CCR 691: Enos et al (2006) "Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Rhetorical Criticism"

Enos et al. (2006). “Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Rhetorical Criticism” and “A Bibliographic Synthesis of Rhetorical Criticism.” Rhetoric Review, Vol. 5, No.4: 357-407.

Major claims/assumptions about rhetorical criticism:

• rhetorical criticism is ubiquitously bound by culture, history, and language
• it is important to acknowledge that some approaches of rhetorical criticism are applicable to some cultures/times/sites, while inapplicable to others (since the approaches themselves are tied up with history, culture, and language)
• approaches to rhetorical criticism are (and will continue to be) constantly invented, reinvented, and recycled in response to our historical and social contexts
• rhetorical criticism is not objective and can openly express criticizers' positions and perspectives
• “rhetorical criticism mimics the process of agency….The result [of a critic’s analysis or interpretation] is a world of the agent’s/critic’s own creation” (376)
• rhetorical criticism is not based solely on rational argument (oratory, persuasion, essays)
• rhetorical texts are more than just written documents or speeches; they include: “art, architecture, cityscapes, monuments, handicrafts, and many more human-made objects” (371) and even phenomenons and social movements (Civil Rights; Gay rights, the Chicano Movement, etc.)
• rhetoric is an instrument for investigating influential public contexts and affairs (in media, politics, etc.)
• method for analyzing public affairs: “discovering the best sources, considering the extant theories, interrogating the available evidence, and constructing original arguments that seek to account for the situational matrix that defines public policy debate…going beyond the printed sources to engage directly those involved…through participant observation, interviewing, ethnography, or other field methods” (381)
• goals of rhetorical criticism: “one ends with something beyond the purely rhetorical, something that inevitably speaks to the subject matter under investigation, something that is extrarhetorical in insight or implication” (382)
• it is debatable in what discipline rhetorical criticism originated as well as how rhetoric or rhetorical criticism should be defined
• “it is important to keep in mind that rhetorical criticism should serve a purpose, whether that purpose adds to knowledge in such a way that others can engage with that knowledge creation or theorizes and humanizes rhetoric as performance” (396-397)

Key scholars that are cited: Edwin Black, Jean-Paul Sartre, Herbert Wichelns, Leland M. Griffin, Richard Claverhouse Jebb, Kenneth Burke, Simons, Bowers, Ochs, Enos, Kohrs Campbell, King, Condit, Foss

Some quotes and some questions:

“As exciting and productive as the 1965-1980 era was, it eventually led to an overemphasis on theory and method, often to the exclusion of knowledge grounded in practice and analysis” (380).

In the 21^st century “methodology is clearly less important than before” (368).

“many of the stronger recent studies in rhetorical criticism have regarded criticism not as method but as attitude” (385).

“theorists have presented theories that attempt to break out of the strict structures of methodologically driven criticism” (391).

• I wonder if methodology is used interchangeably with method, or if these scholars reference our definition of methodology: “theory and analysis of how research does or should proceed” (Harding, 3).
• It seems generally accepted that in rhetorical criticism methodology is “less important” than before, yet we’ve been discussing in class how our field has been moving towards aligning greater importance to method and methodology. Does this apply to research methods based on theory and analysis? Should rhetorical criticism be grounded in methods and methodologies? How so? How not?
• Also, might rhetorical criticism’s hesitance to define methods/methodologies reflect many of our instincts (as discussed in class) of keeping methods and methodologies at bay to our already intuitive (and so far effective) practices for analysis?