Notes on Method, Questions Toward Synthesis

Shaped by the terministic screen of graduate coursework in rhetoric and composition, it never occurred to me that we’d be asked to create a geographic map. Already having been a visio-spatial thinker before grad school, concept mapping has become an integral process of my thinking and a tool I incorporate into my composition classes. As such, the geographic elements of our map were understated when compared to the conceptual work that Ashley and I did. In our concept mapping, we thought about our readings thus far in terms of two different philosophies of global rhetoric, the historical and the comparative. As I said in class last night, these categories were somewhat arbitrary, but at least premised on the overarching approaches Dr. Graban mentioned in our first meeting. While the divisions seemed neat on our map, I indicated that I could see how these divisions might start to break down if we pushed some readings too hard in one direction or the other. I’d like to begin by quickly talking through how we placed the readings where we did, and then break down those categories to show how Lyon is working within a space between the comparative and historical approach to global rhetoric, and doing it in such a way that I find the most productive of our readings thus far.

When dividing articles across the lines of historical vs. comparative, my own rationale had to do with both the authors’ approach to their subject material and the scale at which they were working. For example, we get the sense that in the second half of Kennedy’s book, it is a completely historical approach where we are seeing the evolution of rhetorical strategies as evidenced by the discursive features of cultures. It was hard to follow along with Kennedy, it felt like he was plodding along through the history, allowing small micro-instances of texts accumulate into a macro-level rhetorical theory. But even then, the theory he was building didn’t feel like a theory proper, as much as the features of Greek discourse. Borrowman on the other did offer a re-configuration of Aristotle’s rhetorical theory, but instead of spending time expounding on this theory, focuses more on on the translations of Aristotle and how this contribute to our historical understanding of Aristotle. In what should be no surprise, historical approaches tend to focus on smaller events and contextualize them in larger contexts. I see how these studies matter, but they don’t necessarily float my boat. I’m much more intrigued by understanding and expanding theory, an approach that is somewhat more prominent when we look at the comparative articles.

Mao and Hesford seem to be overtly concerned with big picture ideas, but each have a different set of concerns and take different approaches to how they utilize their evidence. But what they have in common is a goal of comparative rhetoric that allows for cross-cultural communication. For Hesford, that means resisting the urge to retreat into our disciplinary identities and taking globalization head on, recognizing the pedagogical/ethical dilemmas it puts in front of us. Mao asks us to open up the Western tradition—so dependent on definitions—to consider usage in his “ecology of historicity, specificity, and in congruity” (450). Two very different goals here, but two different approaches in supporting those goals. If Mao were my student, I would applaud him for taking on such challenging sources as his evidence, but question the connection between Zhuangzi and facts of non/usage—or lack thereof. I think Dao does offer Western Rhetoric something—I’d even wager a lot—but Mao does little to explicate that offering. On the other hand, I would admonish Hesford for too heavily summarizing. Just as I was plodding along through Kennedy, I felt the same with Hesford; getting bogged down in sources without really seeing explicit synthesis, more of just a nodding to the vague term of “globalization.’ As such, I think these two are moving in the right direction, but they don’t quite take us there. But as I indicated in my opening, all is not lost. While these examples of an historical approach focus on the micro to buld to macro and comparative fails to connect macro to micro, Arabella Lyon succeeds in doing both, precisely because she works between the macro and the micro, the historical and comparative.

We indicated in class that Lyon seems to be taking a much more historiographic approach, one that takes ancient Chinese philosophical texts and first contextualizes them within history, exemplifying Mao’s ecology of specificity and historicity. Lyon claims that in understanding the terms shi and wuwei in history, we contribute to both historical understanding and contemporary rhetorical theory, getting at the goals of both historical and comparative approaches. Working within both historical and contemporary, the historiographic opens up theory in ways that one or the other cannot, as evidenced by Lyon’s approach. She gives us just enough Chinese history to make us dangerous, i.e., enough so that we can understand the contexts in which shi and wuwei appear, offering multiple possible definitions of each term. Of note here is that while giving history, Lyon never becomes plodding; instead, giving us the necessities of history, she moves right into close reading of texts. 

Perhaps I responded so well to this close reading because of the familiarity of the method, but I also believe it was because of what it accomplished. Lyon not only helps us understand the terms, moves from this close reading (micro) to explain how it affects her overarching project (macro). It is this negotiation between the two that makes Lyon’s argument so effective. I only wish she had gone further in showing how Western theory can be enhanced by the two concepts. But that thought leads me to question how I’m approaching Global Rhetorics. Is it appropriate to synthesize East and West, or does it compromise the integrity of each? Or is it more important that we acknowledge how we are situated as we try to negotiate between and pull together threads of rhetorical theory?