Preparation for 4/5: Defining Globalization: Symposium on Revisiting "Comparative" Methodologies

Dear All,

As promised, here is a guide to next week's discussion (based on/in RSQ 43.3, 2013, special issue on Comparative Rhetoric):

Reading

• Everyone reads Mao and Swearingen
• Andrew reads Garrett
• Ashley reads Lloyd
• Meghan reads Ashby
• Mikaela reads Ashby
• Sean reads Garrett
• Stephanie reads Lipson
• Travis reads Wang

Preparation

As always, I'll ask you to come to class prepared to speak "on behalf" of each scholar, including what you know -- or can discern -- about:

• the aim (i.e., their main stated claim, as well as what you perceive to the outcome of what they write)
• the evidence (i.e., the key claims or key terms that help to organize the main claim and unfold it, or drive it forward)
• the context in which they write (i.e., audience/readership, time and timeliness)
• and the exigence (i.e., implicit or explicit intertexts pointing to other things they might be writing in response to, or debates they might be reacting to).

In addition, I will ask you to prepare historiographically, and you may remember from our earliest discussions this semester that "historiographic understanding" implies a kind of disciplined investigation of what should raise questions in any given project:

• What kind of history do they tell? What are their sources? What reasons do they give for neglect of the tradition they discuss?
• Who establishes the terms? Should that relationship be reversed? Or changed? How do the terms circulate?
• What standpoints are privileged over others? Are there any representational traps (for us)? What else should we pay attention to?
• Why are you interested in this and in what aspects? What seems too simple? Too complex? Do you find yourself drawn to or repulsed from a particular argument, tradition or cultural overview and why?

And finally, since you will have a good sense of how your particular scholar thinks and works, the final step in preparation asks you to try to speak on their behalf about the work of another:

• for Wang - Lyon (wk 2) and Nordstrom (wk 7)
• for Garrett - Liu/You and Ochieng (wk 5)
• for Ashby - Mao (wk 6) and Young (wk 7)
• for Lipson - Borrowman (wk 2) and Baddar (wk 3)
• for Lloyd - Stroud (wk 3) and Xiao (wk 6)

You may write up the results of this tripartite preparation however you want, so long as you don't mind sharing your results with the class. (I'll arrange to distribute them via Canvas if you send me an electronic copy.) I only ask that you be thorough in your preparation and that you allow yourself sufficient time to read and reflect, so that this does not become a task list for you to check off. In other words, I invite you to prepare this way not to generate a bulleted list of answers, but rather to put yourself in their mindset and begin to articulate the real and necessary tensions between approaches to "comparative" work in rhetoric and composition.  

Looking forward to Tuesday,

-Dr. Graban