SHORT CRITICAL DISCUSSION #1 - AGENT/CY
Due
Please remember this SCD is required of everyone.
PURPOSE AND TASK
For this first short critical discussion, I will ask you to put two or more theoretical texts into conversation with each other and with other texts in order to build an argument that is inspired by our Agent/cy paradox. Putting them into conversation requires that you do more than simply comment on them, compare them, dis/agree with them, or formulate an opinion about them. It generally requires that you carefully and expertly synthesize them into a clear, thesis-driven discussion.
Due to the nature of our readings in the first unit of the course, this assignment will seem challenging because you will have to narrow your focus on what is typically understood as a broad topic. At the same time, due to your various experiences within and outside of the EWM major, this assignment may seem simplistic because you are already used to analyzing media for problems of agency, and so you may forget that the assignment wants you to do more than just that.
If it helps, remember that your aim with SCD #1 is three-fold:
- to craft an interesting and coherent argument based on some curiosity, question, or problem that arises from reading a couple of our texts or theorists together;
- to demonstrate a nuanced (even sophisticated) understanding of theorists and their texts; and
- to hone your critical writing skills in the essay format.
PROMPTS
I offer some prompts to help you get started, but please remember that the prompts are just that—suggestions, inspirations, or jumping-off points that will eventually lead you to a more specific realization. That more specific realization (a.k.a., thesis statement) should not simply answer the prompt; it should reflect a discovery that advances your thinking.
- Discuss the role of either individual or community in at least two of the critical texts listed below, using our reference texts to provide necessary background. The terms “individual” and “community” may not appear explicitly in the critical texts you select, so it will be up to you to show evidence of where they are implied, and to demonstrate how they complicate agency. Please use a case as part of your demonstration.
- Discuss what you see as one of the fundamental challenges of agency according to at least two of our critical texts, and apply that challenge to a case from our readings or from outside the class. By “fundamental challenges,” I mean, a specific pair of concepts that you think is responsible for the agent/cy paradox, based on how two of our theorists wrestle with it. I am not asking you simply to discuss the problem of agent/cy in one of our cases. I am asking you to consider how two theorists help us to differentiate between things like author and agent, agency and power, participant and witness, discourse and agency, self and other, etc., and then to demonstrate that difference through a case.
- Imagine that you were booking guests for a trans-historical talk show (anything is possible!) and you wanted two of our critical theorists to appear on your show in order to discuss the various ways that the Agent/cy paradox has influenced a definition of “rhetoric” in their own epistemes. How do their individual projects (e.g., Aristotle’s classification of virtues, Ong’s distant audience, Campbell’s historical agency, etc.) enhance or illuminate each other, intersect or diverge? As you discuss this, feel free to use the reference texts to provide historical and conceptual background so that a 21st-century reader can better understand the intellectual contexts in which these theorists worked.
- If there is one thing that all of these critical authors address, to one extent or another, it is the authorizing of authorship or readership. But what does this involve? Where does authority lie when it comes to critical texts: In Authors, or writers? In the circulation of discourse? In the acts of writing? Or reading? Or interpretation? Using at least two of the critical authors below—and drawing on reference texts or cases as needed—discuss how they might answer (or fail to fully answer) this question of what it means to authorize.
Here are your options for critical texts:
Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics (3-25, 117-141)
Barthes “The Death of the Author” (874-877)
Benhabib “Identity Politics” (1-13)
Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics (3-25, 117-141)
Barthes “The Death of the Author” (874-877)
Benhabib “Identity Politics” (1-13)
Burke “Literature as Equipment for Living” (293-304)
Campbell “Agency: Promiscuous and Protean” (1-14)
Foucault “What Is An Author?” (904-914)
Heilbrun Writing A Woman’s Life (11-24)
Campbell “Agency: Promiscuous and Protean” (1-14)
Foucault “What Is An Author?” (904-914)
Heilbrun Writing A Woman’s Life (11-24)
Ong “The Writer’s Audience Is Always a Fiction” (9-21)
Here are some reference texts you will most likely want to use:
Relevant pages from The Bedford Glossary
Herrick background on “Foucault” (246-252)
Richter background on “Foucault” (1326-1329)
Smith background on “Feminism in the Postmodern World” (337-346)
Your selected introductory essay (by Brummett, Herrick, Kennedy, or Richards)
Here are your options for cases:
Barton “Textual Practices of Erasure” (169-199)
Welling “Ecoporn: On the Limits of Visualizing the Nonhuman” (53-77)
CHNM's September 11 Archive
Stranger than Fiction
a case of your own choosing (as long as you make it available to me)
CHARACTERISTICS AND EVALUATION CRITERIA
This assignment is worth 150 points. Here are some specific criteria I will use to evaluate:
Argument and Thesis
For these assignments, “argument” does not necessarily mean “position” (as in, the traditional pro/con, agree/disagree, good/bad, right/wrong sense of argumentation). It does mean a realization that can only be arrived at through careful synthesis. Your argument should be interesting, worthwhile, and specific. Your argument should be guided by an original and clear thesis statement that represents the discovery, is not simply a summary of the texts’ main purpose or theme, and does not simply state the obvious about the texts you are reading. In other words, your thesis statement should provide us the result of all your thinking and analyzing, rather than just telling us broadly what you hope to think about or analyze, and it should not simply answer the prompt. If your thesis is complex, it may take a few sentences to articulate all of its points. This is perfectly natural.
Textual and Contextual Evidence
You’ll want to develop your argument by drawing heavily on the critical text(s) you have chosen, and you’ll want to use examples accurately and well, using in-text (parenthetical) citations throughout your discussion where needed, especially where you paraphrase concepts. Feel free to use examples drawn from class, but please do not just echo the examples back to me without demonstrating that you can extend them. Rather than just relying on what you think is “common knowledge,” use the reference texts to provide essential background. Please cite specific incidents, images, and other textual details. In a discussion this brief, please try to avoid extensive block quoting!
You’ll want to develop your argument by drawing heavily on the critical text(s) you have chosen, and you’ll want to use examples accurately and well, using in-text (parenthetical) citations throughout your discussion where needed, especially where you paraphrase concepts. Feel free to use examples drawn from class, but please do not just echo the examples back to me without demonstrating that you can extend them. Rather than just relying on what you think is “common knowledge,” use the reference texts to provide essential background. Please cite specific incidents, images, and other textual details. In a discussion this brief, please try to avoid extensive block quoting!
Specificity and Situatedness
Some of our collective goals, as a class, are to learn to argue specifically, to question our own assumptions, and to strike a balance between letting the theorist speak to us and speaking back to the theorist. This means making careful observations, providing context details, and avoiding broad generalizations or vague claims (e.g., “Nowadays, things are much better for women writers,” or “This author completely bashed the United Way!”). It also means finding ways to engage with ideas and texts other than merely reacting to them or merely editorializing about them. Instead, I'm asking you to make situated observations (e.g., “In the kind of standpoint feminism that Seyla Benhabib writes about,” or “Ellen Barton was critical of one of the United Way's campaigns based on its flattening of disability”), and this may seem difficult at first if you've never before been asked to justify your claims in terms of the text.
Some of our collective goals, as a class, are to learn to argue specifically, to question our own assumptions, and to strike a balance between letting the theorist speak to us and speaking back to the theorist. This means making careful observations, providing context details, and avoiding broad generalizations or vague claims (e.g., “Nowadays, things are much better for women writers,” or “This author completely bashed the United Way!”). It also means finding ways to engage with ideas and texts other than merely reacting to them or merely editorializing about them. Instead, I'm asking you to make situated observations (e.g., “In the kind of standpoint feminism that Seyla Benhabib writes about,” or “Ellen Barton was critical of one of the United Way's campaigns based on its flattening of disability”), and this may seem difficult at first if you've never before been asked to justify your claims in terms of the text.
You are writing for a reader (or group of readers) who needs to see that you can carefully handle textual evidence, so be sure to educate them wherever possible by taking the time to define key terms. While I fully expect and fully encourage you to make use of the Oxford English Dictionary, it is not enough to simply justify a claim by saying “According to theOxford English Dictionary …” You are also writing for a reader (or group of readers) who needs to know by the end of your introduction what their investment is in reading. Try hooking your reader(s) with a critical and imaginative beginning, i.e., a sense that you know what you want to say, and not a vague or wandering or philandering opening. Your introduction should help us understand the specific dilemma that prompted you to write.
Organization and Coherence
How you organize your critical discussion should ultimately reflect the argument you want to make. This includes a clear introduction and conclusion, useful transitions, and adequate development of each point. Your thesis may act like a “thread” for your main and supporting points, and each paragraph should be well focused and guided by something like a topic sentence that helps your thesis to unfold.
How you organize your critical discussion should ultimately reflect the argument you want to make. This includes a clear introduction and conclusion, useful transitions, and adequate development of each point. Your thesis may act like a “thread” for your main and supporting points, and each paragraph should be well focused and guided by something like a topic sentence that helps your thesis to unfold.
Language and Style
Your discussion can be confident and still carry a balanced tone, with neutral language and strong sentences. Your use of terms should be thoughtful, even elegant. You should not need to rely on excessive metadiscourse, “I think/feel/believe,” or “In my opinion” statements to carry your argument forward. It should always be clear who is saying what. Try putting dense or complicated language into your own words, and be sure to report names and titles accurately. No patterns of sentence- or paragraph-level error should get in the way of meaning. Spelling and punctuation should be precise.
Your discussion can be confident and still carry a balanced tone, with neutral language and strong sentences. Your use of terms should be thoughtful, even elegant. You should not need to rely on excessive metadiscourse, “I think/feel/believe,” or “In my opinion” statements to carry your argument forward. It should always be clear who is saying what. Try putting dense or complicated language into your own words, and be sure to report names and titles accurately. No patterns of sentence- or paragraph-level error should get in the way of meaning. Spelling and punctuation should be precise.
Discourse Conventions and Formatting
Your title should reflect what you are trying to argue and may even contain layers of meaning. Citation conventions should be accurate. Aim for ~3 pages single-spaced with your “Works Cited” in MLA format. This means that the final draft should be: Word-processed in a legible 11- or 12-point serif font, and formatted to include 1-inch margins. No cover sheet is necessary, but your name, due date, and course information should appear at the top left of the first page. Please create a header or footer with your last name and page number on all remaining pages.
Please feel free to ask questions if any part of the assignment is unclear, or if you become stuck while working through an idea.
Your title should reflect what you are trying to argue and may even contain layers of meaning. Citation conventions should be accurate. Aim for ~3 pages single-spaced with your “Works Cited” in MLA format. This means that the final draft should be: Word-processed in a legible 11- or 12-point serif font, and formatted to include 1-inch margins. No cover sheet is necessary, but your name, due date, and course information should appear at the top left of the first page. Please create a header or footer with your last name and page number on all remaining pages.
Please feel free to ask questions if any part of the assignment is unclear, or if you become stuck while working through an idea.
