be artistic with our essays on narrative this next week, but not necessarily “artistic” in the sense of finished art. “Artistic” criticism sounds polished and beautiful, but the process of getting to that finished place is ugly and messy.

Here is what Amy Poehler has to say about writing:

Everyone lies about writing. They lie about how easy it is or how hard it was. They perpetuate a romantic idea that writing is some beautiful experience that takes place in an architectural room filled with leather novels and chai tea. They talk about their “morning ritual” and how they “dress for writing” and the cabin in Big Sur where they go to “be alone”–blah blah blah. No one tells the truth about writing a book. Authors pretend their stories were always shiny and perfect and just waiting to be written. The truth is, writing is this: hard and boring and occasionally great but usually not. Even I have lied about writing. I have told people that writing this book has been like brushing dirt away from a fossil. What a load of shit. It has been like hacking away at a freezer with a screwdriver.

I hope this encourages you, classmates, to embrace your texts with a sense of the artistic process as messy and imperfect. We are artists and we have the authority to create important criticism. Writing is hard but the results can be great. If the writing doesn’t turn out great this time, it will eventually. Keep hacking with that screwdriver.