There are a number of ways to understand the term “computational rhetoric.” In no particular order, the first might be something like critical code studies in that one studies the rhetoric practices of coding. A second would be akin to machine reading in the digital humanities, doing rhetorical analysis of a large textual corpus, or […]
Category: new materialism
This is a kind of inside-baseball question, I think. For the typical English speaker, theory means something like speculation. In more academic/research contexts, theories are the conceptual basis for the work we do: e.g., a theory of evolution. The OED provides this helpful definition that is closer to what I had in mind as a […]
The familiar posthuman natureculture of Haraway and others suggests, in its most basic form, that there is a material history for all things, even the most seemingly fundamental dimensions of space and time. It strikes me as a weird idea to try to grasp. I suppose on the one hand there is the Big Bang […]
I’ve been working on this article, off and on, since January I guess, which is longer than usual for me. As this post title suggests, it’s an article with two focal points–one conceptual/theoretical and the other technological. With the latter I am looking primarily at contemporary smartphone screens with their combination of ceramic glass (for […]
I admit this is a weird, esoteric thing. You could call this “inside baseball,” but at least that term makes reference to a sport most people have heard of. So I apologize up front for those who have no idea what I’m talking about (though I’d be fascinated to know what made you click on […]
As you probably learned in high school or college, the different races of humans with which we identify today have no biological basis but are social constructions. A brief refresher on the matter is here. Basically though there are few starting points for this construction. One occurs in the 17th century when American colonists decide […]
Material thus has three principal characteristics: it is a molecularized matter; it has a relation to forces to be harnessed; and it is defined by the operations of consistency applied to it. Finally, it is clear that the relation to the earth and the people has changed, and is no longer of the romantic type. […]
I sometimes wonder what scholars in the field of rhetoric think new materialism is. [n.b. Don’t expect a comprehensive answer here!] I’d wager that there are maybe dozens but certainly not hundreds of rhetoric scholars who view it in a positive/interested enough way to pursue it. I’d equally wager there are as many, if not […]
Perhaps Ulmer has a more elegant puncept for this, but basically I’m thinking here about the analog of illiteracy within electracy. I.e.: literacy —–> electracyilliteracy —–> illectracy? For the first 25 years or so that we have discussed electracy, I don’t think there was a pressing need to imagine the operation of illectracy. For one […]
After all, who can resist an Elton John reference? Well, I’m in the midst of book revisions (and there was much rejoicing). I’m thinking back–and perhaps modifying–a notion I had a few years ago: minimal rhetoric. I’m thinking “tiny” rather than “minimal.” Maybe both. My attraction to “tiny” is from the line in A Thousand Plateaus that has stuck […]
Alex Reid 