The Rhetorics of Context: An Ethics of Belonging Item Type text; Electronic Dissertation Authors Dewinter, Jennifer Fredale Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 29/09/2021 03:34:39 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/195654 THE RHETORICS OF CONTEXT: AN ETHICS OF BELONGING by Jennifer Fredale deWinter Copyright © Jennifer Fredale deWinter 2008 A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH In Partial fulfillment of the Requirements For The Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN RHETORIC, COMPOSITION, AND THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 2008 2 THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA GRADUATE COLLEGE As members of the Dissertation Committee, we certify that we have read the dissertation prepared by Jennifer Fredale deWinter entitled The Rhetorics of Context: An Ethics of Belonging and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. _______________________________________________________________________ Date: November 19, 2008 Ken S McAllister _______________________________________________________________________ Date: November 19, 2008 Theresa Enos _______________________________________________________________________ Date: November 19, 2008 Edward M. White _______________________________________________________________________ Date: November 19, 2008 Judd E. Ruggill Final approval and acceptance of this dissertation is contingent upon the candidate’s submission of the final copies of the dissertation to the Graduate College. I hereby certify that I have read this dissertation prepared under my direction and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement. ________________________________________________ Date: November 19, 2008 Dissertation Director: Ken S. McAllister 3 STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This dissertation has been submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for an advanced degree at the University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this dissertation are allowable without special permission, provided that accurate acknowledgement of source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the copyright holder. SIGNED: ________________________________ Jennifer deWinter 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I have been fortunate from the moment that I started my graduate studies in that I joined the Learning Games Initiative (LGI), a group of interested and interesting people to work with. So this acknowledgement needs to thank those with whom I have spent the last five years thinking, working, and collaborating: Ken McAllister for liking all of my ideas and then warning me about them; Judd Ruggill for painful yet insightful questions; Daniel Griffin and Jason Thompson for sitting at my dining room table and talking theory late into the night; my mother Carol Johnson for using all her cell phone minutes when I got stuck writing a section and just needed to talk it out; and my long-suffering husband Aaron McGaffey, whom I am sure wishes that I would pay attention to his technical advice concerning my computer with the same care that he has paid attention to my intellectual brainstormings. And while they are too young to have helped (indeed, they’re babies right now, so in actuality, they made writing the dissertation fairly difficult), I do want to recognize Freya deWinter and Rowan McGaffey for smiling sweetly at me when I was so incredibly stressed. 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES............................................................................................................................................. 6 ABSTRACT.......................................................................................................................................................... 7 CHAPTER ONE: THE INVISIBLE RHETORICS OF CONTEXT.......................................................... 9 Context as God Term...................................................................................................................................... 14 The Paradoxes of an Ambivalent Context .................................................................................................... 19 Chapter Overview........................................................................................................................................... 29 CHAPTER TWO: THE SPATIAL METAPHORS OF CONTEXT ........................................................ 36 The Cartographies of Context........................................................................................................................ 38 Framing Contexts............................................................................................................................................ 44 The Landscapes of Context............................................................................................................................ 48 An Ethics of Metaphorical Contexts ............................................................................................................. 54 CHAPTER THREE: TEXTUAL CONTEXTS ............................................................................................ 58 Words as Contexts for Words: Bounded and Unbounded Texts................................................................. 61 The Myth of Decontextualization and Recontextualization ........................................................................ 66 Expanding Contexts: Adaptation as Means to Move through Space and Time ......................................... 80 An Ethics of Textual Context ........................................................................................................................ 83 CHAPTER FOUR: RHETORICAL CONTEXTS ...................................................................................... 88 The Marriage of Classical Theory and Modern Anthropology ................................................................... 93 Classical Contexts: Weaving Together Fabrics of Meaning .................................................................. 93 Rhetorical Situations: The Study of Rhetoric Through the Study of Man.............................................. 97 Orality and Origin.........................................................................................................................................103 “And Every Word, When Once It Is Written, Is Bandied About” ............................................................112 CHAPTER FIVE: CONSUMMABLE CONTEXTS .................................................................................120 Purposeful Recontextualization: How to Make Global Texts Feel Local.................................................123 Context as a Means to Invest Mass-Produced Texts with Authenticity....................................................129 Context as Pure Commodity ........................................................................................................................142 An Ethics of Consumable Context ..............................................................................................................145 CHAPTER SIX: IN DEFENSE OF AN ETHICS OF CONTEXT..........................................................149 Context as Dialectic......................................................................................................................................152 Context as Rhetoric ......................................................................................................................................154 Context Tropes as Narratives .................................................................................................................155 Context Tropes as Places ........................................................................................................................158 Context Tropes as Commodities .............................................................................................................160 Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................................161 WORKS CITED ..............................................................................................................................................164 6 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 3.1: Contextualization/Recontextualization Continuum ......................................68 Figure 5.1: Inaugural Issue of The Rose ...................................................................... 133 Figure 5.2: Covers of Japanese Newtype and Newtype USA .........................................138 7 ABSTRACT I examine the role of context as a rhetorical trope. As a rhetorical trope, context tends to fix complex practices in single places, which allows for the celebration of the authentic or original. Further, it privileges production while masking complex practices of circulation and consumption while simultaneously constraining seemingly infinite possibilities into finite frames that then become static and naturalized.