Hey, everyone.

Sorry these are going out so late. These are the discussion questions for "The Space for Rhetoric." I sent them out to the e-mail list, but thought I should also post them here. I do not expect us to get to all of these in class, but I feel they are worth thinking about in the context of this chapter. I will post my presentation to the storage shed after class.

Do you agree or disagree with the idea that all discourses say something about space? (114) Has this chapter changed your view on this topic or strengthened it?
Is “space” really rhetorical? If so, is this true of all space or just certain spaces? Give examples. If not, elaborate.
How does the internet play into this as a system of virtual sites? What about Skype? How has this chapter effected your perspective of the interaction between spaces and rhetoric?

What documents, symbols, and images represent Albuquerque?

On school days, I leave my apartment, go down the stairs to my parents' car parked on the street, drive down Coal from the Reynold's neighborhood (by the zoo)--passing through downtown, under the interstate, and through the student ghetto--to University, past CNM, to Cesear Chavez. I park in South lot, ride shuttle to UNM, walk to class in Ortega Hall turning at the fountain with the obelisks to walk the concrete corridor along Woodward. What defines these spaces? What does my routine say about these spaces? What do these spaces say about me? Think about your own routine and answer the same questions.
 How does the setup of your home and neighborhood shape your everyday life? How is it oppressive?
How does your home and neighborhood’s material space reflect cultural or social ideologies, values, etc?

“[Cushman] studied…the ‘approach’ to the [Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute]: an expansive stone staircase that both invites and expels those who do not belong to either the school or the town. Cushman’s conclusion is that symbolized social divisions coincide with social distances between academics and the everyday” (113). How does this tie in with the metaphorical “ivory tower”? What symbols are around our campus and what messages do they invoke?

Reading & Field Log #2

Journal and Field Log #2

On a friend's Facebook page, there was a link to Romney saying he wanted to gut funding to the NEA.  Since most of my "friends" are poets, I was surprised to read quite a few that agreed with them.   A Facebook argument ensued, and one of the pro-cuts people argued, "I don't know, but knowing people who like power, it's there. Or look at it this way: I agree that Sesame Street is good programming, but not everyone does. Nevertheless, everyone pays taxes, including the people who loathe Sesame Street. Is that fair?"

I pounced on this statement with my own argument, " I don't know...I don't like the military, but I pay taxes...so why not cut the military? Or at least I shouldn't have to pay for it....I'd be fine if I could decide on what my taxes paid for...I'd fund art and not fund the military...no complaint if that's your logic."

Suddenly the argument veered off topic from whether cutting Federal arts funding was a good idea to actually what the function of government was.   He argued that the military was a "legitimate" function of government and funding the arts was not.   Legitimate as a term is pretty vague, and, of course, I seized upon it.   While he saw a sort of black and white...the powers and function of a government have traditionally provided (some argue that the reason people begin to live collectively was for protection), thus a military is a "legitimate" function of government because its always been one of the roles of government.   He fixed on this historical, traditional understanding of "legitimate," and redefined it.

I, of course, was not going to let his willingness to define, to reach some sort of fixed definition of "legitimate function" trap me into an argument of what things the government now does but aren't "legitimate."  He insisted, merely because of tradition, and an ideology that I immediately recognized as "conservative" trap me into agreeing with his terms.   Instead, I argued that we need to redefine "legitimate" not in its historical and traditional role but in trying to get the best long term impact for our country.   What that led back to was more funding for arts and education because a "legitimate" function of government would be to create an informed citizenry and an informed citizenry could govern itself.  

From there the thread went off on the value of funding education.   Strangely the argument which started about art funding was now about getting the most benefit from our tax dollars and how education is presently functioning is not seen as creating a sort of value.   While I wanted to argue whether trying to get any sort of "return on investment" in regards to education is also a flawed construction, I (and a teacher from Florida) pounced on his not making the argument that education funding was not seen as "illegitimate," but rather that it was being mismanaged.  

By avoiding the "legitimacy" argument, he'd suddenly found himself arguing under my terms.   His goal was to make the argument that education and art funding was not a legitimate function of government.   When I refused, and was not convinced, he had to then make the argument on much shakier ground.  

I suspect, had Cintron observed the interaction, that he would've noted that I refused to buy into this person's world view.  He saw the world as relying on traditional roles of government.   When I challenged that by suggesting that we could define what role we wanted our government to play...that all roles are equally valid, it changed the argument substantially.

Maria Elwan

Eng 440/540

August 27, 2012

Reading and Field Log Notes #1

REL Intro.

The social upheaval on US campuses in the late 60s and 70s helped to legitimize cultural rhetorical studies and bring it into mainstream university academia. This was initially met with resistance from college professors who up until this time saw “the problems of composition as intellectually inferior to the normal concerns of the academy and professionally unrewarding”(Nystrand et al xxii).  The advent of huge numbers of community colleges being opened in urban areas brought many students from the lower socio-economic neighborhoods to enter the world of academia. The social unrest occurring on the streets made its way to the campus halls and composition and cultural rhetorical studies began to get respect and be seen as worthy of research and study.

The “new discourse on writing” is still very much relevant today. The study of writing is not confined to the classroom but being researched in all aspects of social life. The democratizing of writing curriculum which started as a response to the social unrest that was unleashed in the late 60s and 70s, is now shifting its focus and researching the role of social media and technology in teaching American students (or all students) to be better writers and communicators.

There has been a shift in the everyday conditions and genres of writing since the 1960s and 70s due to the internet. On-line search engines make research is a lot quicker, but there is a glut of information available, so it can be time consuming to narrow down what to keep and what to discard. You also must discern between what information is scholarly and well researched and what may not be very factual.

The writing genres of texting, and twitter have had a profound influence on writing. This new shorthand with an emphasis on economy of words and removal of most vowels is finding its way to billboards and magazine ads. Twitter the online social networking service limits its tweets to messages of up to 140 characters. This new phenomena is in its early stages so, it is too soon to tell the impact it will have down the road on acceptable spelling and sentence structure.

This social media shorthand has even found its way to our Albuquerque billboards with the NM Dept. of Transportation’s ad campaign aimed at young drivers cautioning them about texting while driving and driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs.  One billboard reads “ENDWI” in capitalized letters with no other image or words. There are examples of this condensed language all around us. Texting and this new shorthand make communicating quicker. But along with the quickness comes less intimacy between the writer and reader. The practice of conversation and letter writing has been seriously impacted. Being from the older generation, I feel that the personal connection of hearing a voice on the other end of a telephone line or receiving a hand-written note in the mail adds an additional level of intimacy that is missing in today’s social messaging.

This de-personalization will inevitably affect the writer’s composition skills. When the writer is texting and trying to get their message across with as little words as possible, do they handicap themselves when they try to describe complex ideas on paper. On the other hand, perhaps this simplification in writing may actually help the writer describe complex ideas in an easy, quick manner.  It will be interesting to observe the developments in these styles of writing.

Opening the Gates of Our Imagination

A special thanks to Matt for opening the gates of our imagination with this blog.