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last.updated 11.4.07

Postmodern Rhetoric

Purpose

Modernism and Postmodernism, as schools of thought, justify different approaches to the teaching of writing. Thus far, we have mostly focused on modernistic notions of language and writing; for the rest of the semester, we will explore postmodern notions. To begin this turn, we will examine the differences between the schools of thought and how they affect the teaching of writing.

Before Class

• Read Lyotard, Chapters 4-9 in The Postmodern Condition [BB]
• Read Deleuze & Guattari "The Civilized Capitalist Machine" & "Oedipus at Last" [BB]
• Read Faigley, "Introduction" [BB]
• Read Rickert, "'Hands Up, You're Free'" [BB]
• Submit Pedagogical Analysis

FreeWrite

Map the process that you would use to develop a pedagogical practice from a rhetorical theory. In short, what steps should a practitioner take?

Questions and Discussion (by Tiffani Bryant)

What are the differences between modernsim and postmodernism? (by k.e.d.)

Faigley (1992) discussed Ihab Hassan’s first seven oppositions between modernism and post modernism, stating, “Except for the last opposition, the conception of a ‘good’ student text lines up squarely on the side of modernism” (p. 14). As freshman composition instructors, what qualities do you value in your students’ writing as it relates to your adopted pedagogy?

“To every man, to every woman, the universe is just a setting to the absolute little picture of himself, herself… A Kodak snap, in a universal film of snaps” (Deleuze and Guattari, 1983). How do the narratives discussed by Lyotard (1984) in which, “people are only that which actualizes the narratives” (p. 23), interact with the Oedipal subject?

“Cynicism is the direct response to the pervasiveness of media culture and the de-legitimization of knowledge and power. A reluctance to complete any assignment not tied to a grade, the relativist slogan ‘it’s just your opinion,’ and a distrust of teachers and schools are commonplace” (Rickert, 2001, p. 2). For the most part Generation Xers (born between 1961 and 1981) are no longer the students seething with cynicism and violence in the writing classroom. A new generation has taken their place. What attributes do current freshman composition students exhibit? What mass generalizations can be made about the generation they are members of? And are students still inherently distrustful of teachers and school, or has this distrust focused itself on entities such as the government and the media?

In arguing for a possible connection between critical pedagogies and violence, Lynn Worsham stated, “If it can be said to be a pedagogy, then postmodernism is a wild pedagogy; the subject it educates, a wild subject. As such, it inculcates a kind of ultimate estrangement or dissolution from the structures that traditionally have supported both self and world.” (Rickert, 2001, p. 12). Worsham recognizes the emergence of progressive social movements such as feminism, civil rights, environmentalism and gay rights, but believes the estrangement from traditional structures has resulted in a bored and apathetic subject, “who feels its power only in feeling too much or in feeling for the sake of feeling, in the absence of the possibility of anything more significant.” Is there credence to this theory as related to the modern day freshman composition student?

Thomas Rickert (2001) wrote, “Ultimately, writing the ‘act’—or pedagogy that would create the conditions of possibility for the ‘acts’—must abandon the drive for explanations that would control and codify what happens and what is written, and abandon that attendant faith that is paced in those explanations. Where the ‘act’ comes from, or where it leads, can only be a transvaluation to the extent that it is understood as a moment.” If it is the event that matters if only for a moment, what is the purpose of writing about an event or moment if not to seek some sort of understanding of that event or moment?

*Note: I numbered the pages of the Deleuze & Guattari and Rickert articles beginning with page number 1.