It's that old saying but one that might cut in two directions. Yes, "we" can't have nice things because "you" are always ruining them with your irresponsible behavior, lack of class, etc. But possibly we also can't have nice things because we're always getting crap shoved in front of us. Or both. Facebook is case... Continue Reading →
informally proposing a “materials rhetoric”
In the briefest terms, my idea here is conceiving of a materials rhetoric that is roughly analogous to materials science. I'll return to that in a moment but first a few detours. Since the 80s at least, rhetoric as concerned itself with "materialism" and far more recently with "new materialism." Materialism has generally been another... Continue Reading →
The post WPA life: one year on
From the summer of 2010 through the summer of 2017, I served as the director of composition at UB. In the last year I've gone back to being a rank and file professor in the department. I've been thinking about writing this reflection for a little while but wanted to mark the occasion of a... Continue Reading →
the future of the English major, or “Hey Mister, where do you want these deck chairs?”
The Association of Departments of English (ADE) released a report today on the changing English major. As those who tuned into the last episode (or the last 1000 episodes) of this program will remember, there has been a steady decline in English majors (going back to the early 90s when measured as a share of... Continue Reading →
Manuel Delanda in rhet/comp?
Being somewhat in between projects right now, I've started working on an article that, at least at this point, begins with exploring the value of DeLanda's assemblage theory for rhetoric and composition. DeLanda often comes up on this blog and has been an important thinker for me for 10-15 years at least. His earlier works... Continue Reading →
the most stupid superintelligence possible
I’m reading Nick Bostrom’s Superintelligence as a kind of light reading tangentially related to my scholarly interests. If you’re unfamiliar, it’s basically a warning about the dangers of artificial intelligences spinning out of control. There are plenty of respectable folks out there who have echoed these worries—Hawking, Gates, Musk, etc. And Bostrom himself is certainly... Continue Reading →
civility: “You keep using that word…”
I don't think it means what you think it means. The interesting thing about civility, even in its staid dictionary definition, is that there is this seemingly narrow crack that has become a gulf in American politics. One definition has to do with maintaining civil order and the other is the more familiar one having... Continue Reading →
ambient cybernetics of the noise floor
Sometimes you come across a term commonly used in other professions and it just strikes you as thought-provoking... or at least that happens to me, and it happened recently with "noise floor." Maybe that's a term you've heard many times before (if you're an engineer or work with sound or maybe as an audiophile). If... Continue Reading →
the ends of digital rhetoric
Two personal data points: a meandering FB thread about the future of the Computers and Writing conference; another conference conversation over the implications of asserting that "these days" everything is digital rhetoric. It's a related observation, taken one step further, that leads Casey Boyle, Steph Ceraso, and James J. Brown Jr. to conclude in a... Continue Reading →
