Brooke – Forgetting to be (Post)Human: Media and Memory in a Kairotic Age
Brooke, Collin Gifford. “Forgetting to be (Post)Human: Media and Memory in a Kairotic Age.” JAC 20 4 (2000). 775-95. Print. Brooke begins the article by pointing out how postmodernism has eroded the hermeneutic depth of the modern episteme at the expense of passionate attachment; in other words, now that the unified, universal modernist subject is dead postmodernism offered nothing in its place. . . just a space of critique (775). Brooke... Read More
Ettlich – Theories of Invention in Late 19th Century American Rhetoric
Ettlich, Ernest Earl. “Theories of Invention in Late Nineteenth Century American Rhetoric.” Western Speech Journal 30 (1966): 233-241. E. notes that the topic of rhetorical invention has long been problematic/contested. E. observes that Ramus’ revision of the liberal arts curriculum during the 1500s was the most serious challenge to rhetorical invention (classically conceived) before the 19th century. Ramus assumed that invention... Read More
Rhetorica ad Herennium
Pseudo-Ciceronian Rhetorica ad Herenium (paginations are from the Harry Caplan/Harvard UP edition 1964). The text dates from sometime in the 90s BCE. The piece is one of the first to explain a Latin system of style; further, it was also responsible for the codification of argument into a standard format consisting of exordium (like the ‘hook’ – this section of the argument grabs the writers attention and connects them to a specific topic),... Read More
Williams and Enos – Vico’s Triangular Invention
Williams, Mark T. and Theresa Enos. “Vico’s Triangular Invention.” Atwill, Janet, and Janice M. Lauer. Perspectives on Rhetorical Invention. 1st ed. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2002. The rhetorical situation has long been conceived of in spatial terms – as triangles, fields, waves, planes, webs, pentads, pyramids, and maps. Despite the influence of empirical philosophy in the 18th century, Giambattista Vico’s work on rhetoric... Read More
CCR760 – CMS in Technical Communication – Just Notes
Technical Communication Quarterly 17(1) 2008 “Guest Editors’ Introduction: Rationalizing and Rhetoricizing Content Management” by George Pullman and Baotong Gu The authors argue that we’ve been practicing CM for years through work like single sourcing, knowledge management and course management (Blackboard, etc.) This issue is an attempt to move technical communication from the static sphere of document design to the dynamic horizon of... Read More
