Rhetorical Inventions/Inventional Rhetorics: Opening Possibilities

This work seeks to open possibilities for rhetorical invention, or perhaps more accurately, to indicate how changes in technology (and the essences of technology) are opening radical possibilities not just for rhetorical invention but also for how we speak, how we think, or even how we live in our worlds. It traces shifts in rhetorical invention: beginning from primary oral cultures, which made linkages via a process of \u27AND\u27 or divine inspiration, represented by the +, to literate cultures (or print-cultures), which predominantly invent via analogy and discovery, represented by the =, and to electronic cultures, which revel in the avant-garde art technique of juxtaposition as inventive strategy, represented by the /. Working then with this / as guiding inventional strategy, and turning to Gregory L. Ulmer\u27s conductive logic, puncepts, and choragraphy as / possibilities, this work attempts to re-envision classical rhetoric concepts logos, ethos, and pathos in order to open new considerations and complexities for rhetoric (and for the university) as we move out of 19th century academic traditions (print-culture dissertation) and unfold into the 21st century possibilities (electronic-culture multimedia dissertation). More specifically, using the / as inventional process, and working with Ulmer\u27s corpus, this work attempts to open radical possibilities for rhetorical invention by seeking to move it out of restrictive economies that limit inventive potential and into more generative (general) economies of possibilities. In doing so, it opens the conversation to issues of absence and \u27absencing\u27 (in counter-distinction to Martin Heidegger\u27s notions of presencing), to unstable electrate schizo-nomadic \u27sub/ject\u27 possibilities (which become generative, in nomadic/tourism fashion), and to the catastrophic (introducing radical possibilities for restrictive economies). Additionally, what this work does, aside from reconstituting rhetorical invention as a mix of Ulmer\u27s conductive logic, Lyotard\u27s paralogy, and Leibniz-Borges-Deleuze\u27s vice-diction, is that it works with an inventive methodology. This print-culture product sits on one side of the slash, and an/other, an alternative, rendered in the electronic assemblage platform Sophie2, sits on the other side of the slash. In their juxtaposition, this dissertation and its digital/electronic other, they perform the very possibilities of rhetorical invention being critically offered in this work

Inventing Network Composition: Mobilizing Rhetorical Invention and Social Media for Digital Pedagogy

Inventing Network Composition: Mobilizing Rhetorical Invention and Social Media for Digital Pedagogy investigates how students learn through writing and invention in digital social networks. Pursuing a primary research question of How do student composers invent within networked social media environments?, the dissertation examines how social media and digital writing tools can help students to learn, connect, and share generatively. The core theoretical contribution that this dissertation offers is a theory of network composition, which is a mode of invention that composers engage in social media environments that is intensely social, that is structured by a digital interface, that is interactive and participatory, and that incorporates linguistic, visual, sonic, and other multimodal communication forms. Network composition manifests most notably in network composition pedagogy, which organically locates the work of composing, as well as the disciplinary work of rhetoric and composition, within networked social media environments. This dissertation revisits and updates disciplinary exigencies related to rhetorical invention in digital networks, social media use in the writing classroom, and digital participation as a mode for learning. The dissertation offers an updated approach to invention called network-emergent rhetorical invention that approaches invention as a distributed emergence arising from a network of actants that includes humans, hardware, technologies, interfaces, communities, cultures, software, and infrastructures. It also features an IRB-approved qualitative case study that finds social media to support learning ecology formation, distributed expertise, rhetorical invention, digital and social media literacy development, rhetoric and writing skills formation, and digital citizenship activities. The dissertation additionally examines challenges for social media use in the writing classroom, considering how accessibility, digital aggression, digital discrimination, and data/privacy challenges can and should be navigated. The dissertation closes by speculating about futures for network composition and considering what is at stake for the future of learning, interaction, and participation in digital networks

The Rhetoric and Philosophy of Early American Discourse 1767-1801: Toward a Theory of Common Sense

What are the rhetorical and philosophical implications of common sense in colonial America during the time immediately preceding, during, and following the American Revolution? A study of seminal texts from the Classical era, the Enlightenment, and the American Revolution will reveal the uses of common sense as rhetorical invention in each historical period. This study will also identify the various philosophies of common sense at play in the second half of the 18th century in order to better understand their influence upon the construction of early American rhetoric. While segments of postmodern rhetorical theories challenge or reject the presuppositions of common sense philosophy, this study will investigate ways in which rhetoric divorced from the resources of common sense places the prospect for rhetorical invention at risk. By investigating various philosophies of common sense articulated and acted upon by Americans during the Revolutionary era, I will explore the viability of common sense approaches to contemporary notions of rhetorical invention. These principles, from the Classical and Enlightenment common sense traditions, are cultivated from a common sense philosophy that is grounded in Aristotelian and Enlightenment scholarship. Such scholarship assumes specific first principles of common sense that create a forum for multiple and interrelated common senses

Convergent invention in space and place: a rhetorical and empirical analysis of Colorado State University's Morgan Library

2014 Summer.Includes bibliographical references.This thesis seeks to describe the ways in which contemporary academic library spaces facilitate rhetorical invention. To observe rhetorical invention in a real space, this thesis analyzes spatial practices in Colorado State University's Morgan Library. This thesis argues that Morgan Library is a representative space of convergent invention. The neologism convergent invention is defined as the cross-platform and multi-modal creation of a rhetorical text which accounts for external factors on the creator(s). To describe the functions of the contemporary library, this thesis uses Michel de Certeau's theories of strategies and tactics to articulate usage patterns. Strategies are analyzed through a rhetorical criticism of Morgan Library to show how the library materially articulates its vision of convergent invention. Users' tactics to accept or reject Morgan Library's messages about convergent invention are explicated through the results of survey data and behavior observations. In the conclusion this thesis provides some implications for convergent invention and the future of libraries, both academic and otherwise

Rhetorical Invention, Leadership, And Dialogue: Dorothy Day\u27s Extemporaneous Encounters

Dorothy Day, the co-founder and pragmatic leader of The Catholic Worker Movement, delivered extemporaneous speeches from the inception of the movement in 1933 until her death in 1980. Selected digitized, archival copies of her public discourse are analyzed for the first time through a newly developed framework for rhetorical communication and leadership entitledEncounter Rhetoric. A hybrid model synthesizing the theory of invitational rhetoric, transformational leadership theory, and social movement theory is developed and employed to conduct a critical analysis of 17 speeches delivered by Day between 1958 and 1975. This analysis reveals the rhetorical strategies employed by Day as a social movement leader. The framework is comprised of five constructs: (1.) principled persuasion as an ethical means to communicate and to lead, (2.) unconditional regard for the value of process, mutuality, and voice, (3.) tentativeness in understanding and concluding, (4.) acknowledgment of paradox in perceptions and conditions, and (5.) collaborative action. These constructs inform Dorothy Day\u27s charismatic eloquence and leadership. Even as a self-admitted apprehensive speaker, Dorothy Day\u27s public discourse reveals The Catholic Worker Movement\u27s communication strategy as well as a discernible format for extemporaneous dialogical exchange. As an analytical framework and as a rubric for communication practitioners and leaders in other settings, encounter rhetoric is offered as a means for dismantling binary positions and potentially providing relief to otherwise marginalized voices and communities. In addition, the potential relevance of the framework is considered in relation to new and social media, including reflections upon those parties unwilling or unable to respectfully or safely engage in encounters of mutual regard. The usefulness of encounter rhetoric may be further considered as a tool for analyzing the rhetorical acumen of communicators as leaders and leaders as communicators, especially those orators, reluctant or charismatic, who traditionally have not been included as subjects for study in academic scholarship

A Rhetorical Analysis of Opening Statements in Trial: Reconsidering the Classical Canon of Invention

This analysis of 21 opening statements probes at current persuasive practices employed by trial attorneys through the lens of mainstream legal advice and an expanded definition of rhetorical invention – one which includes both discovery and creation. An evaluation of such practice reveals the utility, and furthermore the duty of the advocate, to draw upon an expanded realm of available arguments

The Ethics of Ambiguity in Quintilian

In a list of twelve stylistic and grammatical errors of oratory, the fourth-century grammarian Donatus includes the fault of amphibolia, a transliteration of a Greek word that Donatus further defines as an ambiguitas dictionis. This understanding of ambiguitas dictionis as a flaw in composition is unique neither to the texts of late antiquity nor to technical grammatical treatises, and one can find ample cautioning against it in pedagogical texts both before and after Donatus. In his first-century Institutio Oratoria, for instance, Quintilian similarly cautions against writing ambiguous language and encourages his students to compose lucid and straightforward Latin, particularly in regard to syntax

Looking Outward: Archival Research as Community Engagement

This article examines archival research as a generative community literacy practice. Through the example of a community-based project centered on archival research, I examine the increased possibility the archives hold as a site for rhetorical invention based on collaboration that includes contemporary community members and the recovered rhetoric of historical figures. I argue that archival research as community literacy practice creates conditions for a communal form of literacy sponsorship and offer a framework for approaching the archives