Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University English Dissertations Department of English 8-12-2014 Imagining a Twenty-First Century Strategy Marcia Bost Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/english_diss Recommended Citation Bost, Marcia, "Imagining a Twenty-First Century Strategy." Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2014. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/english_diss/128 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of English at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in English Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. IMAGINING A TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY STRATEGY by MARCIA INZER BOST Under the Direction of Dr. Lynee Gaillet and Dr. Michael Harker ABSTRACT This dissertation argues that a diversity of epistemology within the field of rhetoric and composition can encourage Imagining as a strategy to negotiate the conundrums and binaries of the post-everything era, especially in negotiating the social presence of online learning. I trace Imagination from Enlightenment Pedagogy, which privileged the individual, unteacheable genius, to the conflation of invention and Imagination and the disappearance of both in current- traditional, modern, and postmodern pedagogy. Underlying this disappearance seems to be a distrust of Imagination, as exemplified by Kenneth Burke. I suggest that strategy of Imagining, rather than the faculty of Imagination, is needed—a move that is congruent with the active agency suggested by Marilyn Cooper. I also suggest that the theoretical basis for Imagining as a bridge can be found in the “Thirdness” of Charles Sanders Pierce. Following Coleridge, I suggest that four means of knowing serve as foundations for Imagining: the group, the text, knowledgeable others, and the spirit. These four means can give the field of rhetoric and composition a diversity of epistemologies, and these terms provide the means to more fully describe our complex, partial, and recursive ways of knowing in the twenty-first century. These ways of knowing are especially necessary in online learning where teachers and students may only “see” each other through their words. INDEX WORDS: Diversity of epistemologies, Coleridge, Kenneth Burke, Ann E. Berthoff, Post human, online learning. IMAINGING A TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY STRATEGY by MARCIA INZER BOST A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University 2014 Copyright by Marcia Lynn Inzer Bost 2014 IMAGINING A TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY STRATEGY by MARCIA INZER BOST Committee Co-Chair: Lynee Gaillet Michael Harker Committee: George Pullman Electronic Version Approved: Office of Graduate Studies College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University August 2014 iv DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to my family: my late parents, Charles Inzer and Julia Layman Inzer, who taught me the value of never giving up and my husband and children who bore with me in the making of “doctor mom.” v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thank you to all my “knowledgeable others,” in particular my committee members: co- chairs Dr. Lynee Gaillet and Dr. Michael Harker and committee member Dr. George Pullman. Thank you to all my colleagues who endured my questions about knowing, in particular Dr. Brenda Ayers, Dr. Micheal Elam and Dr. Fabrice Pussin, and to Dr. Mark Hamilton, who served as a peer reader. Thank you also to those who encouraged me to seek my doctorate while I was at Kennesaw State University: Dr. Todd Harper, Dr. Laura Dabundo, Dr. Greg Meyes, and especially Dr. Bernadette Musetti who say my potential before I did. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................. v INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................. 1 CHAPTER 1: IMAGINATION AND BREAKING FREE ......................................... 11 Imagination as the Sphere of Genius ......................................................................... 12 Imagination as the Stepchild of Invention ................................................................ 15 The Champion of Imagination ................................................................................... 21 The Seminal Debate—Pushing Back Against Decoding ........................................ 23 The Move towards Theory—Embracing Chaos ...................................................... 25 Possible Theoretical Support—Enacting Agency ................................................... 28 Imagination in the Posthuman Moment.................................................................... 30 The Problem of Presence in Online Learning......................................................... 32 The Possibility of Imagining as the Response ......................................................... 34 Imagination in the Education Field ........................................................................... 36 CHAPTER 2: BURKE AND THE ILLUSIVE LOOKING GLASS OF THEORY . 46 Examining Burke on Coleridge .................................................................................. 47 Tracing Burke’s Journey ............................................................................................ 48 Traversing Burke’s Collective Wisdom .................................................................... 51 Seeking a Transcendent Imagination ........................................................................ 53 Speculating on a Transcendent Imagination ............................................................ 64 vii Privileging of Scene and the Distrust of Imagining .................................................. 66 CHAPTER 3: “A GLASSY ESSENCE”: REFLECTING ON THE SEARCH FOR AN ACTIVE IMAGINATION .................................................................................................. 73 Coleridge on Imagination ........................................................................................... 74 Burke on Imagination in Coleridge ........................................................................... 84 Richards on Coleridge ................................................................................................ 84 Imagining in Other Interpretations ........................................................................... 86 Imagining as a Mediating Act .................................................................................... 91 CHAPTER 4: THROUGH THE GLASS DARKLY—COMPOSING AGENTS FOR IMAGINING ...................................................................................................................... 94 Foundations of Coleridge’s Theory ........................................................................... 95 Pentad of Operative Christianity .............................................................................. 99 The Philosophical Antitheses of Coleridge.............................................................. 101 Thirdness as to Remedy to Dyadic Gaps ................................................................. 105 Nature of (Post) Humans through the Glass of Thirdness .................................. 108 Nature of Language and Thought through the Glass of Thirdness ..................... 111 Implications of Thirdness in the Story of Corder .................................................. 112 Implications of Coleridge’s Theory....................................................................... 115 Implications of Thirdness for Imagining............................................................... 117 Returning to the Glass, Darkly ................................................................................ 119 viii CHAPTER 5: THE UNSEEN PRESENCE (OR THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS) ...................................................................................................................................... 121 The Arcs of Knowing ................................................................................................ 124 From Knowledgeable Others to Students .............................................................. 133 From Knowing to Imagining.................................................................................. 133 The Arcs of Imagining .............................................................................................. 136 Arcing from Imagining to Teaching ........................................................................ 139 Imagining a Different Syllabus .............................................................................. 143 Objective Shifts. ...................................................................................................... 145 Focal Shifts ............................................................................................................. 147 Assessment Shifts .................................................................................................... 150 Embracing all the Arcs of Knowing ........................................................................ 152 WORKS CITED............................................................................................................ 156 APPENDICES ..............................................................................................................