Visual Rhetoric

“The Drifting Language of Architectural Accessibility in Victor Hugo’s Notre Dame de Paris.” Disability Studies Quarterly 31:3 (2011): 1–16.

by Essaka Joshua

Winner of the 2011 Tyler Rigg Award for Disability Studies Scholarship in Literature and Literary Analysis.

Buildings often employ visual and spatial rhetorics that both persuade us of their function and determine personal... more Buildings often employ visual and spatial rhetorics that both persuade us of their function and determine personal functionality. Architectural language is a defining feature of disability in Victor Hugo's Notre-Dame de Paris (1831) and a universally accessible language. In emphasizing the synecdochic relationship between gothic buildings and the disabled body, Hugo demonstrates that he is not only a pioneer in urban and architectural semantics, but that he also understands the complex symbolic relationship between architecture and the disabled body. Defining beauty as atypicality, through the gothic aesthetic, Hugo presents Notre Dame Cathedral as a uniquely drifting symbol (with its multiple meanings, its transitional status and its cultural miscegenation) with a revelatory function: it expresses disability as normative.

The RHIZOME Project

by Martin E. Rosenberg

_The RHIZOME Project_ (1988-91; @1991), co-authored with Tom I. Ellis, and created in Hypercard. _RHIZOME_ was a critical thinking hypertext which offered creative as well as rhetorical and logical heuristics for the writing of a range of undergraduate essays. It was available at numerous writing programs in the early 1990's, and several articles were generated to explain its theoretical as well as pedagogical implications. Two other programmers, Stuart Selber, and Johndan Johnson-Eiola, worked briefly on the interface in 1991.

The RHIZOME Project was an experiment in instructional software to use the decision-tree environment of hypertext to... more The RHIZOME Project was an experiment in instructional software to use the decision-tree environment of hypertext to model specific sequential (as in narrative and logic) and non-sequential (as in creative and associative) thought strategies to help students write academic and creative essays. It was available at numerous writing programs in the early 1990's, including U Michigan, UC Berkeley, ASU, University of Illinois and Carnegie Mellon U. Comprised of separate "stacks" each modeling a specific heuristic, these stacks included:
1. Jazzwriting--a non-linear and recursive environment for generating and then exfoliating ideas in response to an automated or self-initiated prompt. Designed with the composing practices of BeBop jazz musicians in mind (improvisation/composition/improvisation), it offered recursive access to strategies for the improvisation of thoughts, and guided students to explore their more formal elaboration according to the rules of rhetoric, which was then linked to another "stack called:
2. Brainstorming--a non-linear, yet also sequential cluster of rhetorical heuristics: "Narrative," "Description," "Definition," "Comparison/Contrast," "Argument,"--each of which consitituted a "stack" which contained a sequence of prompts (often based on challenging heuristics such as Kenneth Burke's Pentad, for Narrative) to help expand the range of implications of ideas generated spontaneously in Jazzwriting. It was also possible to "jump" randomly or deliberately from one to the other of these heuristics, so that five separate threads of thought might be developed from the initial Jazzwriting responses. All five of these stacks then were projected into the next stack:
3. Arguprompt--which guided students through a series of prompts that would generate positions, assumptions, arguments and evidence, objections and replies to those objections, in such a way that each prompt generated a paragraph in sequence. At any point in the process of "inventing" and "arranging" an argument, the user could highlight and then export a particular assertion into another "stack" called:
4. Enthymemes--which would, through the use of dialog boxes, center that assertion into the form of an Enthymeme, which would then prompt the student to respond to a few questions. Answering these additional questions would then trigger the hypertext program to translate the Enthymeme into a formal syllogism; and then offer the opportunity to translate that socratic syllogism into a Toulmin unit of logic, with assumptions and grounds for those assumptions. Furthermore, from Arguprompt, the students could access another stack called:
5. Style--which would offer students exercises to work on semantics, grammar and syntax.
As the student progressed through the sequence of four distinct environments, or worked exclusively with just one of them, the student could export generated text to a word processing program for further engagement with the processes of invention, arrangement and style.

Informed by the specific practices of jazz musicians and composers, the behavior of bifurcating systems in non-equilibrium thermodynamics described by Ilya Prigogine, as well as the non-linear models from philosophy exemplified by the work of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari and their concept of the rhizome, the project was an application of the theories explored in my theoretical dissertation: _Being and Becoming: Physics, Hegemony, Art and the Nomad in the Works of Ezra Pound, Marcel Duchamp, Samuel Beckett, John Cage and Thomas Pynchon_ (1989). This project was followed by an online real-time text-based virtual reality classroom of multiple rooms with functional tools at the Media Lab MOO called _MER's Fungal Palace_ (1996), with which I taught several graduate seminars linked to seminars at other universities (1996-8); and _Chess RHIZOME_, an exploratory hypermedia database to explore the contradictory epistemological implications of the metaphor of chess across all disciplinary formations (1998).

"I Am Not A Sidekick": Femme and Crossplay Doctor Cosplay

by Courtney Stoker

Still drafting. Will be published in Queers Dig Time Lords, edited by Sigrid Ellis. Will be published by Mad Norwegian Press in March 2013.

Discusses the trend of femme and crossplay Doctors in the Doctor Who cosplay community, and suggests that these... more Discusses the trend of femme and crossplay Doctors in the Doctor Who cosplay community, and suggests that these cosplays make several rhetorical moves, including resisting a narrative in which men are heroes and women are sidekicks, destabilizing gender by visually marking femininity and masculinity as performative, and subverting a hierarchy in which things coded as "feminine" are devalued.

About Face: Mapping our Institutional Presence

by Aimee Knight

Co-authored with Martine Courant Rife, Phill Alexander, Les Loncharich, and Dànielle Nicole DeVoss  Computers and Composition 26 (2009) 190–202

In this article, we situate the web sites of technical and professional writing programs as important institutional... more In this article, we situate the web sites of technical and professional writing programs as important institutional spaces that serve as interfaces to particular values, beliefs, and practices. Specifically,we examine theways in which the web sites of United States-based programs craft identity and anchor these programs. We also analyze the ways in which the digital interfaces we create to represent
our work do and don’t mesh with who we are as a field and what we value theoretically and pedagogically.We borrow from the work of James Porter, Patricia Sullivan, Stuart Blythe, Jeff Grabill, and Libby Miles to articulate what we mean by institutional space, and extend their model of institutional critique into digital space. Further, we offer a three-fold framework for analyzing institutional spaces, related to institutional and technological dynamics, issues of agency and representation, and aesthetic dimensions.

Reclaiming Experience: Aesthetics & Multimodal Storytelling

by Aimee Knight

Aimee Knight. Computers and Composition: An International Journal. (2013)

Recent scholarship points to the rhetorical role of the aesthetic in multimodal composition and new media contexts. In... more Recent scholarship points to the rhetorical role of the aesthetic in multimodal composition and new media contexts. In this article, soon to be published in Computers and Composition: An International Journal, I examine the aesthetic as a rhetorical concept in writing studies and imagine the ways in which this concept can be useful to teachers of multimodal composition. My treatment of the concept begins with a return to the ancient Greek aisthetikos (relating to perception by the senses) in order to discuss the aesthetic as a meaningful mode of experience. I then review European conceptions of the aesthetic and finally draw from John Dewey and Bruno Latour to help shape this concept into a pragmatic and useful approach that can compliment multimodal teaching and learning. The empirical approach I construct adds to an understanding of aesthetic experience with media in order to render more transparent the ways in which an audience creates knowledge—or takes and makes meaning—via the senses. Significantly, this approach to meaning making supports learning in digital environments where students are increasingly asked to both produce and consume media convergent texts that combine multiple modalities including sound, image, and user interaction.

Designs of Meaning: Tools for Digital Storytellers

by Aimee Knight

Aimée Knight & Austin Starin (submitted to Kairos)

As the creation of digital texts flourishes in and out of the classroom, new strategies for composition are needed.... more As the creation of digital texts flourishes in and out of the classroom, new strategies for composition are needed. Digital stories are multimodal by nature; they communicate meaning through multiple media, especially the combination of text, audio, image, animation, video, and interactive content forms.

Kress, Van Leeuwen, Wysocki, Ball and other multimodal scholars believe that as we see writing transition to the “logic” of the senses, new spaces and new approaches are necessary. DeVoss & Selfe (2002) argue for new “rhetorical positionings” for teachers of writing in digital environments— to “help students explore, develop, and communicate more effectively in them” (Devoss and Selfe, p. 146). It is clear that as both teacher and student navigate these mediated spaces, new approaches are needed for the composing and designing of multimodal texts.

Our webtext, a collaboration between teacher and student, seeks to better understand and communicate how multimodal texts rhetorically “work.” We focus on how stories are shared through digital platforms. A digital storytelling experience involves the central idea or story arc and how it engages the senses and creates meaning through the combination of its form and content. We draw across disciplinary borders— from rhetoricians, philosophers, aestheticians, social theorists, technologists, artists and interaction designers to offer storytellers a heuristic to compose and evaluate multimodal works (and bridge the gap between theory and practice).

Preference and Performance With Cartoon-Like Images In Instructional Documentation

by Amanda Bemer

The Rhetoric of Space in the Design of Academic Computer Writing Locations

by Amanda Bemer

“The Chora of the Twin Towers” Enculturation: A Journal of Rhetoric, Writing, and Culture. 10 (September 11, 2011). Scholarly Digital Video. Runtime: 1:15.

by Robert Leston

with Geof Carter and Sarah Arroyo

This project sets a new precedent for sustained scholarly investigation in the medium of video. Determined to examine... more This project sets a new precedent for sustained scholarly investigation in the medium of video. Determined to examine how the former ground zero and current World Trade Center site could be thought of as a space for invention (but also mourning), the authors draw upon the ancient concept of “chora.”

Conceived of by ancient philosophers and reconceived by contemporary rhetoricians as an undecided, undetermined space to be filled by the unknown, the chora has always been a vessel for non-generic possibility. Through combinations and juxtapositions of journalism, art, music, sound, image, and theory, the authors put choric possibilities into play and present a project that plays the post-9/11 world in various tonalities, timbres, and tunings.

Their efforts take viewers through a broad spectrum of intellectual curiosity and emotional turmoil, making us confront the specters haunting our personal and cultural memories while always encouraging us to twist, spin, and dance those memories into new “planes” of sound, dizzying flights of fancy, and high wire acts on lines as thin as air.

Enculturation is pleased to present this video project by Robert Leston, Geof Carter and Sarah Arroyo commemorating the 10-year anniversary of September 11. After clicking the image below to launch the project, work your way consecutively down the playlist. The project is best viewed in full-screen mode.

. “Towers Open Fire: From Knowing to Doing” Computers and Composition Online. Special Issue on Sound in/as Compositional Space (Fall 2006).

by Robert Leston

As the theme music plays, take alook at the buttons at the bottom of the page. The play button starts an audio... more As the theme music plays, take alook at the buttons at the bottom of the page. The play button starts an audio composition/sound experimint called "Towers Open Fire." This sound experiment is inspired by the film made by William Burroughs in 1963 that carries the same name.

“Into the After.word with Victor Vitanza.” Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy. 12.3 (Summer 2008). Digital Video and Webtext.

by Robert Leston

First presented at the CCCC conference in Chicago 2006, "From Gallery to Webtexts" succeeded in turning a... more First presented at the CCCC conference in Chicago 2006, "From Gallery to Webtexts" succeeded in turning a formal meeting space into an gallery-like atmosphere where each individual's multimedia project stood on its own. This environment, unheard of at a writing conference in the past, implies that the production of scholarship is slowly changing towards hybrid and interdisciplinary practices; in addition, the showcasing of these works in a gallery-like environment shows how the field's consumption of scholarship has begun evolving/involving as well.

All of the presenters built multimedia presentations and displayed them on laptops. The gallery allowed audience members to mingle, drift around the room, speak to the artists, and become immersed in whatever presentations struck their interest. While writing teachers and researchers have been advocating student-centered classrooms for years, writing researchers—up until now—have failed to take their own advice when presenting their own research. It should come as no surprise that Victor Vitanza, a scholar who has blazed new territories in rhetoric and composition for years, once again has been at the forefront in changing the thoughts and practices of our own intellectual work. Part of the work of this webtext, "Into the After.word with Victor Vitanza," is to register Vitanza's contributions to how we think about writing.

This video has three primary and related goals. The first is to explain the nature of how the gallery environment marks a change for how scholars in rhetoric and composition share their work. The second is to show how such a change would not have been possible without the influence of Vitanza. (Vitanza was himself responsible for the idea of the multimedia gallery.) Third, because of the influence that Vitanza and the program that he taught at for over twenty years have had on the fields of rhetoric and composition and because that program (known in some circles as The Arlington School) has been disbanded, the piece sets out to chronicle contributions in our field's history that should not go unnoticed. The Arlington School has a rich and robust history. Now that the program has ended, this video, while it may imply a sort of memorial to some, is more interested in recording those contributions and looking towards a future where the audience becomes inspired to push and pursue their own intellectual interests. The video thus moves metaleptically from gallery to Vitanza to the UTA rhetoric program.

Like the argument, the video works from three primary sources. The first is footage from The Art of Video Art, produced by Lobo Pasolini. This video footage is of 1950s housewives using what was then modern day technology in the forms of television sets and microwave ovens. The colors are vibrant, the gestures glitchy, and at times the characters have almost a mime-like hyper-real quality. The visual is contrasted against two narrators' voices (one female, one male) speaking about the CCCC gallery. The video then moves into a short discussion of Vitanza via a quote from David Blakesley, editor of The Writing Instructor, that offers  background information for anyone not familiar with Vitanza's work. The video proceeds by discussing The Arlington School's contributions to the field by including actual photographs of some of the mentioned events as well as integrating--for the purposes of juxtaposition--clips from Dziga Vertov's Man with a Movie Camera. The audio narration is thus layered over the black and white shots that, by today's standards, continue to be new, visually exciting, and more creative and exploitative of the film medium than anything that one can readily view today (even though Vertov's film is almost a century old). The third part of the video launches into a discussion that moves back and forth between video footage of Vitanza and the narration. This narration specifically addresses the topic of manifestos and explains to the audience the importance of being open to the particularities of each individual moment. The piece comes to an end by putting into practice one of Vitanza's most famous slogans by inviting the audience to make their own gallery-like presentations by "just drifting."

References

Blakesley, David. (2001). Introduction. _The Writing Instructor_. Retrieved November 15, 2007, from http://www.writinginstructor.com/hypertexts/vitanza/index.html

Pasolini, Lobo (Producer). (2007). The art of video art. Retrieved November 15, 2007, from http://www.archive.org/details/TheArtOfVideoArt

Vertov, Dziga (Director). (1928). Man with a movie camera. Retrieved November 15, 2007, from http://www.archive.org/details/ChelovekskinoapparatomManWithAMovieCamera

A Castle of One’s Own: Interactivity in Chatelaine Magazine, 1928-35

by Jaleen Grove

This paper published in the Fall 2011 issue of the Journal of Canadian Studies, and is available from academic journal databases.

Chatelaine promoted maternal feminism with a variety of illustrated content and with mixed results. Hand-drawn imagery... more Chatelaine promoted maternal feminism with a variety of illustrated content and with mixed results. Hand-drawn imagery in 1928 connoted both individual expression and col- lective national identity. Readers’ material interaction with illustration developed their self- direction, critical judgement, and creativity in how they received editorial, advertising, and aesthetic messages. This made the magazine popular and gave it counterpublic potential. Unfortunately, Chatelaine—an important employer of women at first—replaced much of the illustration by female artists with men’s work and generic photographs after 1932. Ironically, Chatelaine’s celebration of essentialized femininity in pictures and other texts contributed to the exclusion of women from “masculine” illustration jobs, even as such imagery also brought women together in solidarity.

La revue Châtelaine célébrait le féminisme maternel avec un contenu illustré varié. Les résultats ont toutefois été mixtes. Les images dessinées à la main en 1928 représentaient l’expression individuelle ainsi que l’identité nationale collective. L’interaction du matériel de lecture avec les illustrations a aidé les lectrices à développer leur autodétermination, leur jugement critique et leur créativité en assimilant l’article rédactionnel, la publicité et les messages esthétiques. Ceci a rendu la revue populaire et lui a donné un potentiel con- trepublic. Malheureusement, Châtelaine – un employeur important de femmes à ses débuts – remplaça beaucoup de ses illustrations réalisées par des artistes féminines par des œuvres masculines et des photos génériques après 1932. Il est donc ironique que la célébration de la féminité essentialisée de Châtelaine dans ses images et ses textes ait contribué à l’exclusion des femmes dans les emplois demandant des illustrations « masculines », alors même qu’elle regroupait les femmes dans une vague de solidarité.

Uma assinatura de Eça: A retórica da visualidade em A Relíquia

by Pedro Pereira

Published in Boletim do Centro de Estudos Portugueses, UFMG.

The environmental semiotics of virtual worlds: Reading the 'Splash Aquatics' store in Second Life

by Joseph Clark

Published in The Graduate Journal of Social Science, December 2010.

Nature myths have been described in a number of contemporary media texts, both overtly and through connotation. Media... more Nature myths have been described in a number of contemporary media texts, both overtly and through connotation. Media like multiuser virtual environments (MUVEs) offer a critical challenge because they at times approach an immersive, felt realism that seems to transcend symbolism itself. Readers of these texts inhabit the space in a more compelling manner (in a phenomenological sense) than one's identification or engagement with a novel or movie. Because of the way this kind of virtual space inhabits a liminal space between real and not-real; material and embodied, yet completely constructed and artificial; it's especially interesting to see how other-than-human life and ecosystems are represented here. A common sight in Second Life is a kind of idyll, a natural-seeming area most often in the form of a forest through which avatars might stroll hand-in-hand or simply gaze upon, much as the 19th-century Romantics sought visual experiences of the Sublime. If we take such texts on their own terms, Nature is valuable and restorative. But the text also reinscribes a binary between "natural" and "civilized” areas, and the spaces are promoted (on search engines) as, primarily, places to relax and unwind. In other words, as a place for human consumption. Resistive readings are possible, and the paper describes several of these based on a close reading of several prominent Second Life constructions, concluding with a formative critical methodology for ’reading‘ virtual reality.

(2008) 'Our England': discourses of 'race' and class in party election leaflets, Social Semiotics, 18(3): 321-333

by John Richardson

(2009) The impact of visual racism: Visual arguments in political leaflets of Austrian and British far-right parties, Controversia 6(2) [with R Wodak]

by John Richardson

(2012) Identite Nationale et Insecurite Dans Le Discours Anti-Immigration: Une Analyse De La Propagande Visuelle Du Front National

by John Richardson

Monica Colombo & John. E. Richardson

Representing Clarity:  Using Universal Design Principles to Create Effective Hybrid Course Learning Materials

by Cheri Lemieux Spiegel

Teaching English in the Two-Year College.  Forthcoming.

Rhetoric, Ritual, and the Fashioning of Public Memory in Washington's America

by Karen Stanworth

Visualizing Nanotechnology: The Impact of Visual Images on Lay American Audience Associations with Nanotechnology

by Jamie Landau

Landau, J., Groscurth, C. R., Wright, L., & Condit, C. M. (2009). Visualizing Nanotechnology: The Impact of Visual Images on Lay American Audience Associations with Nanotechnology, Public Understanding of Science, 8 (13), 325-337. (OnlineFirst published 16 Sept. 2008)