This reminds me of when Boyle mentioned how we see a different view of the world through technology like drones and trains. Here, we see how we also change ways we organize our thoughts in order to correspond to technological capabilities.

So the problem with writing is that the author has less agency than the speaker, because the writer isn't in the room to explain himself/herself to the reader, and all sorts of things can be said/written about a piece after the writer dies.

So for her, posthumanist rhetoric means refusing to focus on a single/stable object but on works with similarities key to her argument. Other readings for this week seem to do something similar, such as Muckelbauer and Hawhee writing about eXistenZ and Foucault.

I like the idea of how technology very literally changes what we see/how we see it, but I also think the train and the drone are interesting choices. I tend to think of the train most frequently as representing concerns of the industrial age. And of course with drones, there's creepy voyeurism and warfare. I don't know where I'm going with this other than its surprising to use these two examples (train and drones) to describe how they provide different ways of seeing when their impact extends far beyond that.

So openness is sort of like being open to new ways of thinking/being within constraints which, in the process, are also reshaped. I enjoy how postmodern and posthuman thinking plays with dichotomies (openness/constraints) and shows how they work together in interesting ways.

I like the playing with language in the piece, which shows how technology and our interactions with it create/expand language (upload, memory, hacking).

The description of iLife seems to echo the point made by Charles Taylor (as qtd. by Rickert): "Webs and networks can no more exist without me than can I without them."

This idea is often stressed in disability studies, with the social model more in favor of technology accommodating people. Also, this idea comes up in Colson Whitehead's Intuitionist which is about elevators.

definition: a feasible arrangement or practical compromise; especially one that bypasses difficulties; manner of living https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/modus%20vivendi

This definition sounds pretty similar to definitions of kairos that I've seen. Even as authors, such as Barad, continue to offer definitions of their terminology, I wonder if it becomes harder to actually make these definitions with the increasing realization of the instability of meaning and haziness of boundaries.

This definition sounds pretty similar to definitions of kairos that I've seen. Even as authors, such as Barad, continue to offer definitions of their terminology, I wonder if it becomes harder to actually make these definitions with the increasing realization of the instability of meaning and haziness of boundaries.

This sounds a lot like Edbauer--everything bleeds into each other to create an ever-expanding, active rhetorical situation.

A subaltern is basically someone in a subordinate position/social status, but not so basically, it's also used in postcolonial studies, including by Spivak, who merges feminism and postcolonial studies in "Can the Subaltern Speak?"

More violent language, and the violent division which allows for creativity/meaning, as described by Anzaldua.

Couldn't the art of topics also be used to make something absurd?

Does rhetoric necessarily mean always presenting problems? That seems a bit restrictive, or maybe my idea of problem is restrictive. I would think that presenting something as noble or as having absolutely no problems would also be a rhetorical task.

What would some of the people we've read, like Cixous and Anzaldua, think of this idea of "troublesome disorder"? Anzaldua and Cixous seem to embrace disorder and instead counter rigidity of social orders/traditions.

definition: something absolutely indispensable or essential

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sine%20qua%20non

This paragraph really indicates how the arguments by both Vatz and Bitzer are easy to combat. They are taking one position in these either/or dichotomies, and basically the rest of the readings are taking some sort of middle position.

This seems like a very rigid understanding of the audience. Can't the poet/scientist be his/her own audience?

Hypothesis was not cooperating with me, but I was trying to highlight "perceives" because I think this word complicates his idea of rhetorical situations. The criticism from Vatz is that he denies the rhetor's agency and gives the situation too much power over rhetoric, but this instance does seem to suggest some sort of agency on the part of the rhetor.

"Other than it should be," "imperfection," "defect": I'm not sure how I feel about this word choice, since it is also the words used to describe minority groups.

Related to my other note on violence/parasitic imagery, it's so interesting that ambient music is his metaphor. I think language/rhetoric/rhetorical situations have for the most part been associated with ruptures, conflicts, lava. Now we have ambient music which doesn't really have major musical shifts or discordant sounds and seems completely different.

Based on my extremely in-depth Wikipedia-ing, complexity theory not only proposes that systems are unpredictable but also that these systems are still constrained by rules. That seems like an interesting tension.

This idea of writing/language as sinister, parasitic or violent is in several of our readings for this week.

And haunted by prejudice/expectations, as we see with Woolf's Angel of the House who seems to represent the looming patriarchal expectations of gender.

This seems radical; Montaigne and Gates are arguing that figurative language doesn't come from fancy, educated poets but from the lower classes and people of color.

Signifyin' definitely differs from the Enlightenment concerns for uniformity and simplicity. Style and indirectness are virtues.

This is different than what we have been reading from Corder and others the past few weeks, who have been trying to advocate against rhetoric as a contest and more as a formative experience and something that should come from a place of love.

definition: "system of broad cultural education" origin: ancient Greece https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/paideia

One of the cool things about signifyin' is how much it blurs boundaries between everyday speech/language practices and things like writing and speeches which have traditionally been the modes of communication that rhetoric scholars have concerned themselves with. High and low culture is very interconnected, which is something we see not just here but I think also in literature of the Harlem renaissance and of modernist literature (might be worth noting that the Harlem renaissance was during modernism).

I imagine this instability results from signifyin as being a living rhetorical mode, something that is constantly evolving as it is practiced; I think it also suggests how oral and everyday it is--signifyin' and its different forms are in practice in everyday conversations among African Americans. It's difficult to capture something so oral and performative in something as rigid as definitions.

definition: "(of music, especially church music, or a section of a church liturgy) sung, recited, or played alternately by two groups" https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/antiphonal

Throughout, Gates and many of the people he mentions seem to argue that signifyin is the product of a collective/Pan-African black soul (compare to Anzaldua with her idea of "Mexican as a state of soul."

"use of a word in an incorrect way, for example the use of mitigate for militate" https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/catachresis

Like Fanon who describes colonizers as also being somehow split, Anzaldua recognizes the split of white people. Dual consciousness manifests itself in different ways depending on positions of power.

This seems a lot like Woolf. Women have to kill mythologies of women (like the Angel of the House) by writing their myths.

Her description of the writing process reminds of Douglass' recounting of when he first learned to read. Reading was painful for him at first, because he realized the extent of his oppression, but it becomes a tool for liberation.

I think this section is interesting in merging tradition and change. She celebrates language as offering the potential for liberation from a tradition of silence, but language is also a means of preserving her cultural heritage, such as the traditional figure of the nahual. This interest in both change and preserving tradition seems to result from the intersections of her sexuality, gender and ethnicity. There's a similar interest in tradition and change in Nervous Conditions, so I wonder if this is a common theme in postcolonial literature and theory. I don't think we've seen this shared interest in tradition and change in our previous readings.

Dual identity seems to be a common theme in race and postcolonial studies. DuBois has double consciousness, the condition of African Americans viewing themselves as American but being viewed by white America as black and as a problem. Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth describes the split subjectivity of the colonized. Nervous Conditions is a novel by Zimbabwean writer Tsitsi Dangarembga which extends Fanon's split subjectivity to describe how her two protagonists are split between their desire for a Western education, independence and feminism and their Rhodesian culture.

This sounds similar to Pan-Africanism.

I was trying to think of a better way to tie this in with kpolizzi's comment, but I'll just say I enjoy this as a twist on Descartes' "I think therefore I am." "We doubt together" indicates a shift to thinking about our existence as a community rather than as individuals.

Speech is limited by our standpoints.

Community is a common thread in this week's readings.

This seems like an interesting contribution to standpoint theory. I think of standpoint theory as being about the political/social circumstances that form our perspectives, but this is almost a reversal--when we speak our perspectives, we create our standpoint.

This seems to continue the theme that I commented on from readings last week about invention. In rhetoric, invention becomes much more than finding a topic; it's about how rhetoric invents us. And again, a contrast with Cixous. If bodies and writing are multiple, then you don't forego one identity but sort of add on to identity, or realize all of the identities which make up each person.

Another contrast with Cixous who advocates leaving the past behind.

It seems that the writers are increasingly collapsing boundaries and challenging notions of Truth. Rhetoric is less about seeking absolute truth and more about how we construct ourselves and the world around us. This also connects with Foucault.

So this counters Cixous--the female body is multiple, always expanding, encompassing everything, and language should do the same. But Corder says language just can't do that. The limits of language seems to be the theme of our readings this week.

The footnotes are strange. There seems to be something symbolic here in placing men in the footnotes when they have traditionally been the primary text. But it also shows Cixous interest in multiple viewpoints.

This seems to be a departure from Woolf, who thinks the best women's writing isn't personal/individual

This is very different from the choreographed gestures of Austin. The body is spontaneous. In addition, she seems to expand what logic is. Logic is traditionally an intellectual capacity, one which has been considered men's strong point and women's weakness. She flips this conception by challenging the mind/body binary of traditional rhetoric and claiming that the body is a site of logic.

This is a very loaded word. So for procreation, Aristotle thought that the man actively imprinted on the passive woman, and one of the definitions for matrix is a "mould in which something, such as a record or printing type, is cast or shaped." (It's also the "cultural, social, or political environment in which something develops.") https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/matrix

Reading Cixous reminds me of cyberfeminism, which is often about "writing the feminine" through technology. I think VNS Matrix (their manifesto is below) is often considered a pioneer of cyberfeminism.

Even though this was originally French, I think use of the word "invention" is interesting. In rhetoric, invention is more along the lines of coming up with a topic, but the type of invention here is creating a new type of writing which would in turn disrupt hierarchies.

This again seems to be a contrast with Cixous, who considers the body as the center.

I wonder what the role of the body is in rhetoric and writing for Derrida. I, and I imagine most people, tend to think of speaking as more related to the body than writing--you can't use the same gestures/inflections when writing. I wonder if Derrida thinks of writing as transcending the body, or does writing extend the body, which would be very different? And this also brings me back to Cixous since for her the body and writing are interconnected.

We've read before about discourse as democratic, and this seems to challenge that.

Sounds like Foucault was influenced by Marxism and historical materialism

def: clearly established, beyond dispute (as opposed to dialectic) etymology: from Greek "apodeiknunai," to show off or demonstrate https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/apodictic

Perelman's arguments remind me a lot of Thomas Kuhn (summarized on page 1196 in the overview of modern and postmodern rhetoric). Kuhn challenged the binary between communal argument and science, which seems to also be what Perelman is doing.

I think this was actually touched on a bit in an annotation of one of our earlier readings, but "cleansing" becomes a very loaded term at this time, especially considering Perelman's experience in WWII.

I think this is the French equivalent of a BA?

This week is offering new ways of thinking about the interconnection of language and gender, with this idea of a neuter language which is unbiased and has no passion and the idea of ambiguous language which is what Woolf argues is the best. In terms of gender, language and terminology are not just masculine or feminine.

This sounds like the reasoning behind the frequent characterization of rhetoric as feminine.

I was surprised by this distinction; I tend to think of science as dealing with the concrete and rhetoric as dealing more often with the abstract. I wonder if Weaver's distinction was more common in his time than now.

definition: origin https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/fons_et_origo

He's right! etymology: from vivere, "to live" https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/vivid

Is this elasticity similar to the ambiguity championed by Burke?

Woolf is so difficult because of her contradictions.She often seems to advocate that there is some essence in women which they haven't been able to discover; but here she seems to suggest a lower-case "truth," in which truth is confined to individual experience. I wonder if the contradictions of her text are part of her mission for "elasticity."

This reminds me of a lot of feminists reclaiming "nasty women" or the riot grrrl movement: this idea that the myth of the pure, well-behaved woman must go, and going against this myth (misbehaving) is forwarding women's liberation. Killing this myth is an act of defiance.

The best use of money.

This is quite a departure from the praise of reason we've encountered from many of the Enlightenment writers. For Woolf, reason stifles imagination, especially women's imagination. Is reason stifling because it has often been defined/used by men, including in their defense of the "phantom" of gender roles?

Woolf is equating her writing with her body.

Around this time, W.E.B. Du Bois was writing that all art is propaganda and advocated for African American literature that offered favorable depictions of black people. It's interesting that both Du Bois and Woolf were thinking about liberation through writing but had different ideas about the connection between art and propaganda.

This is an interesting description of George, considering that A Room of One's Own includes a caricature of Professor X, who is what she imagines as the type of man who writes myths about women. Is the author of the intro trying to draw a connection between Woolf's life and work here?

On a related note, we've had a few annotations about these intros, particularly weird claims about women (perhaps overstating the importance of Willard, for example). In our readings, its been interesting to think of the rhetorical moves of whoever wrote the intros and time period overviews.

The metaphors are getting better with each week. Here, we see Richards basically saying the same thing as Nietzsche, only using fabric instead of a web as a metaphor.

A pretty common theme in our readings is the arbitrariness of language, particularly the arbitrariness of naming objects. I like how Richards extends the arbitrariness of language in describing how we determine cause from effect. Especially considering how Richards and Ogden, as well as Burke, emphasize ambiguity and how parts of rhetoric are interconnected, I wonder if this is also a suggestion that to some extent any attempt to draw distinctions is arbitrary?

I guess "old Rhetoric" is still alive, because especially on cable news or in arguments with friends, discussions are not "expositions" but "battles of words."

Especially in regards to ambiguity, I read most of this article as stretching the ideas of Richards and Ogden further.

This also reminds me of common appeals to the humanities: we need the humanities because we don't want science to get out of control and forget the very human consequences of advancements and experiments, such as war technology.

definition: "fortune or change in circumstance" https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/peripeteia

This is a smart argument: the defense of reason (which argues that emotion is inferior to reason and people should follow logic rather than emotion) is itself "narrow reasoning."

One of the recurring themes in our readings: science's influence on rhetoric

Not to be confused with the inventor of the electric clock.

This reminds me of Lessing's The Golden Notebook. The issue of writing and ownership is something that is playing out as the protagonist (a writer) discusses her published work as something which doesn't even feel like it belongs to her; she thinks of it more as the property of her readers, and is ashamed of her work and confused as to why critics like it. Hill seems to almost think of composition as a separate body with a life of its own, and the author is something of a parent who brings the composition into being. Where does this position the audience, and what makes a written work a "living body"? Of rhetoric doesn't make a work "alive," what does?

Can't help but think of Foucault's journals, especially considering that the intro to Bain and Hill mention a growing interest in private discourse because of higher literacy rates. What is the place of private or personal writing in rhetoric? How is the writer his/her own audience?

Nice qualification: there isn't a stable definition of rhetoric, so Hill's using the definition that suits his purpose.

I think we see here how she was thoughtful and successful in creating her public persona, just as Douglass was.

This an is interesting example of how spaces shape rhetoric and knowledge. The way in which religious spaces where arranged and people were situated reflects and reinforces women's inferior position in religious discourse.

Sound like specific issues that women would have to deal with as speakers: they can't intimidate their audience by seeming too smart, and I imagine that they received harsh opposition from some audiences (though it's interesting that this opposition isn't discussed as much in here as it was in introductions for Grimke and Douglass last week).

This seems to be an example of her "cushioning her argument"; the kitchen is the traditional domain of women, so she uses this cooking analogy to avoid alienating her audience.

This sounds like a precursor to the idea of republican motherhood. This became popular in the 20th century and used by feminists to support gaining rights, even as republican motherhood is advocating for women to stay home and raise children. The idea is women are valuable because they instill/protect American values in their children and husbands. It seems that Willard and the women we read last week are making similar moves: motherhood is often used against women, but women counter that motherhood is the very reason they need education, literacy, suffrage--so they can become better mothers and protect, not just national, but religious values.

This sounds like a precursor to the idea of republican motherhood. This became popular in the 20th century and used by feminists to support gaining rights, even as republican motherhood is advocating for women to stay home and raise children. The idea is women are valuable because they instill/protect American values in their children and husbands. It seems that Willard and the women we read last week are making similar moves: motherhood is often used against women, but women counter that motherhood is the very reason they need education, literacy, suffrage--so they can become better mothers and protect, not just national, but religious values.

Nietzsche mentions later that we arbitrarily separate things according to gender, but we see him doing that very practice here as he assigns masculine pronouns to individual people and feminine pronouns to nature--which is also something we've seen in a lot of other readings for this class.

definition: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/officious

I'm trying to remember Baudrillard's treatise on simulacra, because it sounds like Nietzsche's describing something very similar.

simulacrum definition: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/simulacrum

definition: principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true etymolgy: Greek--dokein (seem good, think) https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/dogma

What's up with his pronouns? Earlier he mostly says "they," but he starts to use "we" as he talks more specifically about language. Why does he make a separation between himself and the rest of mankind earlier and then start to use first person plural?

I think we're getting the intricate connection between writing and speaking here and how important the sound of the words, including the number of syllables, influences our reading and hence the impact of the writing.

definition: using more words than necessary to convey meaning https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/pleonasm

awkward phrasing

There's a great drunk history video about this, but for some reason I can't link or embed it.

Link to my post in Palmer about experience and education: https://hyp.is/CWtgaPQEEeaR_Tf_iC2Cfg/static1.squarespace.com/static/53713bf0e4b0297decd1ab8b/t/586fcf461e5b6c68e05178ec/1483722589377/palmer_the_promise_of_the_father_chapter_1_and_tongue_of_fire_on_the_daughters_of_the_lord.pdf

Also, it seems that even out of slavery and in his abolition work, he was often reduced to his body; he was more important for the story of his body than his intellect.

Body as a text

Though this collection was mainly for the purpose of teaching rhetoric, it was also put together by an anti-slavery educator named Bingham who used this manual to proclaim the values of freedom and democracy.

Compare to Stewart: "I have come forward and made myself a hissing and a reproach among the people" through her public speaking (1039).

This is the first week we've read about speakers who, not only weren't academics, but were actually in positions where academia wasn't valued or even a possible detriment: experience is most valued in Methodist preaching, and Douglass was used to describe the experience of slavery; sometimes his intelligence even hurt his credibility as an actual former slave. I'm curious how/if Methodist spiritual discourse and Douglass challenge Campbell and Hume's takes on experience.

This still doesn't sound so great; women who preach are exceptional women--the average woman can't participate in a traditionally masculine role.

I thought this was interesting in connection with Hume and taste. For Hume, it's important to approach things in an unbiased way in order to properly judge the quality of something. But education is also important for Hume in being able to judge something. Grimke here is pointing out that education itself is biased, as it has privileged white men, meaning that texts will be read through a sexist lens.

Nice syllogism: Whatever is morally right for man is morally right for women. It is morally right for men to preach. Therefore, it is morally right for women to preach. She's using a classic strategy to defy stereotypes of women's irrationality/intellectual weakness.

This seems like an example of the abolitionism movement's influence on her feminist arguments, since bondage of the mind, heart, soul is frequently described as an argument against slavery. This is similar to what Stewart says about the souls kept in chains.

definition: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/contrite

etymology: 18th c. French; "fine letters" https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/petitio%20principii

definition: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/petitio%20principii

definition: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tyro

Oh, so maybe the personal is not political for Stewart. . . .

In addition to LoLo's earlier observation, this is another idea (the personal is political) which Stewart is talking about before it blew up in second wave feminism.

I'm reading a lot in another class about historiography and about African Americans such as Du Bois reclaiming African American history, pointing out the unique culture, accomplishments and struggles while also revealing how those in privileged positions have constructed myths about blackness which resulted in the silencing of their history and experiences. Stewart is doing something similar in reclaiming the history of women.

This description reminds me of the 18th century work of Phillis Wheatley, the first African American poet to publish a book. Wheatley doesn't have the best reputation now, but maybe looking at how Wheatley's work has influenced not just poets but other prominent African American women could renew appreciation for her work.

Also, in finding this comparison, I think this indicates that rhetoric and poetry are perhaps not so separate. They can have similar motives and techniques. And some of Wheatley's works, if I'm not mistaken, were delivered in public, and I don't think I would consider all of her work as a "soliloquy"; there's definitely an argument being made in her work, even if it's perhaps coded so as not to offend a white audience.

It's awesome enough to read Truth's work in an African American history or feminist context, but I'm struck reading about her in an overview of rhetoric and thinking about how oratory/rhetoric was dominated by highly educated white men, and she wasn't even literate. And she spoke in dialect during a time when standardization was emphasized. We've read about rhetoric as a way to access and convey the truth, and it seems that she does share that interest but expresses herself in a very different way.

definition: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/parochial

Campbell: "If the orator would prove successful, it is necessary that he engage in his service all these different powers of the mind, the imagination, the memory, and the passions" (923).

Campbell's definition of plausibility: "consistency of the narration, from its being what is called natural and feasible" (930)

That's this guy, most famous for essays, but also wrote plays.

So part of the importance of discussing taste, judging works of art, developing standards of taste and individual taste seem to tie into the project of rhetoric as we've read so far this semester: to come closer to the Truth.

Hume and Blair both value exercising senses/faculties in order to develop taste, and though this seems hard to argue with, long-term employment in using your eyes or your hands can result in things like loss of vision or arthritis. Does this in anyway factor into taste? Individual taste can become refined, but can it develop in other ways, good or bad?

Somewhat related text on this point: Ruskin's Stones of Venice describes Gothic architecture as the best architecture because it is the closest to nature.

So it sounds like writing, speeches, teaching, other forms of communication are supposed to elevate individual taste or establish some sort of standard in taste.

So Campbell seems to have a lot of "causal chains," so where are the "bundles of evidence" exactly? I mean, this definitely seems to be moral reasoning, but this looks like more of a chain than a bundle.

Kind of connecting this section with our microresponse prompt. Taste would be rhetorical in that the taste of the audience would determine how an orator would appeal to an audience and how that audience would respond to the orator.

By the way an amazing movie that not enough people saw: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELKsrUssyQE

I don't know what to make of this at this point, or if it is even worthwhile to think about, but it interests me that Campbell describes abstract truth as a "despotic sovereign" and an orator's power as "superior even to what despotism itself can can bestow" (904).

definition: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/prosopopoeia

Well that's intense. And on the next page, with the thunder and lightening, it seems like oratory has even a godlike power. I guess I'm surprised to read this since he was so influenced by Enlightenment thinkers like Locke, and I tend to associate the Enlightenment with democracy and rhetoric in general with democracy, but at the same time, the idea of words and knowledge as power and the importance of rhetoric for leaders is also a huge thing. So I wonder to what extent Campbell's view of rhetoric was present, not just during the Enlightenment but throughout its history? Has there always been a tension between this "irresistible power" and democracy in terms of rhetoric?

https://hyp.is/XeUeBuTfEeaKpDORRUFMww/thefunambulist.net/architectural-projects/the-funambulist-papers-55-norm-measure-of-all-things-by-sofia-lemos

I linked LoLo's earlier annotation and my comment since my comment would've actually been more relevant at this point in the article.

From what I remember in History of English Language, language has been defined more broadly since Sheridan's day, if language was really strictly defined to words. I think language is now considered as a system of intentional, conventional signs. Unfortunately, animals and the "melancholy mournings of the turtle" (shoutout to kpolizzi and gilmanhernandez) are not considered language within this definition. This reading and the definition of language from the HOEL textbook by Algeo both heavily emphasized oral-aural communication, so I'm curious about the deaf community's perspective on language. Also I was definitely not expecting to bring up disability as much as I have been; I can try to limit my annotations on that subject.

Her ideas that "nature is the best teacher of eloquence" and rules only help a little is tricky. It seems that Astell is proclaiming that there are natural characteristics which make women effective rhetorically, but women must also follow rules in order to adhere to their nature and speak eloquently?

People today talk as though "feminist" has a simple definition (belief in the equality of men and women), but I think Astell challenges this notion; it's hard not to consider her a feminist considering her work, but at the same time her conservative values are certainly antithetical to feminism. I think this suggests how definitions of words, such as feminist, not only change over time, but also change when we start applying them to figures from different points of history; she certainly wouldn't be considered feminist today.

For Hume, taste and judgement rely on the senses, and the practice to perfect the senses, to develop a "delicacy of taste." I think it's hard not to agree with this, but how does disability fit in with this? Illness comes up A LOT in this piece, even in calling art that has some sort of problem deformed or defective. But how can understandings of delicate taste and judgement incorporate people with varying degrees of sight, hearing, taste, smell--people who surely have a "delicacy of imagination" but encounter art differently?

Locke pg. 823: "White and sweet . . . carry a very obvious meaning with them, which every one precisely comprehends." So for Locke, the word sweetness is not a mixed mode, but a word likely understood by the listener/reader. But Hume is talking about sweetness as a subjective sense perception, not a simple idea, and perhaps this suggests that the word sweetness, and other so-called simple ideas, is not necessarily obvious? But I am curious when Locke discusses simple modes and simple ideas if he would still agree that something like sweetness is understood clearly in civil usage, but perhaps not in philosophical usage? In that case, the word sweetness would not be used as a term to express an "undoubted truth" and perhaps that makes it a little bit closer to what Hume is saying here.

Though "standard" English is still important, it seems that there was more anxiety about standardization and prescriptive language/grammar during the Enlightenment than there is now. What accounts for this concern? Does it have anything to do with expansion in education, or leaning more towards the vernacular in school?

From what I've read so far, it seems that for Locke improvement in language means that language would more accurately convey knowledge. But I also wonder about how language changes over time. Language has certainly changed over time; for example, there are many new terms because of computer technology and social media. Language changes because of cultural/technological context, but it seems that no amount of change in language can remove language's distance from reality (language represents ideas which represent the essence of things).

What exactly is Foucault's connection with modernism? Because this process seems like the antithesis of modernism; thought there isn't a single, uniform truth, it seems less skeptical of truth--there is an acknowledgement that there is truth out there. And there's this idea that be reading all these things and writing about them, you'll create a whole, a body, "tissue and blood." This differs from the fragmentation and skepticism of truth in modernism. I can see Foucault's social construction in here, but it seems more positive, not panopticism. Been a while since I've read other Foucault, so I'm not sure how much this is making sense.

I've heard of writing being used as a way to get to the truth, but not as a way of transforming truth, so this is an interesting twist.

This sounds super Jesuit: intense training, bettering the self, process

I wonder to some extent if it might be good to start out super basic and not to delve into deep, philosophical questions but to just begin with a basic definition of rhetoric as understanding how communication works and how language is used to persuade and appeal to an audience and just go from there. The main reason I say this is because it seems to some extent everyone is working from this basic definition. Everything we're reading this week seems to operate from this definition anyway. All of the different definitions in the first sentence of the introduction to The Rhetorical Tradition are basically more specific variations of this general definition. This agreement on a basic definition is not to deny the really fascinating difficulties within rhetoric and some of the questions about language (or even about what language is), thought and action but to give an answer to your friend at the bar or your parent about what the hell you are doing with your life in this rhetoric class: you're learning about communication, language and persuasion, which is basically everywhere and a huge part of our daily lives and of history and of multiple disciplines.

Isn't that straight-up Derrida?

It's interesting how this piece explores universality as well as context. There's a difficulty in determining biological universality, and it can result in misunderstandings and overgeneralizations, so awareness of the context, such as the location of these caves and their physical environments and shamanistic practices, proves important in understanding "pre-rhetoric." But I also think that there's a breaking down of the binary of science and art by using understandings of human biology and the physical environment of these caves in order to interpret the drawings.

I like how this phrase is used to describe Paleolithic caves; this challenges the separation between nature and technology.

It seems really provocative to study rhetoric before ancient Greece; it's certainly something I had never heard of, not that that is saying much. Also, I've only encountered materiality and rhetoric in regards to modern technology, so it's really interesting to trace this back waaaay before computers and even books. It's also interesting that this is a time when there wasn't a written, standard language. Other articles for this week discussed delivery and body language, but uses of some sort of standard language was always a focus, so going all the way back to the Paleolithic really stretches the boundaries of rhetoric in an exciting way.

Toni Morrison writes about this in Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination, which is about how white authors have depicted blackness, including the sources of negative imagery of black people and how they have affected the "literary imagination."

How exactly was memory so powerful for Plato? This seems to be one of the biggest shifts from ancient rhetoric to modern rhetoric. In academia and rhetoric, it seems that memory isn't considered access to higher knowledge but more of a roadblock, just parroting other ideas rather than becoming truly innovative and a critical thinker.

Oh. . .I though arrangement was part of logos?

It's interesting that rhetoric started as this practical system for ancient Greek society, but then comes Bloom and other people Lanham talks about whose interpretation of humanism, rhetoric and the university is super apolitical, with the humanities in the university separate from society.

I thought this was a good piece to start the semester with. Not to oversimplify this chapter, but in a way, it was kind of like an annotative process. It's taking a large scope of writings and responding to/interacting with/comparing them. The annotations is sort of a smaller, beginning stage in interacting with texts in order to sort of trace what rhetoric is.

I am curious if in some ways this piece is a little outdated (I think it was published in 93?). Does the university view humanities/humanism in this way? But mostly, the piece refers a lot to separation of the disciplines and separation of rhetoric and action, and I wonder if that has changed recently. For example, WGS departments are on the rise, and they often discuss the world outside of academia or even have an activism/volunteer component to their courses, and of course they are very interdisciplinary. I'm just curious what a super recent response to this piece would look like in light of how interdisciplinary the humanities are.

I'm surprised the term "praxis" never came up in this piece. I haven't done much research on this term and its origin and usage (though I might return to do that), but its basically an ancient Greek term which means enacting ideas. I wonder if writings on praxis, both old and new, could somehow contribute to the Q question, since the Q question, for Lanham, also involves mixing thought and action and challenging the Ramist agenda.