reject-o-rama

Inspired by--and in direct imitation of--Rebecca Moore Howard, I decided to add to the list of really fucking good panels that have been rejected by CCCC. The panel (the entire proposal for which is pasted below) included me and two highly regarded scholars whose research has garnered international attention and national awards. We even had a first-timer, which used to help a proposal, because CCCC used to be interested in attracting new voices. But I think that's no longer an issue because the conference has gotten so big.

I've been using this rejection as a comfort to many of my current and former graduate students who do high-quality historical work and whose proposals did not get accepted either (when I was in grad school, one of my professors mentioned elsewhere in this post whose initials are CG also got a proposal rejected and she broadcast that widely, which was very kind of her). RMH raises some excellent questions about the value of data-driven research in the field, and I wonder if the value of historically grounded or rhetorically inflected research isn't going the same direction where CCCC is concerned. (It's hard to tell which of those aspects tanked our proposal, or if it was something else altogether.) Of course when Cheryl Glenn was program chair a few years ago, things were different, but she values both rhetoric and history. My panel with Jeffrey Walker and Janet Atwill on history not only got accepted, but it got scheduled for a huge room, which was sweet. Is it worth waiting around around for CCCC to appoint a program chair like Glenn again?

I'm not sure it is. The next time my membership is up for renewal, I'm going to have to think long and hard before sending in so many dollars. In the meantime I'll be giving the journal and the conference program extra scrutiny, because my decision to reconsider my membership isn't just fueled by ressentiment, but by a real question about the organization's commitments and my own.

Animals, Figures, and Letters: Activities in Ancient and Medieval Classrooms

 One-sentence description:

 In an effort to re-enliven the history of rhetoric and writing instruction, this panel investigates the role of animals, figures, and letters in ancient and medieval classrooms.

 Ancient and medieval classrooms were lively places, places where students were encouraged to stretch their imaginations and their lung capacities. This panel will examine ancient and medieval texts and practices and the pedagogical theories embedded in them, with an eye to what they might tell us about rhetorical education, past and present. 

 Speaker 1 will join the recent wave of attention given to ancient school exercises called progymnasmata. Thanks in part to J. David Fleming’s recent exhortation to embrace the “very idea” of these exercises, the progymnasmata are finding their way into classrooms and textbooks (D’Angelo, Crowley and Hawhee). This small but discernible shift in practice might usefully be accompanied by careful scrutiny of the exercises themselves, their history, their sequence, and their often striking content. Why, for example, are the progymnasmata crawling with animals?

 Students working in this tradition usually began by composing fables about animals, but they were also, later in the sequence, asked to compose as animals, to write in the “voice” of, say, an ape interested in forming a city with fellow apes. I propose to examine the prompts that ask students to compose as animals. If, as Fleming (quoting Murphy) argues, the point of the progymnasmata was to “‘become rhetorical,’” then the exercises’ more peculiar features might tell us a bit more about what exactly that means. For starters, the prompt to compose as animals helps to infuse early rhetorical education with more than low-stakes fictitious play; the animals, rather, function more generally as an other—an other to humans, and uniquely, an other to children. A look at animals in these ancient school exercises begins to expand rhetoric from the art of observing the available means of persuasion to, more generally, an art of becoming someone—or something—else.

Speaker 2 will examine ancient classroom instruction in figures and tropes.  Despite strong reevaluations of their role and cognitive functions (J. Fahnestock), the rhetorical figures and tropes still occupy a marginal place in the teaching of composition. However, if judged by modern standards, the handbooks of late antiquity and the medieval period show a disproportionate amount of attention to the figures: in Rhetorica ad Herrenium they take up a fourth of the discussion, Quintilian’s Institutio oratoria devotes two entire books, and the Greek compilation of composition texts On Invention attributed to Hermogenes substitutes the discussion of the role of the epilogue in composition with a discussion of the figures and tropes.

What value did the ancient teachers find in the figures? In this paper I will argue that, aside from investing the figures with argumentative content, the ancients used them to teach discourse rhythm as well as an imaginary (or real) reciprocity between the student and his peers. Figures such as antithesis, dilemma, circular expression, period, pneuma, and “stretching” were used to get the student’s ear accustomed not only to a rhythmical measure in his own compositions, but also to elicit response in peer-to-peer competitions.  

Speaker 3 will reconsider the role of model letters in medieval classrooms. Medieval teachers inherited the grammatical and rhetorical pedagogy of antiquity and adapted it to their own needs. While the system of the progymnasmata was not preserved intact, for example, many of the individual exercises continued to be employed in medieval classrooms. Letters replaced speeches as the target genre for composition instruction. This paper argues that the model letters found in most medieval textbooks on letter writing resemble classical declamations in several respects. Their structure is modeled on that of an oration, their style presupposes oral presentation, and their typical pairing almost certainly reflects a continuing tradition of classroom disputation. The performative and controversial rhetoric of such letters will be demonstrated through oral delivery of several short model letters with their responses.

 Each paper, then, seeks to make an innovative contribution to existing histories of writing instruction. It is the panelists’ collective hope that reconsidering such active and engaged classroom practices stands to re-enliven our own.

Comments

[Jordynn]

That sucks. I would've liked to have attended your panel.

[k8]

I would have enjoyed this panel, too.

[Abby Knoblauch]

I didn't get in either. Neither did a brilliant post-doc at Stanford I know, and a few of my colleagues. Boo, I say. Boo.

[Becky Howard]

Jesus on a bicycle. That's a great proposal. If CCC isn't the organization for valuing research, isn't it time to start an organization that does?

[kseas]

Although I did get in this year (but probably only because I've got techies on my proposal), I totally understand the frustration. Indeed, my work in rhetoric and theory often feel shoe-horned into a Cs proposal - always with that pedagogical imperative stuck in somewhere. That yours IS pedagogical and still didn't get in is ridiculous.

I'd agree with Becky and call for a new conference - OR we need to get RSA off of its absurd biennial schedule and try to expand its scope to be more on par with Cs.

[k8]

Or, perhaps a RESEARCH symposium of some sort?

[dhawhee]

Ho hum, but yeah, RSA's relatively new institute (during the off years) is something of a research-focused symposium--topics will be announced soon! As for this proposal, I've still got my fingers crossed for the international society for the history of rhetoric in Montreal.

[k8]

I should probably give RSA another try sometime. I didn't have a good experience the one time I went and presented. The fact that I had a sinus infection and was medicated probably didn't help, but overall it didn't seem like a very welcoming conference. I felt isolated most of the time , and it seemed as if my interests in women's rhetoric weren't really represented by the people there.

but, non of the comp/rhet conferences come even close to my all-time favorite conference to attend - Children's Literature Association's annual conference. It is absolutely the most welcoming, supportive conference environment I have ever experienced. I really feel like people are actively interested in each other's scholarship when I am there.

[David Beard]

First: The animal speaker might want to hook up with the keynote speaker at the Print Culture conference I am attending this weekend:
http://slisweb.lis.wisc.edu/~printcul/STEMConferencePage.html
“Animals and Humans in Early Modern Anatomical Illustrations”
Anita Guerrini, Horning Chair in Humanities and Department of History, Oregon State University

Second: The lamentation that the C's is turning away from rhetoric is an old one, no, and one that is troubled because while it's easy to claim that they turn from rhetoric, it's harder to ascertain what they are turning toward. I used to think that "pedagogy" was the answer, but that was facile. I used to think "empirical studies," but that was reflective, already, of a Cs that was dying before I became a grad student. There was a turn toward "composition theory" a la Min Zhan Lu and Horner (a kind of cross between comp and cultural studies intentionally distinct from rhetoric, I think), but that remained a subculture. There was a turn, at one point, toward "identity" and "contact zones" and so on. But that doesn't do it, either.

So, before we can argue a return to rhetoric, we need a frame of reference of what it turns toward, so we can argue Rhetoric's important complementarity. But what it is, in lieu of rhetoric, is hard to express.

. . .

I think that the RSA Institute topics are already posted; aren't Hawhee and Graff doing a historiography workshop?

. . .

I don't think that RSA or ARS or somesuch is a viable alternative. Frankly, we are trained in rhetoric but we are hired in English and Speech and we need to recognize that. Further, there is something deeply unattractive about asserting that rhetoric is marginalized in NCA (have you signed your ASHR petition yet?) and marginalized in the CCCs, so we should get together!

Further, and Miller is proving this slowly, rhetoric is only superficially similar in Speech and English, especially when we talk of contemporary (20th and 21st century) rhetorical theory.

So, what do you do?

No idea.

db

[chris]

Recently I publicly lamented my rejection as well (http://illinoisnative.blogspot.com/2008/09/san-fran.html). Like you, I felt my panel was a shoe-in. Hell, it was (1) a direct response to a featured session at last year's CCCC and (2) a presentation of longitudinal research projects. Despite the above average quality of the proposal the piercing arrow of rejection was slung from the quivers of some unkindly bow.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, I feel your pain, sista.

[Z]

Hey d,
I'll just say, as a little hint, that between the progymnasmata, classical rhetorical pedagogy, Quintilian, and animalian rhetoric, you would be a total rock star at some of my little Renaissance conferences. Come over to the dark side.

[Z]

seminars at the Shakespeare Association conference this year include:

Staging the Natural: Non-Human and Human in the Early Modern Theater
Shakespeare at the Limits of the Human
The Art of English Poesy: Rhetoric, Poetics, and Renaissance Celebrity
Shakespeare and the Organization of Knowledge

Those 3 papers would be welcome in any of these seminars, I'd bet.

Note to non-Shakespeareans: when we say "Shakespeare" at this conference, we tend to mean "anything remotely related to England, Europe, or frankly wherever else you want between the 14th and 17th centuries, or also the classical period, and to be honest, whenever else you want."

[Sue Wells]

I went through a five year period when my proposals were routinely rejected. Then I started writing them quicker and making them airier, and they were routinely accepted. Once the thrill wore off, I noticed that this is not a very interesting conference--I'm hearing more or less the same papers every year, and it's gotten huge. So I've stopped going, and decided to focus my efforts on smaller venues where a middle-aged scholar can do serious damage. Sue Wells

[dhawhee]

CBB http://canadianbaconbarbie.com/2008/09/cccconspiracy/ has done some very helpful data mining that might help respond to David Beard's musings. I well know, too, that the complaint about rhetoric is an old one, but that doesn't mean it's not valid, especially given that the word rhetoric is still in the mission statement (see also CBB's blog, link above).

I wonder if adding a category of rhetoric might help? Because history and theory certainly converge with but are not restricted to rhetorical studies. I know there would be overlap and category confusion, but certainly that's already the case.

Meh, like Sue, I don't really feel like worrying about it.

And K8: we at RSA have really worked on making the conference welcoming. The institute, too, has two awesome workshop on women and rhetoric with all-star line ups. Go to the RSA website at http://www.rhetoricsociety.org/, and click on the special announcement about the institute.

[David Beard]

I like the way you think, and recall the efforts under Atwill, for example, to establish a regular ASHR presence at CCCC. Not a rhetoric category, per se, but a good start. But that's a garden that requires constant tending. Maybe that's true of any effort to include anything that isn't pedagogy at the Cs, because [I think] the 4Cs still attracts armies of community college faculty and small college faculty (who attend but do not present) who want teaching tips, but who may not be interested in rhetorical research dialogue.

. . .

I need to think more about my original claim, which I would re-parse as "we could argue better for the presence of rhetoric if we could define/understand what contemporary composition studies is without it."

--db

[HouseofCorax]

If CCCC has Sue Wells opting out, it's in a world of hurt. And, what a rock-solid panel, history, research, practice, ANIMALS and the best. Without rhetoric, contemporary composition studies is reinventing the same wheel with every generation and so, not using that wheel as a means to powerfully GO SOMEWHERE.

Troping,
Corax

[Aspasia]

CCCC was founded to serve the first-year required writing course, and it continues to do so. I stopped reading the journal years ago, because it focuses on administrative concerns more appropriate to the WPA journal, while the one administrative concern that is important, to me at least,--abysmal hiring and working conditions--receives very little attention either in the journal or at the convention. While CCCC still does some good things, like scholars for the dream and the annual dissertation awards, the intellectual quality of its discourse is limited by the institution it serves. Maintenance of the first-year requirement is not an intellectual issue, after all. RSA, OTOH, is a scholarly organization whose meetings are also great fun. I am sorry to read that one poster felt unwelcome there and that she felt that women's issues were not a primary concern. I hope she will give the group another try.
Aspasia, aka Hawhee's co-author.

[k8]

I probably will give it another try when I am no longer a destitute grad student. I did notice the summer institute and its offerings, which is one one the reasons I've thought about going again. But first, I need to move beyond grad student penury.

[dhawhee]

I think CCCC ought to go to a model where they offer explicit feedback on proposals. If they did so, then it would not only hold reviewers to criteria, it would also go a long way toward stemming responses such as those here (mine foremost among them). The reply would not doubt be that such a model is too unwieldy, but NCA is just as big and makes ratings available.

[David Beard]

Minor quibble: NCA has 7,700 members (although I've seen numbers as high as 9,000).

According to this (https://listserv.unb.ca/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0202&L=casll&P=1206; see also http://www.ncte.org/cccc/newcomers), CCC attracts 3,000 attendees.

Do one-third of the NCA membership attend the annual meeting? Maybe they do.

In any event. though, the division in NCA into divisions is more efficient and allows better peer review. Berkenkotter & Huckin talk about it some (found the cite); I agree that the NCA model is better. Although not all sections of NCA have equivalently high rejection rates, so it's possible to identify "easier" sections to submit to. It is easier, statistically, to place a paper in the history of rhetoric than in the theory of rhetoric at NCA.

David

[Grad Student]

My panel was both first-year writing and technology-focused and included three people who presented last year and one new person. We spent between 12-15 hours collaboratively drafting the proposal, which was far sounder than any of my previous proposals. It's not only history stuff that got rejected!

[DJ Joshie Juice]

I submitted three things to CCCC: participant on two panels and one paper. Three things in as many years. Three rejections. I decided CCCC wasn't interested in my interests and never looked back.

I'm starting to think the same thing about NCA.

RSA seems a happy place.

[jbs]

I'm clearly joining this conversation late, but I wanted to encourage you and others (including your students) not to boycott 4Cs. The field needs your work at this conference, even if a misguided reviewer or two disagreed. I like the suggestion of having a separate rhetoric category or making the history and theory category rhetoric specific.

I also wanted to respond to what I read as a subtext of elitism running through some of the comments. I can point to lots of good (theory- and data-driven) scholarship around the first-year course to suggest its maintenance is an intellectual issue, even if it's institutionally flawed in many ways. Although it does not do so enough, I think 4CS engages the politics of working conditions (in first-year writing and elsewhere) more than other conferences--you certainly won't find much of this at RSA. I wonder what folks like Eileen Schell and Cheryl Glenn, who have used 4Cs as a forum to address these issues, would think about some of the posts here...

[jbs]

One more thing--if you're not reading _CCC_, you're missing some good stuff.

[dhawhee]

jbs: just to be clear; i'm not proposing a boycott (though folks over at RMH's have a lot of other ideas like that). it's hard to boycott something that won't accept you in the first place! besides, i just had a convo the other day with a grad student about the importance of Cs, and as I told her, yes, it's a very important conference for our field, but i'm also not going to continually stress the importance of going yearly if the chances of rejection are so high, because that just causes unnecessary stress. haven't stopped reading the journal, and i'm a fan of the new cover. you can take that up with Aspasia!