Clemson University TigerPrints All Dissertations Dissertations 5-2013 Actants, Agents, and Assemblages: Delivery and Writing in an Age of New Media Steven Holmes Clemson University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/all_dissertations Part of the Rhetoric and Composition Commons Recommended Citation Holmes, Steven, "Actants, Agents, and Assemblages: Delivery and Writing in an Age of New Media" (2013). All Dissertations. 1086. https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/all_dissertations/1086 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Dissertations at TigerPrints. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TigerPrints. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ACTANTS, AGENTS, AND ASSEMBLAGES: DELIVERY AND WRITING IN AN AGE OF NEW MEDIA ___________________________________________________ A Dissertation Presented to the Graduate School of Clemson University _______________________________________________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy Rhetorics, Communication, and Information Design ___________________________________________________ by Steven Keoni Holmes May 2013 ___________________________________________________ Accepted by: Dr. Victor J. Vitanza, Committee Chair Dr. Richard Scot Barnett Dr. Todd May Dr. Andrea Feeser ABSTRACT My dissertation redefines the rhetorical canon of delivery by drawing on interdisciplinary theories of technology and materiality, including hardware and software studies, assemblage theory, and actor-network theory. Rhetorical theorists and composition scholars have correctly equated the technological medium with delivery, but also have focused exclusively on the circulation of symbolic forces rather than the persuasive agency of technology itself, thus eliding the affordances and constraints posed by technological actors at the non-symbolic levels of hardware, software, protocol, and algorithms. The first section of this dissertation (Chapters 1, 2, and 3) traces the historiographical development of rhetorical materialism through a genealogy of major theoretical developments (epistemic, anti-realist, poststructuralist, postmodern, and posthuman) in twentieth-century American rhetorical studies. In consideration of this history, I suggest that the elision of nonhuman actors within delivery scholarship parallels a larger linguistic, social, and cultural constructivist paradigm within rhetorical studies as a whole. This paradigm is particularly evident within contemporary digital and visual rhetorical scholarship. Scholars focus largely on the elements of delivery that the user perceives and interacts with and not on the complex nonsymbolic factors that co- constitute the activity of delivery. In my second section (Chapters 4, 5, and 6), I seek to fully realize the claim that delivery is the medium by establishing a historical precedent in classical theorists such as Demosthenes, Cicero, and Quintilian. This precedent illuminates these theorists’ recognition of delivery as both central to rhetoric and engaged with embodied, ecological, ii and material nonhuman actors. With this classical framework in mind, I argue that assemblage theory, actor-network theory, and hardware and software studies enable digital rhetoric scholars to realize a similar view of delivery in the present moment that has otherwise been overlooked. These contemporary theories of materiality and agency share a rejection of a “modern” (Cf. Latour) view of an active human subject using a passive object to achieve a communicative aim. By contrast, I offer a “nonmodern” vision of technological agency where rhetorical agency and delivery are equally distributed across human and nonhuman actors and assemblages. I specifically reclaim “realism” in relationship to materiality in order to suggest a nonmodern rhetorical realism grounded in delivery as ontological hypokrisis. A nonmodern realist theory of delivery enables rhetorical scholars to study how material artifacts and writing technologies circulate, transform, and affect rhetorical consequences as they enter into various assemblages and networks to shape emergent political publics. By examining how delivery occurs through a complex ecological and material milieu, I define a more nuanced theoretical framework that allows rhetoricians and composition theorists to address the various non-symbolic aspects of digital rhetoric and nonhuman agency that increasingly serve as a condition of possibility for the ways in which we communicate today. iii DEDICATION I dedicate this dissertation to my partner and wife, Caitlin Holmes. Her patience and support were integral in completing this dissertation over the last few years. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It is a rare experience in life to be able to work with one’s intellectual heroes in a disciplinary field. I have now worked with two of them: Victor Villanueva, Jr. and Victor J. Vitanza. Victor Villanueva fostered my interests in rhetoric and politics in the first place, and Victor J. Vitanza is one of the figures whose sub/versive writing style inspired me to pursue a doctoral degree in rhetoric and composition. I could not have asked for a better teacher, mentor, and advisor over the last four years. Along similar lines, I owe a great debt to Scot Barnett for all of his assistance, mentorship, and friendship in helping me to negotiate the difficult theoretical terrain. Scot’s advice was also integral to helping me narrate a project produced in a transdisciplinary space for a disciplinary audience. Todd May’s unflagging commitment to praxis and political approaches to philosophy have served as an additionally source of inspiration for my scholarship. His careful attention to the full range of implications of my arguments has made me a better writer and thinker. Andrea Feeser has also provided this project with a great deal of artistic perspective. She specifically pointed me toward ways in which artists have approached the history of objects that has definitely challenged and informed my arguments in this dissertation. Thomas Rickert, who generously volunteered to served on the committee as a consultant, has also offered a encouragement and support over the last two years as I have explored this subject matter. I also want to acknowledge three professors who were not directly involved with the dissertation project: Steven B. Katz, Cynthia Haynes, and Jan Rune Holmevik also helped inspire my work. Dr. Katz has been a great friend and mentor to me throughout v my intellectual development. He greatly encouraged my work on rhetoric of science and object-oriented ontology in the first place. In a similar manner, Cynthia and Jan encouraged my fledgling interest in videogames and digital rhetoric. Without developing an appreciation for algorithmic actors and gaming scholarship, there is little chance that my project would have turned out the way that it did. Three specific graduate student colleagues at Clemson University, Jared Colton, Patricia Fancher, and Glen Southergill also deserve specific acknowledgment and my grateful thanks. Both have raised tough and interesting challenges to my nascent interest in the world of objects and nonhuman agency, and have provided me with a generous sounding board for my ideas as they have progressed in the last few years. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page TITLE PAGE .................................................................................................................... i ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................... ii DEDICATION ................................................................................................................ iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................. v CHAPTER 1. MATTER WITHOUT SUBSTANCE ..................................................... 1 Anti-Realism in the Rhetorical Tradition .................................... 1 Four Symptoms of Anti-Realism ................................................. 6 Symptom 1: Rhetorical Materialism’s Problem with Matter ..................................................................... 12 Symptom 2: The Rise of Anti-Realism ...................................... 22 Symptom 3: Anti-Realist Pedagogy and the Rise of Rhetorical Invention .................................................. 29 Symptom 4: Anti-Realism and Technology .............................. 33 The Legacy of Anti-Realism: Matter Without Substance ....................................................................... 37 Lines of Flight: Openings for New Materialism ........................ 41 Outline of Chapters: From Invention to Delivery ...................... 51 2. THE PARADOX OF SUBSTANCING ................................................ 58 Realism and Anti-Realism Continued ....................................... 58 Kenneth Burke’s Rhetorical Recalcitrance ................................ 65 Realism Post-Burke ................................................................... 74 Constructing the Nonmodern Constitution ................................ 79 From Invention to Delivery ....................................................... 89 Reconfiguring Rhetorical Realism ............................................. 94 Delivery as Circulating Reference ............................................. 97 Circulating Rhetorical Referents .............................................