Natural?

       I had a very similar response to Devin to some of Emig’s claims about writing and talking, specifically the assertion that “writing is a learned behavior; talking is natural, even irrepressible behavior.” Talking is also a learned behavior, as anyone who observes infants and toddlers can attest to. Perhaps this article was written before the studies on nonsocialized humans and their inability to verbally communicate, but I’m pretty sure that acquiring talking skills is generally considered a learned behavior. Emig later asserts that “writing is more readily a form and source of learning than talking.” This might be true for some people, but what about people who don’t like to write or who aren’t strong writers?

            I can see how writing can be a great way to learn, in that one learns “by doing,” “by depiction in an image” and by symbolic “restatement in words,” (124). Emig cites Luria’s convincing claims on writing as a “repeated mediating process of analysis and synthesis.” Their ideas on the value of the pace and practice of writing and its ability to connect the past, present and future resonated with me. Certainly, I want to have these ideas in mind when I teach and encourage students to write.

            Emig says herself that her article is “at once over-elaborate and under specific.” I found I could let go of some of her assumption/assertions that seem dubious to me when I approached the piece as one of philosophical musings and ideas instead of a definitive guide to the benefits of writing.

Unnatural Binaries and Writing through Speech

             I am surprised that no one has had an issue with Emig treating writing as a “learned behavior” as opposed to “talking [as a] natural, even irrepressible, behavior.” (or perhaps people have had an issue with that, but are much more subtle/nuanced than I am). It took me a while to get past that sentence since I think it’s so full of incorrect notions and ridiculous politics. I’ve had many contentious conversations with my more linguistically bent friends about the treatment of writing as an invention and conversation as always already existent. By placing writing and talking into an unnatural binary, I think she is inherently placing more value in talking than in writing—though she does value writing. While writing is a “stark, barren, even naked as a medium; talking is rich, luxuriant, inherently redundant”. Again I disagree with that assessment since Information Theorists would argue that writing can be just as redundant as speaking. And while I found the rest of the article interesting, I can’t fully endorse everything she writes here.

            But, I don’t want to be a complete Negative Nelly, so I’ll finish my post with something a little more positive, if slightly off topic. Toward the end of the essay when she is writing about Sartre and the importance of self-rhythm, I thought about the famous writers who have created some great works through an amanuensis. Henry James and John Milton were two writers who dictated their work to others, yet whose “writing” is still rich and thought-provoking. Richard Powers, an all-around amazing writing (read him!), uses speech-recognition software to capture everything that he “writes”. When I first encountered Powers, I didn’t know that fact and it stunned me when I found out. Of course, after writing, he does go through and edits his work, but he still approaches writing through speech. I wonder what Emig would have to say about these writers who engage in writing through speech.

Self-Selection

For the most part, Janet Emig's "Writing as a Mode of Learning" didn't tell me anything I didn't know already.  Even so, there's a comfort in receiving information you already knew from an informed source, even if that source is thirty years old.  For my exploratory paper, I've been digging through sources from the '80s, so I'm becoming weirdly well informed about the concepts of writing and teaching writing that were around the decades before I was born.

The part that really interested me in the reading was something I've noticed in myself and in students I tutor; it's what I started thinking and writing about that eventually led me to my exploratory paper topic.  It's pretty obvious-sounding when put down on paper, but when Emig notes the "importance of engagement in, as well as self-selection of, a subject for the student learning to write and writing to learn" (126), I felt a little validated.

In the Writing Center on my old campus (and, to some extent, here), after reading through a particularly uninterested paper with a student, I used to ask whether the subject were self-selected or teacher-assigned.  Of those flat, lifeless, unengaged papers, not a single topic was self-selected.  As an undergraduate myself, I was never stirred to action by teacher-assigned writing prompts.  For essay exams, obviously I did what I could with what I had (but those are so often merely spitting out as much information as you can in the time allotted), but when it came time to write papers, I would ask my professor whether I could write according to my own topic that had interested me at some point during the reading or the class discussion.

Students in the Writing Center believe that they can bullshit papers; this may be true, but I've never seen a student who can successfully fake interest in a subject on paper without at least faking interest to him or herself during the researching and writing process.  If it was evident already in the composition world of the '70s that self-selection is so important in both learning to write and writing to learn, why is it not always an option for undergraduates to pursue some topic they themselves have identified?

That '70's Article

So at risk of bashing an already well-beaten horse, I too was surprised and confused by having to read an article on writing from 1977. In researching peer review effectiveness in writing I quickly learned that it's difficult to find pertinent information that's more than two or three years old. "So why this article?" asks everyone in the class. Because there are still some interesting ideas here, that's why. Once notion that really stuck with me is that unlike other the forms of language process, writing is the only one that bares a tangible result. Talking, listening, and reading yield no language fruit, while you can hold what you've written in your hands, unless you draw it on a cave wall or something. We have paper now so, you know, no need to write an essay on a cave wall or anything. When considering teaching English 1000 next year, I constantly think of all the features of learning to write that might be frustrating and potentially disengaging for students; not being able to effectively convey their thoughts through writing; having a negative experience with peer review; not understanding the construction of a form of essay. However, in all of my pessimism, I never stopped to think about how writing might offer students an incentive where other mediums can not. Good, bad, whatever their writing might be, after they've completed it, they can hold it in their hands--or behold it on their screen--and say, "I've done this. I've accomplished this." It's not something abstract or a speech that has vanished in the air, an article invisibly stored in the mind. Emig notes how Vygotsky, Luria, and Brunner have noted a significant connection between writing and learning, and continues to explain that, "Successful learning is also engaged, committed, personal learning," (Emig 126). When applying this to teaching English 1000 for me, it means that if students can become in engaged in writing, enjoy writing, then it might be another effective way for them to learn--learning in English 1000, but more importantly, learning in any class, in any arena in their lives. Writing becomes another tool in their belt in which to engage knowledge, if of course, they adopt it as a form of "personal learning". That kind of puts the pressure on me as the instructor, but it also gives me incentive. Writing can immediate gratification where other forms of language processes cannot. I think within this potentially frustrating and disengaging process of composition that we will begin in the fall, small incentives like this might offer enough for some students to continue down the path and adopt writing as tool for learning. I can only hope.

The Writing Game: 1977 to 2012

We all know writing is an aid in learning. That is not the issue for us as English and Comp/Rhet students. At first it may seem like Emig’s article only states the obvious. But the importance of the article is not in restating what we already know, but in mapping out this knowledge itself and weaving it through data in other fields. Emig’s article is a breath of fresh air. Partially because I simply am fascinated by writing itself, but also because it is important to understand the psychology of writing and combing the tangle of thoughts out into prose.

I liked this statement:

“A silent classroom or one filled only with the teacher's voice is anathema to learning” (Emig 123).

But it does make me question if it helps her argument. This is because she focuses on writing and the cognitive processes it entails, but here she is going back to old-fashioned Socratic method and dialog. Both are fine and accentuate each other. However the “second-order” mode of thought that writing forces upon us is an enhancement of reflective consciousness. It, to me at least, enhances perception (and apperception). Nathan made a comment a few weeks ago about the benefits of writing and I see Emig making the same point. I wholly agree: writing effects a strengthening of the cognitive faculty, whatever that may be. What I picture is that it makes the mind more receptive to “concepts.”

There is one passage I would question. Emig writes that “[w]riting is stark, barren, even naked as a medium; talking is rich, luxuriant, inherently redundant” (Emig 124). This statement must be taken in a specific sense. The problem I have with it is that “writing” is beyond this. I situate “writing” to other media, not just the lettristic, but the graphic. After all “graph” means “write” (if I’m not mistaken). Cinematography, Choreography, and other “graphies” I place much value in. The specific “graphy” Emig is dealing with, however, certainly facilitates conceptualization (and abstraction, what I would like to say is a kind of “Pure Reason”).

Lastly, Emig states that “unless the losses to learners of not writing are compellingly described and substantiated by experimental and speculative research, writing itself as a central academic process may not long endure” (Emig 127). In this I wonder what her tone is conveying. To me, I worry that other disciplines don’t recognize the importance of writing. Even in English—Yes English!—there was much theorizing against writing, mostly after Emig’s article (1977), after waves of Cultural Theory swept through the Departments. Well, Emig’s article is a good look into the psychology of writing. What it really justifies is the existence of our field. In case some of us didn't know, English is a bit shakier ground than some other fields. We need people to step up and let them know how the field is marked is how the game is played.

Setting your own pace

To be honest, for most of the time that I was reading this article I seriously wondered what could possibly be the point.  First of all, 1977?  There has been so much discussion about writing and composition in the classroom since then, so what could possibly be relevant about this article?  Secondly, the title: "Writing as a Mode of Learning."  Well, what's new about this, I thought?  Of course we learn when we write - isn't that common knowledge?  Isn't that why we dedicate semester-length courses to composition?

Of course, by the end of the article, while I was still feeling as though Emig was telling me what I already knew and believed, she did bring certain things to light that I would not automatically have thought of when I think about writing.  The most important point that she brought up for me was that writing matches the person's own learning pace.  Emig writes, "...writing is self-rhythmed.  One writes best as one learns best, at one's own pace.  Or to connect the two processes, writing can sponsor learning because it can match its pace" (126).  While this is probably self-evident, it is something that I had not really thought of before this weekend.  I have been researching ways to incorporate social media in the writing classroom, and one of the authors of the articles I am exploring notes that students enjoy reviewing and commenting on other's papers online because they can do so at their own pace.  This stands in stark contrast to the classroom, where the student is expected to give a spontaneous answer when called upon, and can often fell nervous or simply "go blank."

Accommodating the rates of learning for all of my future students will certainly be difficult.  I may have fast learners and slow learners in my classroom, and I also must decide at what rate I personally feel comfortable moving through the material.  The beauty of writing, though, is that it allows students to move at their own respective paces, regardless of how fast or slowly they feel the material is being covered in the classroom.  Writing will set all of my students on equal-footing time-wise (whether or not they decide to utilize the time given wisely is, of course another issue).  I think this is important for all kinds of classrooms, whether or not the focus is on writing or biology - if you want to give your students the ability to work at their own paces, give them a take-home writing assignment that will not force them to feel those in-class pressures.

Emulation

Why did Donna give us article from 1977? Certainly, it is relevant for thinking about why writing is important. I am imagining a room full of kids who deliberately picked one of the sciency majors because they were told that they were bad writers in high school. Emig hypothesis that writing engages all three of Bruners categories for representing and dealing with actuality might speak to some of the more studious types; while the anecdote about JPS choosing not to write after going blind might spark some sort of discussion; but I am not sure that Donna wanted us to read this piece in order to get us thinking about how to get "non-writers" to care about writing or how writing engages our thinking processes in unique ways.

At the risk looking like an idiot because Donna already mention why she assigned this article in class, I wanted to point out that this article seems like an exploratory paper. It is an exploratory paper that just so happens to be published in 4Cs.

I could be calling this one wrong and if that is the case rebuke me and try to engage the ideas in the text. But even, if I am wrong (or I have just missed the heads up that Donna was going to send us a model to look at), a little bit of rhetorical analysis could be beneficial to my case and to those students who are yet to compose their explorations--quit looking at me.

The first thing that tipped me off was the extremely direct thesis statement. Emig is out to prove that writing is unique way of learning. Emig does not spend a lot of time setting of the context for this inquiry or explaining why it is important, she can figure that stuff out along the way. The voyage of exploration embarks.

It might be helpful to see each part as answering the four questions from last time. Like the second paragraph seems to answer the question, "Who agrees with me?" In talking about some other researchers who agree with her she has established conjecture.

In the third paragraph she moves on to questions of definition in order to find out what other methods of learning that she must contrast with writing in order to claim uniqueness. After she establishes how writing is different from reading, listening, and especially talking, she defines different learning strategies in terms of writing. Considering how writing works for different learning strategies explicitly and implicitly answers certain questions of quality.

What end up with is a essay that poses questions and tries to establish several different positions where the efficacy of writing could be examined more closely. Some of her points are only supported by anecdotes and all of them only scratched at the surface, providing us with a citation or two which we can check out later (or build further experiments off of). It claims it is a "first attempt" to make a case for writing, but I also think it is also an exploration that we may emulate.

This week’s readings brought me back to high school debate, where I somehow did very well without understanding exactly what I was doing; some of my debate methods were intuitive, some were related to proofs, and some were a bunch of crap. But now, I have polysyllabic words of Greek and Latin origin to help me explain and frame arguments! In all seriousness though, I found this reading really helpful for different areas of my academic life. As others have discussed, explaining some of these concepts to students I tutor can be useful, provided I focus more on the broader concepts than the terms. Lots of students come in with assignments to write argumentative papers, and I think explaining the concepts behind kairos could be very useful for some of them. (Other students might just be confused by it – even the potential discussion of kairos depends on the right kairos.) The stases too can be helpful for students who are stuck or missing an important part in an argumentative paper. Crowley writes that “the stases often allow rhetors to articulate assumptions that they take for granted but that may be controversial to others,” which is a concept I’d like to articulate to students who are so sure of the rightness of their argument that they don’t try to explain it.

I think that I could teach some of these rhetorical approaches to freshmen, but it could prove to be difficult for me to explain and difficult for the students to grasp. Admittedly, kairos and stasis theory will probably be more useful for me as a graduate student than as an instructor or tutor.

I really, really hope I never have a student who writes a paper on abortion.

Questions

I thought the article generally seemed like a collection of vague, paraphrastic summaries of classical authors’ ideas about approaches to rhetoric, loosely connected to the setting of a composition classroom. The concept of Kairos, while certainly relevant to writing in a very general sense, seems both incredibly obvious and nearly impossible to explain to a group of undergraduates. It seems like most students would understand intuitively that a variety of factors influence the relevance of a particular topic at a particular time. Explaining that explicitly might generate only confusion rather than anything productive or helpful to the writing process. 

However, I thought that the adaptation of the list of four questions devised by ancient rhetoricians would be a useful exercise for facilitating a critical conversation about the students’ writing.  The stasis questions would be an effective starting point for writers attempting to develop an essay.  While the answers to these questions (conjecture, definition, quality, and policy) seem like they would naturally occur throughout the writing process, bringing them up with students at the outset would likely provide an easier means of organization and articulation of ideas. Thinking about the questions at the outset would likely force a writer – especially an immature writer – to confront and develop solutions for problems that might otherwise not be evident until a much later stage of composition.  The definition (stasis horos) question in particular seemed a useful way to get students to examine the ‘problem’ or ‘topic’ of their essay from multiple angles.

Creating Urgency

The chapter on kairos talks about grounding rhetorical works in a sense of urgency in order to make the piece more relevant.  The text even brings up the example of a group of disinterested college kids as the target audience, who need to be swayed into believing that something like capital punishment is an issue worth understanding.  I believe that news articles such as the ones sampled within the chapter require a sense of urgency, but to what extent is this applicable for teaching English 1000?

I agree with previous bloggers and commenters that the "So what?" question is all-important in the writing center.  Students get so wrapped up in the fact that they have to have an argument, and in proving that single-minded argument, that often they forget relevance altogether.  But I have seen far more heavy-handed attempts to create a sense of urgency and false relevance in writing center papers than I have seen papers that completely refused to attempt to justify their own importance.

After all, introductions that lead in with "From the beginning of time..." or "Throughout recorded history..." or conclusions that try to make it seem like the course of action proposed in the paper will heal all the world's ills are attempting only this: to seem as though they are answering all-pervading questions with gravity in all our lives.  Of course, these papers fall short.  There are no all-pervading questions that haven't been answered in hundreds of different ways already, and I'm sorry to say that it's unlikely an underclassman will contribute anything surprising and meaningful to any of them.

My advice to writers who try to force relevance in their arguments by broad appeal like this is always, "Be more specific."  If they are analyzing a written work or a piece of art, the effective parts of the paper are going to be the ones that apply directly to the written work or piece of art.  It's not always possible to respond to writing assignments by first answering: "What is going on at this moment that might help the audience see that now is the time for action?" (49).  What action would a successful literary analysis or personal narrative advocate?  I believe the overzealousness of high school teachers to get their students writing toward "the bigger picture" is the progenitor of those vague, overreaching introductions and conclusions that always feel forced and flat.  A sense of urgency and kairos are important to create in certain types of writing assignments, but many of the English 1000 assignments I have had coming into the writing center do not leave room for this sort of tactic without feeling forced.

These chapter relate broadly to the topic I want to explore in my exploratory (redundant) paper. In fact, most of the reading have related to the broad topic I have chosen because my topic is "pre-writing," or "what do we write before we write" or maybe just simply writing in the invention stage. I will be the first to admit that my writing usually suffers from a lack of "prewriting," or heuristics as this book calls it. While I am no stranger to the last minute total overhaul, but a little lot more preparation could have probably saved me a lot of sleepless nights. However, the readings on contract and communal grading have got me thinking that perhaps these evidences of my laziness where not entirely my fault. (As a "good boy" and twin, I am quick to shriek blame). But seriously, maybe the reason that literally every undergraduate paper (my own included) that I have ever read seems to suffer from either myopathy or indigestion is because no one that I know goes through the process of that is necessary to discover (or create?) kairos, constructs legitimate counter arguments, or takes a tangent a rewrite the whole around it (on purpose). Weak writers and strong writers often share the same prideful demon that says, "You wrote it, therefore it must be part of your paper." If you were like me, you might have been a little weirded out by the potential of contract grading to reward poor work, but I want to argue that rewarding students for doing "poor work," that is work that doesn't produce good results and is indeed work, is a necessary step in developing strong writers. Writing students like math students need to be given credit for showing their work. That means if you want students to ask themselves the Four Questions, first answer Devin's question (how), then give them stand alone assignment(s) where they must produce a document that looks something like what the writer of this book gives us, and finally give them credit for it (if they did it). This might seem obvious, but I have never had a class that required more than an annotated bibliography. Will they perhaps unlearn this process in other courses that don't give them credit for this kind of "extra" work? Perhaps? But, in the spirit of Dissoi Logoi, perhaps not.

One of the assignments that I have been thinking about is to get them to tell me which way they are leaning on whatever issue and have them argue the other side. I found this helpful but frustrating when I did it accidentally as my mind went on weird tangents starring at my word processors and I think it would be much less traumatic if it was required.

I am sure there are many other I can do, but I plan on exploring that in my (once again redundant) exploratory paper, so I will get back to you on that.

Q

Working in the writing center has given us all a great look into the minds of new writers. So far each student who has scheduled an appointment with me has had a new issue or s/he was at a different point in the process than my other tutees. Each session I'm addressing new questions and attempting to help students out of new predicaments. In the future though, I think I will be greatly helped with using some of the questions and ways to think that are featured in chapter 3.

The Four Questions (Conjecture, Definition, Quality, Policy) feel incredibly useful to my current tutoring sessions and for my future classes. Although students' issues with their papers are varied, I think I can begin to create some logical categories and subsets of their missteps: unaware of the audience, unsure of the terms they use, ignoring the importance of their topic, &c. These Four Questions could begin to prepare students in a useful way to think about writing papers. And while not all of their academic writing will benefit from these Questions, I think a majority of it will.

The Questions, if asked early in the writing process, can help the student clarify the argument and create a needed consistency. I haven't applied the Four Q's to my tutees because I'm discovering them only now, but a somewhat related tip I give to my tutees is that they should pull out certain parts of their papers, set them aside while they write, and continually refer to them. For example, when a student has a thesis statement s/he is okay with (I don't get a lot of enthusiasm on this often) I tell them to write that down separately on another sheet of paper and continue to write. By setting it aside, I hope the student will refer back to it while writing and remember what it is that s/he is actually arguing.

Although this strategy seems to work well in my 1:1 sessions, I was/am/will be wondering how can I teach these methods to a whole class. I fear that these rhetorical techniques and other nitty-gritty pieces of writing (grammar, usage, &c.) will get packaged as "neat, helpful tools for you--the student--to look over and apply at your leisure." Students might dismiss the importance of these techniques if advertised in this way. So, how do we teach the Four Questions, Kairos, &c. to a whole class?

Trading Places , Seeing Faces

Since this week's readings featured applying some large concepts to real-life situations--i.e., kairos to the Gov George Ryan ruling upon departure and stasis theory to questions of abortion legitimacy--I thought it might be interesting to try switching up the situations and see how each theory may respond to the new situation. In the chapter on kairos, the 2003 episode where Dan Ryan used his gubernatorial authority to absolve all of the Illinois death row prisoners from their original sentences, reducing their those terms to life in prison or less, before leaving office in disgrace. The chapter explains that though normally Ryan wouldn't have been able to make this move because such a liberal move would have torpedoed his Republican re-election campaign, the fact that he was facing an immanent impeachment from his position no matter what he did or didn't do provided him with the "kairos" to make this decision. Now what if the stasis theory is applied to this same situation? On one hand, Ryan is abusing his power as a lame duck, making personal decision based on his own principles and values and not of the people who voted him into office, who supposedly represents. This is a selfish move. On the other hand, as acting governor (at the moment anyway, it is Ryan's duty to what he believes is in the best interest of all his state, not just the ones who elected him and not because he hopes that they might elect him again. This is a responsible move... that has been made easier by the fact that he can't be re-elected. Applying the four questions of the Stasis Theory to the situation the conjecture could be: does this gubernatorial act merit extra examination? Definition: what kind of action is this? Can it be enacted unilaterally as a regular function of the office? Quality: is this action illegal or amoral? Policy: Should this action be publicly accepted or rejected? Another scenario originally feature Stasis Theory is one of specialized Illinois license plates featuring the words "Pro Life" that would be used to raise money for a state adoption agency. The Stasis Theory here states that on one hand, Adoption advocates argue that not supporting these plates means not supporting adoption; while on the other hand, Pro-Choice supporters claim that this is a convoluted ploy used by Pro-Life advocates to force their beliefs upon anyone not wanting to discriminate against adoption regardless of their feelings toward abortion. When the question of kairos is applied, one could either say that Pro-Life supporters are view this situation where not buying one of their sloganed license plate infers not supporting adoption as a kairotic situation to push--at least superficially--their beliefs. From an adoption advocate's perspective this is also a kairotic situation because it is a chance to raise a lot of money for adoption by appealing to a big market--Pro Life supporters.

Stasis Theory states that there are always two sides of an argument that should be respected.

Questions, questions, questions

I certainly think the concept of kairos is important to impart to my composition students - realizing that an argument has importance other than the fact that the student is choosing to write on it is an important step towards answering the "So what?" question.  One of the tactics I use in my tutoring session to get students to think about how they want to formulate their conclusions is to read aloud the thesis of the paper and then ask, "So what?"  It is one pieces of composition and argumentative writing that students have the most trouble with, in my experience, and getting my students to understand kairos is one of the ways I hope to teach them about writing their conclusions in my future composition class.

What I found most helpful for writers (especially inexperienced or new writers) in this reading was the "question" approach, especially the approach of first asking a general question and then making it more and more specific until it suits the needs and requirements of the assignment.  I often found during my undergraduate career (and at times still have this problem) that I would attempt to write what should have really been a much longer paper in less than ten pages.  I think that this approach would have helped me address this problem - I could fine-tune the question, making it more and more specific, until it suited the assignment.  This is also a great spring-board for ideas - by asking questions and making sure that these questions get more and more specific, the student can begin to formulate an argument.  She can see what will be too much to take on in that 5-7 page paper, or what topic will be too narrow for her to write about for that long.  Another useful consequence of this approach is that the student can create a broad list of specific questions, each representing a different direction in which to take the paper.  This goes back to the importance revision that Shelley spoke about in our last class - that it is important for students to realize that there can be different directions in which they can take the same topic.  I think that this "questions" approach is another way (and one with which I personally feel more comfortable) in which to get students to do this.

A Meta-Rhetoric of Kairos?

Kairos is an interesting topic and I’ve been thinking about it for some time, prior to this class. But the way I’ve been thinking about it has been more aligned with Literary Theory and Philosophy. I’ve encountered it in narrative analyses and even in Theology (Paul Tillich, a Protestant Theologian uses the notion to describe its difference from “logos,” showing how kairos is a kind of “Existential time.”) It is a notion that will be entering much of my writing and discussions in other classes, but here it is more composition-specific. I should say it is “Rhetoric” specific in the sense that is subtly outlined in page 36, Chapter 2 of Crowley’s book:

“We did not use the sophists’ [discourse] approach because it is text oriented” (Crowley 36).

This is a part of what my exploratory paper is getting at. I’m examining (or starting to) whether certain literary ideas need to be carried-over to specifically “composition” ideas and praxis. In other words, I’m concerned that much of literary theory is readerly as opposed to writerly and I encounter some readings where literary theory is grafted onto “composition theory.” I hope Dr. Strickland will bear with me because I know very little about it at present, but am trying to discern how valid integrating readerly (reception) approaches is in regards to writerly (production). I do not know, but I think many theorists might have a quibble with the preference Crowley gives to the “canons” as opposed to a textual approach. Some theorists I think press against the idea of “kairos,” seeing that our culture is so heavily mediated and textual that “immediacy” becomes impossible.

 

Immediacy for me is very possible, indeed impossible to get away from though impossible to carry. It is the “unbearable lightness of being” that the Bas-Relief on page 38 suggests. Kairos is the razor’s edge of the moment; it is in my reading improvisatory. This is why kairos, in literary theory or rhetoric, interests me so much. As a (fairly proficient) Jazz Musician it is a concept I live by (or try). I think of it musically. In a time-signature in music there are two versions of time: the measure and the beat-value. Jazz music is very much learning the “language of time,” being able to hit the “right” note. So I see kairos as rhythm and a way of harmonizing yourself, as rhetor (or saxophonist), to the music (or situations) around you. This metaphor helps me understand it, but certainly there are theories pressing against this notion of kairos as “existential time.”

I don’t want to over-do this post. But I was troubled by one aspect. The text denotes kairos as spatial but doesn’t really put any evidence to this. I have always seen it as temporal. On page 43 it lists “Questions Raised by Kairos” and reminds us twice that it is spatial. I am thinking this refers more to “deixis,” not “kairos.” The text doesn’t show how the notion is spatial so I’m not convinced. Casually, of course, but imprecisely, it can be “spatial,” but in my readings about it elsewhere it was wholly an issue of “temporality.” Yes it is situational, but only in a historic sense. I have usually thought of it as a version of Jung’s “synchronicity” where things events in time “come together” and bear heavier significance. I thought spatiality had little bearing on “kairos” and that the author is confusing the notion a bit.

All nitpicking aside I wholly enjoyed the text. It helps me to be conscious of my situated-ness, as rhetor. More specifically, in terms of my scholarly projects, it presents more evidence of a divide between kairotic immediacy and the tension of our own heavily-mediated, mechanical existence. I really enjoy more classical approaches. After all, why not use the ideas that are already there? From a meta-rhetorical standpoint, is it not even more interesting that an ancient notion like “kairos” is still itself “kairotic?” This kind of thing I really appreciate.

 

Philip Petit "Man on Wire" (1974)

 

-Ryan J

 

]

"There is a Japanese visual art in which the artist is forced to be spontaneous. He must paint on a thin stretched parchment with a special brush and black water paint in such a way that an unnatural or interrupted stroke will destroy the line or break through the parchment. Erasures or changes are impossible. These artists must practice a particular discipline, that of allowing the idea to express itself in communication with their hands in such a direct way that deliberation cannot interfere.

The resulting pictures lack the complex composition and textures of ordinary painting, but it is said that those who see well find something captured that escapes explanation.

 

This conviction that direct deed is the most meaningful reflections, I believe, has prompted the evolution of the extremely severe and unique disciplines of the jazz or improvising musician." -Bill Evans, Jazz Pianist