Agonism in Display
notes on academic agonism from Mike Rose
I have one more thing to say about the kind of critique I tried to fashion [in Possible Lives]. Academic training is agonistic; graduate study instills in us the penchant for critique, and the disciplinary tools to do it. More generally, Western intellectual life is energized by attack and counterattack — just read the letters [...]
debate competitions changing…
This LA Times article is quite interesting. Jim at Blogora asks if this new debate is a good or bad thing. I might say both, but I’m going to lean towards good.
Here’s an excerpt from the article:
In recent years, renegade rhetoricians from Cal State Fullerton and other underdog schools have clobbered debate kingpins from Harvard [...]
Graff’s discussion of Tannen
I’m borrowing Clueless in Academe: How Schooling Obscures the Life of the Mind by Gerald Graff, from Sara Jameson, who recommended that I read Chapter 4: “Two Cheers for the Argument Culture.”
In this chapter, Graff discusses Deborah Tannen’s book The Argument Culture: Moving from Debate to Dialogue, a book in which Tannen argues that we [...]
thesis “proposal” for MAWG
Cross-posted on MAWG:
Polemics and Irenics in Argument – it’s a start?
In her essay “The Womanization of Rhetoric,“ Sally Miller Gearhart writes that she believes “that any intent to persuade is an act of violence“ because the persuader has an intention of changing someone (53), and proposes that instead we should “forsake all this and think [...]
contest needs an adjective
I’m having trouble because I can’t come up with an adjective for the nominal contest. I’d really like contestive or contestant, but the dictionary says the former does not exist and the latter exists merely as a noun. Suggestions?
Polemics
In a previous post I wrote (while reading Ong’s book):
Huizingo states, “All knowledge—and this includes philosophy—is polemical by nature.“ (45)
I wonder if this last fact is true. I agree that all knowledge is socially constructed, but is it, according to dictionary.com, “Of or relating to a controversy, argument, or refutation“? That’s an interesting question. I [...]
word of the day - irenic
I never knew what irenic meant until yesterday. According to dictionary.com, it means “Promoting peace; conciliatory.” If I recall Walter Ong right, he’s concerned that our culture is becoming too irenic. That is, we are too concerned with being conciliatory. This also reminds me of Lance Olsen’s book Girl Imagined by Chance, in which the [...]
conversations with Sara
Conversations with Sara Jameson are always nice to have. We talked about agonism in display, or more to the point, what is argument? Is argument good? Is argument always agonistic? We talked about the necessity of conflict in society. When I first came to grad school, I was a very anti-conflict person. Now, I embrace [...]
from Enos’s Encyclopedia
Reynolds, John Frederick. “Delivery.” Ed. Theresa Enos. Encyclopedia of Rhetoric and Composition: Communication from Ancient Times to the Information Age. New York: Garland, 1996. 172-173.
Reynolds writes:
Delivery, however, is the more readily revived of rhetoric’s two “problem canons,” both theoretically and practically. In composition studies, especially with the advent of word processing and desktop publishing technologies, [...]
quotes and my thoughts on Ong’s “Contest and Other Adversatives”
Here are some quotes and some of my thoughts as I read Chapter 1 of Fighting for Life by Walter Ong.
“The biological side of our nature is nothing to be ashamed of.” (10)
“Contest is a part of human life everywhere that human life is found. In war and in games, in work and in play, [...]
