Canadian Bacon Barbie

Mark Bauerlein posted this critique of the field of composition–a critique he bases on a cursory examination of the 2006 program for the Conference on College Composition and Communication.

I posted this response to the article itself:

I heartily second the comments above, and would also remind Bauerlein that the discipline of rhetoric has its roots not (at least not primarily) in the teaching of grammar (historically a separate discipline), but in the teaching of argumentation, persuasion, and critical skills that prepare students to participate in what the Greeks called the agora and what we now variously call the public sphere, democratic politics, or civil society. It is because many of us ground our scholarship in this tradition that we take on topics such as race, gender, sexuality, class, and current events—topics which shape the public sphere in which we encourage our students to participate through their writing. Good writing involves understanding the ideas, concepts, and ideologies that shape contemporary arguments about these and other issues, the audiences that advance these arguments, and possible strategies for engaging in these debates—not just in the proper use of semi-colons.

I would only add that the field of rhet/comp would be a very dreary one indeed if it were confined to the kinds of issues Bauerlein seems to suggest for us–what he calls “basic writing.” I assume he means that we should be teaching only the mechanics of writing, not the content of writing. If this is true, then we end up with the same content/style split that we’ve been battling against for ages. *SIGH*

In addition to my job as a Mountie, I’ve decided to embark on a couple of side projects. We all know that government jobs don’t pay so well.

Side project #1: Teaching legal writing. I’ve been doing this with my partner, KRGP, for some public defenders in the state, but we’re considering extending the practice into a side consulting business for other lawyers (hopefully the ones with a little extra cash).

Side project #2: Writing a knitting book. My partner in crime and I are starting to get the ball (of yarn) rolling over at Fiber Smarts. The idea is that we’ll use our status as rhetoric professors as part of the gimmick. We’ll be the Knitty Professors, offering insights and occasional historical/literary illusions. More importantly, I plan to translate my experience as a technical writer into knitting patterns you can actually understand, since many of them have obviously not undergone user testing. The knitted items themselves will be as intuitive and user-friendly as possible, too. For instance, any color pattern will make sense and will allow you to know what you need to do by looking at your work rather than consulting the written pattern continually.

Anyway, I’m wondering if these side projects are really a good idea? Do any other academics out there have side project or opinions on them? I’m of course not going to let them distract me from my main job but it does seem like fun to work on something else for a change.

If literature scholars consider reading literature work…

Then as a rhetorician I can consider watching political speeches on TV work too.

Right?

This New York Times article suggests that reports about climate change rely on a technique called the availability cascade, which seeks to fix numerous, recent examples of climate change in people’s minds in order to convince them that global warming is a problem. Here’s a snippet:

Slow warming doesn’t make for memorable images on television or in people’s minds, so activists, journalists and scientists have looked to hurricanes, wild fires and starving polar bears instead. They have used these images to start an “availability cascade,” a term coined by Timur Kuran, a professor of economics and law at the University of Southern California, and Cass R. Sunstein, a law professor at the University of Chicago.

The availability cascade is a self-perpetuating process: the more attention a danger gets, the more worried people become, leading to more news coverage and more fear. Once the images of Sept. 11 made terrorism seem a major threat, the press and the police lavished attention on potential new attacks and supposed plots. After Three Mile Island and “The China Syndrome,” minor malfunctions at nuclear power plants suddenly became newsworthy.

The “availability cascade” seems to combine the rhetorical notion of kairos (right timing) and a ubiquity topos–find a threat everywhere, and it seems more urgent to people and deserving of action. While I don’t think the “availability cascade” is anything new, it does seem to nicely capture the idea of momentum within rhetorical situations–the ways in which arguments and also affects are produced and gain force over time.

In other news, I was watching Ovation last night (they were showing a program called “Art or Not,” in which regular people and art experts weigh in on the merit of various artists, including this guy.

Anyway, there was definitely an “availability cascade” going on in terms of Ovation’s advertising, which featured at least one infomercial type product during every commercial break. Here are the top 4 most ridiculous ones I saw:

4) The AeroGarden.

Infomercials always want to show you how useful their products are by demonstrating multiple uses. Ever need to cut metal cans in half? Buy a Ginsu knife! The AeroGarden shows us that we can not only grow herbs, but also tomatoes and lettuce (or by extension, any other kind of vegetable, I’d guess).

3) The Listen Up personal sound amplifier, which allows you to “turn the volume up for yourself” on everything from church sermons to tv shows. But it’s not just for older people who are losing their hearing. In case your neighbors don’t think you are creepy enough already, you can also use it to eavesdrop on their conversations while you pretend to be checking your mail.

2) Napa Grape Lights, which you can use to create the perfect atmosphere for everything from gourmet dinners (create a centerpiece) to rockin’ parties (use the strobelight setting) to a romantic spa bath (string them around your tub).

1) Kinoki foot pads, which remove toxins from your body while you sleep:

The Kinoki foot pads infomercial makes the best use of the “availability cascade,” because it lists all the toxins found in the typical persons foot pad after use (mercury, lead, etc.) and shows people taking the pads off their feet to reveal a bunch of brown/black gunk on them (presumably, the toxins they have removed from their bodies). By showing the commercial, oh, every 20 minutes or so, Kinoki does a pretty good job of making gullible people think they can purify themselves of environmental hazards through their feet.