In "When The First Voice You Hear Isn't Your Own," Royster speaks at length about improving the relationships between disciplines within (and, to an extent, outside of) academia. As an English department, what are some ways that we could try to build community with other departments? What about within our department, improving relations between R/C, Lit, and CW? Here at FSU there doesn't *seem* to be any big issues, but where I did my MA there was definitely a little bad blood brewing....
Bitzer argues that real life exigences invite our utterance, and thus a rhetorical situation is born. In other words, there are things that happen/occur/exist in the world that demand to be acknowledged and altered via the use of language. Do you believe that the real world can contain exigence on its own, without the help of language? or do we assign meaning to the real world through rhetoric and simply make it seem like there is no other way to view it?
From Jessie: It seems like having more people in a department that cross boundaries, cross genre and more emphasis on collaboration would build community within the department and without. So instead of prioritizing students, or professionals, that specialize exclusively a department could start to value people who are bridge builders so to speak operating across mediums, subjects, and social groups.
ReplyDeleteHey Joel,
ReplyDeleteIn regards to your Bitzer question, I believe that it is probably more of the latter. While I do think it's possible for the real world to contain exigence on its own, I feel that humans in majority make it difficult for that possibly to exist. We constantly find out to interpret and cast our opinion onto anything we understand or don't understand. The use of rhetoric is more for the sake of us than it is for the "real world" having meaning on its own. However, I don't think it is to the point where there is no other way to view because different people are going to offer different interpretations. Hopefully, that answered you question, I might have veered a little.