Style is an active and directive pulling?it

rhythm, texture, accent, and intensities that cause

tes through affective dimensions.

ogicViolence and the Schooling of Emotion," Worsham explores "the tightbraid of affect and judgment, socially and historically constructed andbodily lived, through which the symbolic order takes hold of and binds theindividual, in complex and contradictory ways, to the social order and itsstructure of meanings" (216). The

is always more than a handling of fixed forms and units,"writes Williams. "There is a frequent tension between the receiv

y between sensual and signifying effects. Thetwo dimensions exist in proximity to

nonsense

etation and the productions of meaning are never far from visceral, felt experience that doesn't alwayscoincide with meaning. A w

haviro argues that such "cinematic" images initiallyconfront the viewer without mediation, cau

le a "semantologist would not agree toits objective existence," therefore, the obtuse takes on a life almost as areverberation of meaning-full signification (326). The obtuse is not apartfrom meaning, but rather inheres in it as a constant dense reminder of thebody. "[T]he obtuse meaning can be seen as an accent" Barthes writes,"the very form of an emergence, of a fold (a crease even) marking theheavy layer of informations and significations.... [It is] a sort of gashrased of meaning (of desire for meaning)" (327). Such third meanings orobtuse meaning are a kind of reverberation in the gestures of signification. As an accent (the peculiar accent of meaning and mediated discourse), affective intensity shadows, disrupts, and even helps to shapesignification itself. We should therefore note, as Barthes points out, thatsuch an accent "does not even indicate an elsewhere of meaning (anothercontent, added to the obvious meaning); it outplays meaning?subvertsnot the content, but the whole practice of meaning" (328). This senserefuses to properly signify, and it cannot be pulled back into the realm ofinformational meaning and re/cognition. In short, intensities and senseexist in the folds of such communications. No matter how much acommunication signifies, no matter how much it is re/cogniz

eans. Pe

rees of investment and aggregate sensations. In ask

ment which anchors people in particular experiences" (82

The train becomes a route for marks to travelbetween places, entering publics that might not otherwise have encountered the tag

s a duty'" (qurhetorical goal by masteringits strange co

rical self Austin

Getting Up

body is affected by another body as much as it affectsanother body.

as a mutuality between Hanson andthe bodies of her supporters

e first involvedin the writing, which allows for the "call" to get heard in the first place

t is, before tagging becomes a discursive ormediated code for meaning-making, it hits the body. This

n alternative discourse ..." (

cessful in i

are codes tonegotiate, a community with which to respond and communicate, and

g Trimbur'smodel, we might say that tagging (at least this early subway writing)responded to the frustrating limits of inner-city life.

ey 4 wrote back' to the city" (4).

ung person who seems unexceptional in mostcontexts may be a highly regarded 'king' or 'master outlaw' in thewriting world. To

xigencies

fectivity comprises a power of the body that cannot be assimilated tothe habit-driven, associational logic governing perception"

ull

whether it's the ZEPPELINcomposition or an essay for a first-year writing course) as

signifying dimensions of writing, they often fail to account forwriting's experiential aspects. T

erefor

graffiti can perform a number of functions: marking a gang's turf, puttingforth political messages, expressing the individual writer's identity,expressing grief for someone killed or anger at an enemy" (

hese questions recall some familiar rhetorical categories of composition, including writing as context, writing as style, writing as signification

ven the most wayward street writers must "figure outwhat relationship to establish with readers, how to establish this relationship, what voice to use, and what genre" (20).