ATTENTION, DIGITAL MEDIA, and the FUTURE of COMPOSITION Christian D
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University of South Carolina Scholar Commons Theses and Dissertations 8-9-2014 FROM CAPTURE TO CARE: ATTENTION, DIGITAL MEDIA, AND THE FUTURE OF COMPOSITION Christian D. Smith University of South Carolina Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd Recommended Citation Smith, C. D.(2014). FROM CAPTURE TO CARE: ATTENTION, DIGITAL MEDIA, AND THE FUTURE OF COMPOSITION. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/2788 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you by Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. FROM CAPTURE TO CARE: ATTENTION, DIGITAL MEDIA, AND THE FUTURE OF COMPOSITION by Christian D. Smith Bachelor of Arts University of Louisville, 2003 Master of Arts Murray State University, 2007 Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English College of Arts and Sciences University of South Carolina 2014 Accepted by: Byron Hawk, Major Professor Christy Friend, Committee Member John Muckelbauer, Committee Member James Brown, Committee Member Lacy Ford, Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies ! © Copyright by Christian D. Smith, 2014 All Rights Reserved.! ii DEDICATION For my son, Julian. ! iii !!!!!! ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my gratitude to a network of people who made the writing of this dissertation possible. First, my wife, who agreed to move hundreds of miles away without a moment of hesitation and who never ceased to encourage me along the way. I cannot imagine what my graduate school experience would have been like without her. I would also like to thank my father, whose unwavering moral support has yet to fail and to whom I owe whatever intellectual curiosity I can claim. Thanks must also go to Jeff Osborne, who urged me to take a look at the composition and rhetoric program at the University of South Carolina in the first place. In Columbia, I was very fortunate to work closely with advisors who helped me through enumerable writing difficulties—this project owes everything to our many conversations. In particular, Byron Hawk, whose insight and encouragement made writing possible, and who continues to go above and beyond the expectations of a director. John Muckelbauer, whose demand for precision required that I become a much more conscious writer. Christy Friend, whose advocacy and attention to detail have always been appreciated. I would also like to thank Dan Smith, Erik Doxtader, Pat Gehrke, Chris Holcomb, and Kevin Brock, all of whom have made my time at the University of South Carolina incredibly rewarding. Thanks must also go to my colleagues at USC who have made this experience so much richer along the way: Eme Crawford, Nathaniel Street, Trevor Meyer, Casey Boyle, iv Anthony Stagliano, Lisa Bailey, Justine Wells, Paul Cook, Erica Fischer, Mary Fratini, Grace Hagood, Jonathan Miracle, David Stubblefield, Brian Harmon, and Stephanie Boone-Mosher. Each of you have provoked and inspired me in some way. Thank you. v ! ABSTRACT This dissertation investigates the relationship between digital media and cognition as it emerges in the problematic of attention. Specifically, the project examines the workings of attention across three sites (social, neurological, and technological) in order to argue for a renewed cognitive process theory of writing based in attention studies. Using the ancient pedagogical concept of epimeleias—attending to, taking care—my dissertation asks after the ethical and rhetorical stakes of care in context of contemporary higher education. Ultimately, my dissertation aims to provide a foundation for digital literacy practices—literacy narratives, wiki-writing, remix, audio-visual essays, etc.—in light of the increasing shift towards hybrid and fully digital writing courses and massive open online courses (MOOCs). vi !!!!!!!! TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION ....................................................................................................................... iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................ iv ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................................... vi CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................1 CHAPTER 2. COGNITIVE RHETORIC AND WRITING AS A MATTER OF CONCERN ..................20 2.1 COMPOSITION AND FIRST EMPIRICISM .................................................................25 2.2 COMPOSITION AND SECOND EMPIRICISM .............................................................37 2.3 FROM COGNITIVE RHETORIC TO ATTENTION ECOLOGIES ....................................50 2.4 CONCLUSION .......................................................................................................57 CHAPTER 3. PLASTICITY AND THE NEURORHETORICS OF ATTENTION .................................60 3.1 THREE NEURORHETORICS ....................................................................................61 3.2 AN EMBODIED NEURORHETORIC .........................................................................68 3.3 PLASTICITY AND ATTENTION ...............................................................................76 3.4 PLASTICITY AND PAIDEIA ....................................................................................88 3.5 PLASTIC FUTURES ...............................................................................................91 CHAPTER 4. PSYCHOPOWER AND THE PHARMAKON OF COMPOSITION ................................95 4.1 PSYCHOPOWER, CAPITAL, AND THE BIOLOGY OF INDIVIDUATION .......................97 4.2 TECHNOLOGY AND/AS PHARMAKON .................................................................104 4.3 STIEGLERIAN PEDAGOGY ..................................................................................107 vii 4.4 LANHAM’S RHETORICAL EDUCATION OF OSCILLATION ....................................118 4.5 ENGLISH STUDIES AS NETWORKS OF CARE .......................................................131 CHAPTER 5. CAREFUL PEDAGOGIES ..................................................................................133 5.1 THE RENTENTIONAL ECONOMY OF OPEN UTOPIA .............................................140 5.2 WIKI WRITING, COLLABORATION, AND CARE ...................................................148 5.3 MACHINIC POTENTIALS OF CARE ......................................................................160 5.4 CONCLUSION .....................................................................................................176 WORKS CITED ...................................................................................................................182 ! viii !!!!!! CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION In “Hyper and Deep Attention: The Generational Divide in Cognitive Modes” (2007), N. Katherine Hayles argues that the greatest challenge to contemporary education is a generational shift in cognitive styles. For Hayles, students most tangibly demonstrate this shift in their increasing inability to sustain attention on single streams of information. While Hayles observed this shift in her own students, she notes that its “full effects are likely to be realized only when youngsters who are now twelve years old reach our institutions of higher education” (187). The “youngsters” Hayles identifies are now, of course, the students enrolled in first-year composition courses and her claims are supported by much of what is heard from writing instructors regarding student attention. While the increasing emphasis on multimodal composition within rhetoric and composition is a necessary first step to meet Hayles’s challenge, I would argue there is still much work to be done by composition scholars regarding the relationship between digital media and attention. Further, while much of the current research surrounding multimodal composition and digital rhetoric emphasizes the production of digital texts, questions regarding the reception of digital texts are often left underdeveloped. In the pages that follow, I argue two things: first, that understanding the question of reception as inseparable from the question of attention enables a productive dynamic between reception-attention in the context of student reading and writing courses; and, second, 1 that an ethical response by college writing instructors to Hayles’s claim entails a more detailed investigation into varied cognitive styles and attentional forms familiar to contemporary students. More significantly perhaps, I argue that this kind of response to Hayles’s work requires a re-engagement between composition studies and cognitive science in order to fully account for the effects of emerging technologies on cognition and attention. Necessarily, given the above, the development of a contemporary cognitive process theory of writing would need to be wholly interdisciplinary. Hard distinctions between technology and science studies, cognitive science, and composition would need to become permeable enough to allow for a productive exchange of insight. Much as Hayles’s article draws from neuroscience, education theory, English studies, and medicine, this project draws heavily from a number of disciplines in order to demonstrate how composition scholars might attend to attention differently. Beginning with the sociology of science and the work