Exploratory #1: Mapping "Global Rhetorics"
Part I (Map) due to Canvas by 1/19 (beginning of class)
Part II (Critical Blog Post Reflection) due on course blog by 1/21 (3:35 p.m.)
For your first Exploratory, I’ll ask you to work in small teams to produce a map reflecting what it means—at this early stage—to “do global rhetorics.” I’m going to suggest that you work with a simple mapping program, especially if you haven’t done anything like this before, so Google Maps is fine, although you are also welcome to do this using physical materials as well (e.g., paperboard, posterboard, etc.).
I will arbitrarily suggest the following work teams:
- Sean, Andrew, Mikaela
- Meghan, Stephanie
- Travis, Ashley
Populating Your Map
You have many options for populating this map, especially given that there are many ways of thinking about global rhetoric, i.e., by region, by text, by theorist, by cultural group, by geopolitical space, by trend. So that you don’t feel as if you’re grasping at straws, I’m going to ask you to use this week’s and next week’s readings as a starting point for deciding what kinds of coordinates you want to map and how. In other words, you’ll need a reason for why you want to map things this way, and our course readings can give you some concrete ideas if you feel as if the possibilities are too vast.
Beyond that, there are many options for populating this map:
- searching the web for globally-focused writing or rhetoric programs, not just in the U.S. but abroad. For example, you might find programs in the U.S. that cater to international perspectives and/or offer coursework along those lines, or you might find English composition programs in South Africa or Australia that necessarily cater to a local culture.
- searching Google Books for book titles that reflect global, cross-cultural, or non-western rhetorics, and plotting the geographical or cultural subjects of those books (generally speaking) might fall on the map you have designed it.
- mapping the institutional locations (past and present) of global/comparative/non-western/cross-cultural rhetorical scholars we have begun to discuss or plan to discuss next week.
- or even more .... !
Designing Your Map
You may have multiple layers of data sets, so you'll need to think about how to represent them all on your map, showing relationships or overlap where useful. It may feel like too many schema for a single map; if so, how would you deal with that? How would you arrange, label/tag, color-code, or otherwise include a key to reading this map? Better yet, how could your different data sets actually be put in relationship with each other using some of GMap's tools?
Your considerations may include: arrangement, what kinds of landmarks or points or icons it will contain, what will be its geographic scale or its critical reach (i.e., will it go by region or by nation? Will it cluster feminist perspectives together? Will it map questions or similar perspectives? By methodology? ).
There’s no “wrong” answer here, so don’t worry if those points don’t match any of the coordinates of the map you created. Simply take note of the differences so that you can write about them in the analysis. Plot anything interesting, even if it creates a conflict!
Distributing Your Map
Please upload your completed map to Canvas Assignments (there will be a slot ready by next week). Although you will create it as a team, I'll ask each of you in the group to upload a copy to your Canvas slot.
Critical Blog Post
For your follow-up critical blog post (which you will do individually), please reflect on the mapping assignment and how some aspect of the task illumined/complicated/addressed/extended your reading of our texts for this week.
This critical blog post is somewhat formal, rather than a simple reflection. It should be a minimum of 2-3 well developed paragraphs in length (a couple of screens), and my great desire is to see you engage expertly with both task and texts, at times speaking through or alongside what we read, and speaking with some insight about what we read (citing where necessary and embedding links where relevant). Since your post will be intertextual, I'll ask you to use MLA or Chicago-style parenthetical citations where needed, and to be clear that we know which articles/authors you are referencing.
You will post directly to our course blog, so what you write will become the temporary landing page. Be sure to define terms and unpack assumptions for us, using your posts as occasions to teach. Because the blog is somewhat performative, I'll ask you to title your posts creatively (or insightfully). Feel free to compose your post as a response to someone else’s, if you see an interesting conversation starting on the blog.
This is work, but have fun with it!
-Dr. Graban
