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Robertson-Dissertation-2016 © Copyright by Jacob L. Robertson May, 2016 TOWARDS A RHETORIC OF ROLES: SELF-FASHIONING AS INVENTION STRATEGY IN THE RHETORIC AND COMPOSITION CLASSROOM _______________ A Dissertation Presented to The Faculty of the Department of English University of Houston _______________ In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy _______________ By Jacob Levi Robertson May, 2016 i TOWARDS A RHETORIC OF ROLES: SELF-FASHIONING AS INVENTION STRATEGY IN THE RHETORIC AND COMPOSITION CLASSROOM _________________________ Jacob Levi Robertson APPROVED: _________________________ James L. Kastely, Ph.D. Committee Chair _________________________ James T. Zebroski, Ph.D. _________________________ Margot Backus, Ph.D. _________________________ Paul Butler, Ph.D. _________________________ Ann Christensen, Ph.D. _________________________ Gregory Clark, Ph.D. Brigham Young University _________________________ Steven G. Craig, Ph.D. Interim Dean, College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences Department of Economics ii TOWARDS A RHETORIC OF ROLES: SELF-FASHIONING AS INVENTION STRATEGY IN THE RHETORIC AND COMPOSITION CLASSROOM _______________ An Abstract of a Dissertation Presented to The Faculty of the Department of English University of Houston _______________ In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy _______________ By Jacob Levi Robertson May, 2016 iii ABSTRACT Rhetoric and composition studies addresses the problem of student self-presentation by appealing to the discourse of social roles: the “roles” of Writer and Reader, Rhetor and Audience. But this role- rhetoric is only vernacular, not theorized, so the concept remains too abstract to be practical for rhetorical analysis and invention. This dissertation analyzes the role-rhetoric in rhet/comp discourse to discover what it reveals about rhetoric generally and in order to develop a more rigorously theoretical rhetoric of role. I examine the evolution of Kenneth Burke’s role-rhetoric during the development of “dramatism,” arguing that it provides a foundation for developing a rhetoric of role that allows rhetors to draw, potentially, from the gamut of human social roles as commonplaces for self-fashioning, and I consider what this tells us about rhetoric and persuasion, and suggest some ways this rhetoric of roles might inform pedagogy. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Writing this dissertation has been a long, hard process, one in which many people have had a hand (even if that hand was just handing me a sandwich so I could get through the next few hours of writing). But it wasn’t until I sat down to write my acknowledgements that I realized how far back this process went, and how long this project had been germinating—even long before I ever set out to pursue a PhD. No words will ever be sufficient to truly thank those listed here, but I want to acknowledge my director, James Kastely, whose mentorship was the perfect balance of hands-on and hands-off, ensuring that this final product would not only be a strong work of scholarship but my strong work of scholarship; and my readers: Jim Zebroski, who encouraged me to remember that students, including myself, are people in progress; Margot Backus, who always provided the right kind of advice at the right time; Paul Butler, who showed me the meaning of style; Ann Christensen, who helped me get what I needed from the Bard before I had to leave him behind; Gregory Clark, who encouraged me to go on to a doctorate, and to get done as soon as I could, because I wasn’t getting any younger, and neither were my kids. I also want to acknowledge other colleagues whose advice and input helped me get here: Ethan Sproat, who introduced me to Burke, and who demonstrated how cleanly the intellectual and the spiritual could co-exist; the late Gary Hatch, my master’s thesis advisor, whose advice has been sorely missed these last few years; Wade Hollingshaus, Robert Shimko, and Jacey Little, who got me into my first academic conference and whose feedback helped me fashion an academic role at the edge of theater. I would also like to acknowledge past teachers, without whose efforts and guidance I would v. not be here: Michael A. Calabrese, who told me that, when I was ready, he’d write a really good letter of recommendation and get me into grad school—and he did; Caroline McManus, who first taught me to see an “academic self” as a kind of theatrical character; Jennifer Bay, who introduced me to rhetoric as a discipline, and forever changed my professional and intellectual trajectory; Robert Greg Cavin, who first saw my potential as a scholar, long before I saw that potential in myself; Tom Hogan and James Fouquette (you were right); and Linwood and Malia Thompson, whose influence continues to resonate in every aspect of my life. And, finally, I want to acknowledge my family: Chris and Tammy, who never doubted that I could do this, and who encouraged me when I lost courage; Doug and Suzi, for both financial and emotional support; my mother, and my father (may he rest in peace); my children, Zion and Enoch, for their patience and their aid. And to Cori, the love of my life: thank you for supporting me. And to the FS&HG: (sine qua non). Thank you all. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 1 Rhetoric and Role Performance 7 Thesis 16 CHAPTER 1: The Discourse of Roles in Rhetoric and Composition Theory 21 In Defense of Abstractions 25 Role-Rhetoric in Composition Pedagogy 34 Role-Rhetoric in the Composition Classroom 46 Conclusion 54 CHAPTER 2: Kenneth Burke’s Rhetoric of Roles 59 The Stages 60 First Stage: The Era of Counter-Statement and Permanence and Change 64 Second Stage: The Era of Attitudes Towards History and The Philosophy of Literary Form 71 Third Stage: The Era of A Grammar of Motives and A Rhetoric of Motives 81 Conclusion 95 CHAPTER 3: Towards a Rhetoric of Roles 98 The Role of Entitlement 102 Image: Attack of the Crybullies 115 The Role of Identification 124 The Role of Relationships 135 Conclusion 148 CHAPTER 4: Towards a Pedagogy of Role 152 vii Relationships and Roles in the Freshman Composition Classroom 156 Entertainment Relationships: The Roles of Storyteller and Poet 160 Agonistic Relationships: The Roles of Cynic and Apologist 171 Analytical Relationships: The Roles of Critic and Researcher 186 CONCLUSION 201 Works Cited 205 viii DEDICATION This work is dedicated to my family: To my children, Zion and Enoch, The most important students I will ever teach When first I held you in my arms I felt the weight of my responsibility as a Father I did this for you. And to my beloved wife, Cori The love of my life The reason I do everything I do Your support means everything. I love you. ix Robertson Towards a Rhetoric of Roles 1 “The main ideal of criticism is to use all that there is to use” Kenneth Burke, The Philosophy of Literary Form, 23. INTRODUCTION In the introduction to A Rhetoric of Motives (ROM), Kenneth Burke’s “philosophy of rhetoric,” Burke writes that a central purpose of his book is to “develop” the study of rhetoric “beyond the traditional bounds,” to show “how a rhetorical motive is often present where it is not usually recognized, or thought to belong” (xiii). Chief among the objects Burke redefined as “rhetorical” were human sociality in general, and human identity in particular. Individual identity, Burke argued, is the product of a dialectic between society and the individual—what his “Linguistic Approach to Problems of Education” (LAPE) referred to as the “drama of human relationships” (6, his emphasis).1 Unlike the social sciences of his time, however, Burke does not use the term “drama” metaphorically; rather, for Burke, the term “drama” is a pun, and quite a serious one: Burke’s use of the term “drama” plays first on his reader’s vernacular understanding of the term “drama” as a scripted and staged art of human performance, and in this respect, the term suggests our nature as role-players; but his pun also plays on the ancient Greek root drama, 1 I recognize there are ideological implications to using the term “human” here as an abstract, universal term (in the manner of Burke) when my dissertation is clearly situated in a Western intellectual context and in an American university experience. So, in using the word “human” as Burke uses it—in an attempt to symbolically see beyond the human divisions to a more general “human” nature based in language—I in no way mean to minimize the diversity of human experience, nor to characterize the ideas in this dissertation as a one-size-fits-all solution to the problems of division that come with diversity. Rather, I am simply following Burke’s lead, using the word “human” as a term that both subsumes and surmounts the idea of persons as both biological and social organisms; this attempt to surmount human divisions through an act of abstraction is a way to see through symbolic divisions in order to provide new perspectives for seeing, and then acting in, the often unpredictable specificity of diverse social contexts. For a further discussion of the idea of “human” within the context of a rhetoric of role, see the conclusion to chapter four, “Towards a Rhetoric of Roles,” page 159. Robertson Towards a Rhetoric of Roles 2 which denotes any human action.2 So, Burke’s use of the term “drama” suggests the complexly motivated aspect of all social activity. Further developing this idea in his later work, The Philosophy of Literary Form (PLF), Burke argues that we understand humans best when we understand them “neither as animals nor machines [. .] but as actors and acters” (311), or persons3 whose individuality is determined by the rhetoricality of the actions they perform in relation to others.
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