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The Conceit of Context

Resituating Domains in Rhetorical Studies

by Charles E. Morris III (Volume editor) Kendall R. Phillips (Volume editor)
©2020 Textbook XII, 370 Pages

Summary

This edited volume features essays derived from presentations delivered at the 15th Biennial Public Address Conference held at Syracuse University in October 2016, as well as additional material. The Conceit of Context explores the often invoked—indeed a central term in the history of rhetorical studies—but less often engaged concept of context. In this volume, we center the notion of context as the site of engagement, critique, and imagination, seeking to deepen the critical and political promise of context in the study of public discourse.

Table Of Contents

  • Cover
  • Title Page
  • Copyright Page
  • About the author
  • About the book
  • This eBook can be cited
  • Table of Contents
  • Acknowledgments
  • 1 Introduction: Situating the Conceit of Context (Charles E. Morris III and Kendall R. Phillips)
  • Part One: Contextual Reconceptualizations
  • 2 Conceits of Context: Diffident Relations (Carole Blair)
  • 3 Context and the Spatial/Temporal Collapse (Lisa A. Flores)
  • 4 Temporal Development and Spatial Emplacement in the Dispositional Whole: The (Con)text of Hillary Clinton’s “Basket of Deplorables” Speech (Leah Ceccarelli)
  • 5 Fragments of Winter, 2015: Fragmentation, Popular Culture, and Making a Murderer (Isaac West)
  • 6 Situating Binge Watching as a Context for Criticism (Daniel C. Brouwer)
  • 7 Finding Time and Space within the Text (Bryan J. McCann)
  • 8 Rhetoric and the Utopian Gesture: Rethinking Context’s Spatio-Temporal Logics (Kelly E. Happe)
  • 9 Black Death and the Limits of the Utopian Gesture (Ersula J. Ore)
  • 10 A Brief History of a Utopian Gesture (Dave Tell)
  • Part Two: Contextual Enculturations
  • 11 “Eloquence” in a Parodic Age (Karrin Vasby Anderson)
  • 12 Constructing the Politics of the Absurd (Jay P. Childers)
  • 13 Parody, Perversion, and the Violence of “Normal” Political Culture (Karma R. Chávez)
  • 14 Borders, Bodies, Buses, and Butterflies: Migration and the Rhetoric of Social Movement (J. David Cisneros)
  • 15 Moving Contexts of Migration Is Beautiful and Undocubus: On Becoming Butterflies and Transnational Entanglements (Phaedra C. Pezzullo)
  • 16 The Butterfly in the Machine (Matthew S. May)
  • 17 Captivated by Shared Judgment: Image Vernacular in South Korea’s 2008 Internet Protests (Jiyeon Kang)
  • 18 Speaking of Images: Rhetorics of Captivation and Technologies of Capture (Claire Sisco King)
  • 19 Translational Rhetoric (Ned O’Gorman)
  • Part Three: Contextual Placements
  • 20 Southern Traditions of (Ms.)Remembering: Place, Purpose, & Personae of Black Freedom Commemoration (Kristan Poirot)
  • 21 Rethinking Commemorative Context: Local and Global Intersections (Mary E. Stuckey)
  • 22 A Cautionary Note on Context, Memory, and the Regulation of Black Womanhood (Antonio de Velasco)
  • 23 A Place Ballet of Resistance (Samantha Senda-Cook)
  • 24 Three Seeds (E. Johanna Hartelius)
  • 25 Rhetorical Field Methods and the Logic of Immersion (Damien Smith Pfister)
  • 26 Dead, Dying & Failing: Violent Mexico in the Context of Transnational U.S. Politics (Sara L. McKinnon)
  • 27 Failing State Rhetoric: Sovereign Neomortality and US Diplomatic Dominance (Annie Hill)
  • 28 Contextualizing State Failure and Necropolitics (Timothy Barney)
  • List of Contributors
  • Index
  • Series index

cover

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Biennial Public Address Conference (15th: 2016: Syracuse

About the author

Charles E. Morris III (PhD, Pennsylvania State University) is a professor in the Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies at Syracuse University. Professor Morris is co-founding editor of QED: A Journal of GLBTQ Worldmaking. His books include Queering Public Address, Remembering the AIDS Quilt, and An Archive of Hope: Harvey Milk’s Speeches and Writings. His essays have appeared in such journals as Quarterly Journal of Speech, Communication & Critical/Cultural Studies, and Rhetoric & Public Affairs.

Kendall R. Phillips (PhD, Pennsylvania State University) is founding co-director of the Lender Center for Social Justice at Syracuse University where he also serves as Professor of Communication and Rhetorical Studies. He is former president of the Rhetoric Society of America and holds visiting appointments at Massey University (NZ) and York St. John University (UK). His books include A Place of Darkness: The Rhetoric of Horror in Early American Cinema, Framing Public Memory, and Projected Fears: Horror Films and American Culture. His essays have appeared in such journals as Philosophy & Rhetoric, Quarterly Journal of Speech, and Critical Studies in Media Communication.

About the book

This edited volume features essays derived from presentations delivered at the 15th Biennial Public Address Conference held at Syracuse University in October 2016, as well as additional material. The Conceit of Context explores the often invoked—indeed a central term in the history of rhetorical studies—but less often engaged concept of context. In this volume, the authors center the notion of context as the site of engagement, critique, and imagination, seeking to deepen the critical and political promise of context in the study of public discourse.

This eBook can be cited

This edition of the eBook can be cited. To enable this we have marked the start and end of a page. In cases where a word straddles a page break, the marker is placed inside the word at exactly the same position as in the physical book. This means that occasionally a word might be bifurcated by this marker.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

1 Introduction: Situating the Conceit of Context

Charles E. Morris III and Kendall R. Phillips

PART ONE:Contextual Reconceptualizations

2 Conceits of Context: Diffident Relations

Carole Blair

3 Context and the Spatial/Temporal Collapse

Lisa A. Flores

4 Temporal Development and Spatial Emplacement in the Dispositional Whole: The (Con)text of Hillary Clinton’s “Basket of Deplorables” Speech

Leah Ceccarelli

5 Fragments of Winter, 2015: Fragmentation, Popular Culture, and Making a Murderer

Isaac West

6 Situating Binge Watching as a Context for Criticism

Daniel C. Brouwer

7 Finding Time and Space within the Text

Bryan J. McCann

8 Rhetoric and the Utopian Gesture: Rethinking Context’s Spatio-Temporal Logics

Kelly E. Happe

9 Black Death and the Limits of the Utopian Gesture

Ersula J. Ore

10 A Brief History of a Utopian Gesture

Dave Tell

PART TWO:Contextual Enculturations

11 “Eloquence” in a Parodic Age

Karrin Vasby Anderson

12 Constructing the Politics of the Absurd

Jay P. Childers

13 Parody, Perversion, and the Violence of “Normal” Political Culture

Karma R. Chávez

14 Borders, Bodies, Buses, and Butterflies: Migration and the Rhetoric of Social Movement

J. David Cisneros

15 Moving Contexts of Migration Is Beautiful and Undocubus: On Becoming Butterflies and Transnational Entanglements

Phaedra C. Pezzullo

16 The Butterfly in the Machine

Matthew S. May

17 Captivated by Shared Judgment: Image Vernacular in South Korea’s 2008 Internet Protests

Jiyeon Kang

18 Speaking of Images: Rhetorics of Captivation and Technologies of Capture

Claire Sisco King

19 Translational Rhetoric

Ned O’Gorman

PART THREE:Contextual Placements

20 Southern Traditions of (Ms.)Remembering: Place, Purpose, & Personae of Black Freedom Commemoration

Kristan Poirot

21 Rethinking Commemorative Context: Local and Global Intersections

Mary E. Stuckey

22 A Cautionary Note on Context, Memory, and the Regulation of Black Womanhood

Antonio de Velasco

23 A Place Ballet of Resistance

Samantha Senda-Cook

24 Three Seeds

E. Johanna Hartelius

25 Rhetorical Field Methods and the Logic of Immersion

Damien Smith Pfister

26 Dead, Dying & Failing: Violent Mexico in the Context of Transnational U.S. Politics

Sara L. McKinnon

27 Failing State Rhetoric: Sovereign Neomortality and US Diplomatic Dominance

Annie Hill

28 Contextualizing State Failure and Necropolitics

Timothy Barney

List of Contributors

Index

←x | xi→

Acknowledgments

The chapters in this volume were first presented as part of the Seventh Biennial Public Address Conference held at Syracuse University in 2016. The Public Address Conference (PAC) is a rare event in that it is independent of any standing organization and, rather, is an event passed from institution to institution, with each institution empowered to shape it as it sees fit. The opportunity to host the PAC was a unique honor in our lives and both editors are grateful to the long legacy of PAC hosts, especially our friends at Georgia State University who passed it along to us.

Of course, staging an event like PAC requires an enormous amount of effort and resources. We are grateful to the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Syracuse University for providing many of those resources, and to then Dean Ann Clarke for her enthusiastic support. We are also grateful to the Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies and our generous colleagues and graduate students who helped us plan and host the event. While there are numerous individuals who stepped up to provide invaluable support, we especially want to acknowledge Joanne Balduzzi, Sarah Francesconi, Esther Gray, and Dave Williams.

PAC, as with many long-standing institutions, has developed its own set of traditions. Among those is the designation of an honoree, someone whose distinguished career has had a marked impact on the study of public address. For 2016, we honored Dr. Stephen E. Lucas and we are grateful to Dr. Lucas, as well as his family and friends from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, for his inspiration and generosity of spirit. Another tradition of PAC is the important role that plenary session chairs play. While we were not able to include the thoughtful remarks of our session chairs, we offer our appreciation here. Our session chairs were Jason Edward Black, Caitlin Bruce, Danielle ←xi | xii→Endres, Cara Finnegan, Andrew Hansen, Kristen Hoerl, Shawn Parry Giles, Angela Ray, and Lisa Villadsen.

We are grateful to Mary Stuckey and Erika Hendrix for their generous and insightful stewardship of this project at Peter Lang.

Of course, as both the conference organizers and volume editors, we have been the recipients of the great gift of wonderful colleagues and friends at Syracuse University and at other institutions. We are also both deeply grateful for the love and support of our respective partners, Scott Rose and Catherine Thomas, to whom this volume is dedicated.

Finally, we want to note that as we have been in the final phases of moving this volume into publication the interrelated fields of Communication Studies, Rhetorical Studies, and Public Address have been embroiled in a series of difficult and necessary conversations about representation, inclusion, and equity. As we envisioned, planned, and executed this project these issues were always central. We hoped to use our turn at hosting PAC to broaden its community, expand its conversation, and acknowledge the works of scholars who were not historically part of the PAC tradition. This effort was not without its challenges and, so, we are appreciative of the many scholars, especially from marginalized communities, who have been working to challenge the norm of “CommunicationSoWhite” and “RhetoricSoWhite.” Their labor, whether public or private, has been an inspiration to us as we brought this project to its fruition.

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1 Introduction

Situating the Conceit of Context

Charles E. Morris III and Kendall R. Phillips

Context, vital and vexing, is a foundational key term and article of faith in rhetorical studies. We have long puzzled over the paradox of context’s simultaneous omnipresence and elusiveness. Rhetorical critics, public address scholars, and critical/cultural rhetoricians all engage context in their work in ways sometimes explicitly named but often pursued as if its meanings and domains are self-evident, all presumptively making good on a maxim espoused by Kristan Poirot in A Question of Sex: “In short, context matters.”1 Yet, at the same time, we believe it is noteworthy, symptomatic of the puzzle that inspires this volume, that there are no entries for context in the compendious Sourcebook on Rhetoric and Handbook of Rhetorical Studies, nor in the index of The Handbook of Rhetoric and Public Address.2 These mysterious omissions are particularly enticing given that in the pages of that latter volume we find one of the most explicit declarations on the significance of context in the history of the discipline. Kirt Wilson averred, “It is the conceptual category of context that animates both critical practices in public address scholarship and the value of any given study …. context may be the most important conceptual category in public address criticism today.”3

Wilson’s important claim, we believe, is not controversial, one which most in rhetorical studies likely would affirm. Yet we would argue that context has been assumed more than articulated, arguably taken for granted. Doing context is artful rhetorical critical practice that we as a disciplinary community have rarely reflected upon in a sustained way as a theoretical and methodological matter, and equally rare is the performance of contextual labor in a reflexive manner. Twenty years ago, James Jasinski asked questions about context that remain timely and unanswered: “how has context been ←1 | 2→prefigured in critical practice? What tensions, if any, exist in the discipline’s ‘rhetoric of context?’ What alternative modes of contextualization have been repressed and what possibilities for interpretive practice might follow from their recovery? … what ‘hermeneutic burden’ has context carried in rhetorical criticism? How do alterations in a critic’s mode of contextualization alter this hermeneutic burden? What form of contextualization might contribute to the hermeneutic project of ‘thickening’ rhetorical criticism?”4

Although we believe that context deserves the deeper engagement pursued by contributors to this volume, and that the opportunity taken here is kairotic, we certainly are not the first to voice its central relevance to rhetorical criticism. Context, by various names and in diverse iterations and preoccupations, dates to our discipline’s origins and has mattered in its transformative turns. On occasion, scholars have directly engaged context as we have endeavored to come to terms with issues of disciplinary jurisdiction, authority, and best practices as rhetorical critics and historians. We do however want to stake our claim here by marking and addressing what we consider context’s long unfinished work, conceptually and critically. This was the impetus for our theme of the 15th Biennial Public Address Conference, which we hosted at Syracuse University in 2016, and from which this volume and its title derives. In planning this storied symposium, we believed that deeply and productively engaging context in theory and practice required some critical disturbance, to borrow a phrase from Carole Blair, which is why race and gender especially were central to our thinking about those invited to speak and write for this project. These largely unacknowledged contexts of context, as it were, are exigent in rhetorical studies, a premise at the heart of the conference and this volume. We are mindful of Kundai Chirindo’s observation that the challenge for us is “to be reflexive about our own parochialisms and to be willing to suspend our own narrow allegiances to what we have mastered to be sensitive to the ‘means of persuasion’ that may be available in each context in which we work.”5 And to remember that contextualization itself is always rhetorical, created within the critic’s positionality, purview, and purpose, a means of persuasion, a mode of authority.6

By way of corroborating our sense of the necessity of this labor, we conjure memory of a significant conjuncture, a watershed moment, in our disciplinary history. In doing so we specifically note the curiosity of context, enduring and belated. At the inaugural Public Address Conference at the University of Wisconsin in 1988, keynote speaker Martin Medhurst foregrounded textual analysis as one of four key “challenges” relevant to the field’s futurity. “[I];t is in the explication of the rhetorical dynamics of the text that public address scholars are (or ought to be) most expert. …. If we really ←2 | 3→believe in the reading of texts, we must teach it, write it, and publish it. Most importantly, we must demonstrate its significance—historically, critically, conceptually, methodologically—to the scholarly world at large.”7 Context, we would point out, was not one of Medhurst’s chief concerns, even though the conference theme was entitled “Texts in Context.” Medhurst’s innocent omission was perhaps of its time, owing to the longer historical sway of the “great speeches” paradigm in the discipline, and perhaps shaped too by the influence of Michael Leff and his “school” of criticism called close textual analysis, at its apex during the 1980s and 1990s (Leff co-founded the Public Address Conference).8

If Medhurst’s important concerns predominated, others gathered in Madison nevertheless did query the state and stakes of context. In that same opening plenary session, David Zarefsky observed,

[The pluralism of methods and approaches in public address studies] permits a more careful articulation of the relationship between text and context. …. But rhetorical sources are not the only places where one might find theory which guides public address studies. Potent studies can relate to a theory of the situation or of context. …. Theories which presume the constancy of a rhetorical form may be insensitive to the importance of context. …. [W];e need to settle the question of the relationship between history and criticism by reinventing, as it were, the “historical-critical method.”9

Dilip Gaonkar, in his germinal epilogue to the edited volume derived from the conference, entitled “The Oratorical Text: The Enigma of Arrival,” closed with a critical reflection that instigates greater reckoning with the issue of context:

Details

Pages
XII, 370
Year
2020
ISBN (PDF)
9781433173547
ISBN (ePUB)
9781433173554
ISBN (MOBI)
9781433173561
ISBN (Softcover)
9781433173530
ISBN (Hardcover)
9781433173578
DOI
10.3726/b16101
Language
English
Publication date
2020 (September)
Published
New York, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Oxford, Wien, 2020. XII, 370 pp., 8 b/w ill.

Biographical notes

Charles E. Morris III (Volume editor) Kendall R. Phillips (Volume editor)

Charles E. Morris III (PhD, Pennsylvania State University) is a professor in the Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies at Syracuse University. Professor Morris is co-founding editor of QED: A Journal of GLBTQ Worldmaking. His books include Queering Public Address, Remembering the AIDS Quilt, and An Archive of Hope: Harvey Milk’s Speeches and Writings. His essays have appeared in such journals as Quarterly Journal of Speech, Communication & Critical/Cultural Studies, and Rhetoric & Public Affairs. Kendall R. Phillips (PhD, Pennsylvania State University) is founding co-director of the Lender Center for Social Justice at Syracuse University where he also serves as Professor of Communication and Rhetorical Studies. He is former president of the Rhetoric Society of America and holds visiting appointments at Massey University (NZ) and York St. John University (UK). His books include A Place of Darkness: The Rhetoric of Horror in Early American Cinema, Framing Public Memory, and Projected Fears: Horror Films and American Culture. His essays have appeared in such journals as Philosophy & Rhetoric, Quarterly Journal of Speech, and Critical Studies in Media Communication.

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