Comparative Rhetoric from the Perspective of the West

Dear Class,

I tried - I really did - to "map global rhetorics." I loved the description of these exploratories as "playing," and I wanted nothing more than to "play." But, like Meghan, my mind does not work best conceptualizing spatially and this fact turned this exploratory into, really, a very difficult task.

I initially attempted to rely on our readings for ideas of how to map "global rhetorics" - and I couldn't. I parsed through Kennedy's chapter in Comparative Rhetoric on rhetoric in Greece and Rome, intently noting that the development of metaphor seemed to lag a bit in Greece, whereas in the Chinese Book of Songs and the Vedic hymns in India, metaphor dominated. (Kennedy, "Metaphor in Greek Literature"). I didn't only want to map differences in the development of rhetoric across the world; I also wanted to map similarities, and took special note of Hesiod's Works and Days in Greece and how it could be viewed as a counterpart to the "wisdom literature" in Egypt and the Near East. (Kennedy, "Rhetoric in Hesiod's Works and Days").

But I kept plotting points which I differentiated by color because one geographic area might have a rhetorical similarity like the use of metaphor to another country, but, on the next page, I would find another work in that geographic area which avoided the use of metaphor.

Then I started reading Borrowman's Recovering the Arabic Aristotle, and I began questioning: do any sorts of patterns actually exist in rhetoric globally or across cultures? Am I forcing these patterns to fit my perspective? Am I focusing only on one aspect of rhetoric to the detriment of other aspects because that is how I have learned is the "correct" way to organize and compartmentalize? Is there a way for me to compare rhetorics across the world without compartmentalizing in this way that I've learned to compartmentalize - in other words, without comparing everything from my standpoint?

When comparing across cultures, am I ignoring the seventh and eighth books? (Borrowman 105). In my conscious efforts to compare and contrast my own rhetoric with those around the world, am I silencing the indigenous voices I wish to encourage? (Smith 21). Is it truly possible for rhetoric to "transform dominant rhetorical traditions and paradigms," to "challenge the prevailing power imbalances and patterns of knowledge production?" (Mao 448).

Without a clear understanding from the reading of how these emerging rhetorics might have affected one another, I did not feel comfortable "mapping" those trends - in fact, I could not even begin to comprehend what those trends were, or if there even were trends in the first place.

Thus, I resorted with Meghan to a more literal map of the location of opportunities to study global rhetoric. And this. Was. Hard.

I mean, as I noted in class, there really are NOT that many opportunities outside of the United States to study global rhetorics (unless, of course, I'm searching under some incorrect terminology). I literally could find very few programs studying rhetoric, much less rhetoric with a global slant.

As possible to see from our map, a majority of non-U.S. study of global rhetorics is centered in Europe. Spain, France, Poland, Italy. There are a few sites in Mexico, one in Thailand, one in South Korea. But, truly, a majority of the programs are centered in Europe, where Western classical rhetoric dominates.

Add this to the research Meghan did which brought to my attention the Peace Corps Master's International program in Rhetoric, Theory, and Culture at Michigan Tech. That program teaches Corps members "how to share language skills and health information with the people who need them most," and offers four concentrations - Secondary English Teaching, Secondary English Teacher Training, University English Teaching, and Health Extension (http://www.mtu.edu/peacecorps/programs/rtc/).

Look at all the little red squares which represent where Peace Corps members are sent after gaining this training. A majority of these sites are in Africa and South America, with a splattering in Eastern Europe and more remote areas like Papua New Guinea.

Interesting how this is all a circle then, isn't it? The Western institutions teach rhetoric and then send students to the areas which, in Westerners minds, have been known as homes to the more "primitive." (Smith 25). I believe my thoughts were more eloquently stated by Smith: "There is also, amongst indigenous academics, the sneaking suspicion that the fashion of post-colonialism has become a strategy for reinscribing or reauthorizing the privileges of non-indigenous academics because the field of post-colonial' discourse has been defined in ways which can still leave out indigenous peoples, our ways of knowing and our current concerns." (Smith 25).

Like Smith, I am concerned that the field of global rhetorics, with its well-meant intentions, might actually just be contributing to imperialism and colonialism because how can scholars look past their own viewpoints when comparing another culture's rhetoric with their own? (I believe Mikaela also asked this question in her response as well). 

As noted by Sean, "A language of similarity does not access what lies beyond similitude. That is, by using a method focused on similar linguistic terms, rhetoricians are limited in what they see and remain too mired in the presence and absence of Western concepts." (Lyon 177).