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Writing Theory & Neoliberal Extending the Ecology: Writing Theory & Neoliberal Rationality Item Type text; Electronic Dissertation Authors Kraus, Shane Michael 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, presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 27/09/2021 21:22:43 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/642054 EXTENDING THE ECOLOGY: WRITING THEORY & NEOLIBERAL RATIONALITY By Shane Kraus _______________________________ Copyright © Shane Kraus 2020 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 the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 2020 2 THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA GRADUATE COLLEGE As members of the Dissertation Committee, we certify that we have read the dissertation ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In the spirit of a dissertation that insists we never quite act or write independently, this project is far from mine alone—it’s the product of multiple contributors, blinding generosities, and genuine sacrifices. First among them, Dr. Matthew Abraham, my dissertation chair and Dr. Thomas Miller, a genuine mentor and human of the highest order. The influence you’ve both had on my work is incalculable. When activism, human rights and dissent reverberate across my pages in sprawling, paragraph-traversing sentences, I’m hoping you might be proud, Matt—even as in these exact moments I’m hearing you, Tom, suggesting I settle down into clarity, and know you're right. Thank you both for the ridiculous generosity, time and energy you’ve shown in becoming the imagined audience in my composing brain—I’m a better person and writer for it. For your willingness to take a shot on me without much reason to, thank you Dr. Marcia Klotz; your critical input late in the game brought a level of precision I'd otherwise missed. Tight, compressed prose, refined points, crisp, clean argumentation, multiply-interrogated assertions—when I manage any of the above, your impact and soaring intelligence is working through me. Emphatic, enduring and sincere gratitude to each of the three of you as committee members; the patience you’ve shown has been the stuff of awe. To the hundreds of student writers who have inspired my research into student debt and the student protest movements from 2014 to 2016, thank you so deeply for teaching me how to think on a daily basis. Gigantic thanks also to everyone in the English Department and writing program at UA, those sainted individuals who endured my titanic administrative deficiencies—Sharonne Meyerson, Marcia Simon, Dr. Susan Miller-Cochran, and Dr. Shelly Rodrigo—without ever pointing them out, and thanks also to you Director Cristina 4 Ramirez, for never hesitating to bring them to my attention; our talks were humbling, challenging, and inspiring; they woke me up. And to Jessica, thank you for teaching me who I am throughout this work. Above all, this dissertation is dedicated to my father, David Paul Kraus. Dad, your unshakable conviction and faith in me didn’t make this dissertation possible; it did far more than that. When things fell apart in the last stretch, we put it back together; gratitude, then, doesn’t really get close to what I owe you for your help. To think about your contribution in good faith alongside the claims to fundamental interdependence that anchor this dissertation is to recognize you as a coauthor, and nothing less. Love for miles to you, Dad. Onward. 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................... 7 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................ 9 PART I CHAPTER 1: NEOLIBERALISM & DEBT: A HISTORY ............................................................... 13 I. Academic Approaches .......................................................................................... 16 II. Intellectual Origins .............................................................................................. 20 III. Mont Pèlerin Society .......................................................................................... 24 IV. International Debt Production ............................................................................ 26 V. Writing & Materiality ........................................................................................ 29 CHAPTER 2: EXTENDING THE WRITING ECOLOGY .................................................................. 33 I. From Dialogic to Ecological ................................................................................. 34 II. Postprocess .......................................................................................................... 37 III. Externalization of Cognition & Complexity Theory ......................................... 39 IV. Politics ............................................................................................................... 47 CHAPTER 3: WRITING SUBJECTS & CIRCULATING AFFECT ..................................................... 53 I. Circulation & Motion: Features of the Writing System ...................................... 54 II. Ecological Theories of The Writing Subject ...................................................... 57 III... Forming The New Subject: Affective Circulation ............................................. 60 IV. Neo-subjects ....................................................................................................... 69 V. Affective Literacy ............................................................................................... 71 CHAPTER 4: AGENCY, WRITING AS CAPACITY & CHANGING ECOLOGIES ................................ 75 I. Writing in Networks ............................................................................................. 77 II. Writing & Rhetorical Agency ............................................................................. 80 III. Writing as Capacity ............................................................................................ 85 PART II. CHAPTER 5: “FREE” SPEECH, NEOLIBERAL ANTI-POLITICS, & DISRUPTION ........................... 89 I. Rancière ............................................................................................................... 92 II. Repressive Tolerance .......................................................................................... 97 III. The Marketplace of Ideas.............................. ...................................................... 99 6 IV. Truly Free Speech ............................................................................................ 106 V. Changing the Conversation ............................................................................... 110 CHAPTER 6: HAYEK & THE ORIGINS OF NEOLIBERAL RHETORIC .......................................... 114 I. Aristotelian Freedom ......................................................................................... .115 II. Spontaneous Order............................................................................................ .117 III. A New Social Contract & State....................................................................... .124 IV. Identification: Neoliberal Rhetoric ................................................................. .134 CHAPTER 7: NEOLIBERALISM, WRITING & STUDENT DEBT .................................................. 139 I. Networked Consensus ....................................................................................... 140 II. Indebted Writers ................................................................................................ 144 III. University of California: A Material Context ................................................. .146 IV. Debt & Discipline ............................................................................................ 148 V. Inverting Debt ................................................................................................... 153 REFERENCES ....................................................................................................................... 158 7 ABSTRACT Combining historiographic, rhetorical/analytical and hermeneutic research methodologies, this project takes as its grounding premise that neoliberal rationality is fundamentally reshaping writing and speech practices in the postsecondary higher education setting and beyond; and doing by ordering the ecology of writing at virtually every level of scale. Although ecologically-oriented writing research has thoroughly excavated and theorized writing’s environmental production, and demonstrated that its emergent properties comport with the laws governing complex systems, research focusing acutely on the political materiality of writing alongside writing theory has not been so thorough; nor has theory attended to how the neoliberal transformation bears on writing. This project moves to fill that gap by investigating the specific rhetorical-affective dimensions through which this reconstitution has occurred. How does neoliberalism— understood as a normative order of reason and a political rationality—intervene and order writing at the level of the subject? How do student indebtedness and other epiphenomenal developments
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