Poroi
Not a member yet
250 research outputs found
Sort by
Scientific Futures for a Rhetoric of Science: "We do this and they do that?" A Junior-Senior Scholar Session, RSA 2018, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA; 1 June 2018
Get PDFGrowing attention to a rift between epistemology and ontology, between words and things, sets new challenges and invigorations for a Rhetoric of Science that traditionally aims to “analyze and evaluate the persuasive communications of scientists” (Ceccarelli, 2017, para 6). Rhetoricians confront a vibrant, new intellectual space where scholars across disciplines are seeking to better account for bodies and moving to “include the materiality of our ambient environs” in their analyses (Rickert, 2013, p. x). The question, in light of material expansions, is what is a Rhetoric of Science, and what are its futures?
In response to the Rhetoric Society of America’s 2018 conference call for junior and senior scholars to discuss “major developments in rhetorical studies,” we offer a Feyerabendian innovation-meets-dogma performative session: the junior scholar, representing innovation, argues that Rhetoric of Science must move aggressively beyond a study of texts and scientific language to account for continuous technological, social, and biological entanglements; specifically, to expand the field’s practices to include neuro-cognitive approaches and other forms of experiment. The senior scholar, representing dogma, expresses caution, arguing that the domain of a Rhetoric of Science is still symbols and semiosis; specifically, that looking at “ambient rhetorics” and “entanglements” is another approach, not a foundational shift
Toward a Rhetoric of DNA: The Advent of CRISPR
Get PDFThe nucleic acid DNA, which contains an organism’s genetic information, consists of a four-letter alphabet that has until recently been characterized as a read-only text. The development of a quick, inexpensive DNA targeting and manipulation technique called CRISPR, pronounced “crisper,” though, has changed DNA from this arhetorical, read-only data set, as it has been characterized in the rhetoric literature to date, to a fully rhetorical text—one that can be not only read but created, interpreted, copied, altered, and stored as well. The Book of Nature, an idea with roots in antiquity but popularized during the nineteenth century, provides proof of concept in the form of an historical and theoretical context in which DNA can be viewed in this light. Once ensconced in the Book of Nature, DNA can longer be considered a code; rather, it is a text. DNA text has structural components that are similar to those of traditional text, and now, with CRISPR, it also has purposes, audiences, and stakeholders. Given the enormous potential of DNA text for both good and ill, rhetoricians of science and medicine must participate in discussions of the complex literacy, policy, and ethics issues this new form of text brings about
‘The Light Cloak of the Saint:’ The Changing Rhetorical Situations of Esperanto’s “Internal Idea" and its Relevance to Contemporary Problems
Get PDFEsperanto was conceived as a model of commercial usefulness, but also to confront the higher aims of its “internal idea.” The interna ideo of Esperanto has historically taken various forms, but it has most often been concerned with protecting a multiethnic world in its diversities, building bridges that allow for a more equitable coexistence of minorities. This underlying ethical thrust makes the international language a potential lever for a more just society in the current global conditions. In order to support this claim, I reconstruct the rhetorical situation of Zamenhof’s pronouncements on the “internal idea,” including Hillelism and Homaranismo. I also argue that George Orwell’s dystopic Newspeak can be considered a political commentary about what would happen to Esperanto if the “internal idea” were to be hijacked in the name of economic progress or the supposed tranquility of commerce
Introduction to Poroi 14.1
Get PDFVolume 14, Issue 1 of POROI: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Rhetorical Analysis and Invention makes available three articles on topics of rhetoric
A Neurorhetoric of Incongruity
Get PDFAs a conceptual resource for rhetoric, contemporary neuroscience has considerable potential. Yet how exactly rhetoricians should deploy it as such requires careful consideration. While some engage neuroscience in a foundationalist fashion, using it to ground rhetoric in empirically tested claims, I make the case for a non-foundationalist approach, arguing that neuroscience can serve as a resource for rhetoric on the basis of epistemologies that value the speculative, indeterminate, and contingent. That is, we can use neuroscience to achieve perspective rather than proof and continued conversation rather than resolution. More specifically, I suggest placing neuroscience in incongruous contact with rhetoric, using it to achieve Burkean perspective by incongruity. I then do so in an extended example that puts Antonio Damasio’s somatic marker hypothesis in incongruous contact with ancient accounts of eikos, thereby offering a fresh angle from which to view enduring discussions anew
Introduction to Poroi 13.2
Get PDFVolume 13, Issue 2 of POROI: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Rhetorical Analysis and Invention makes available three articles on topics in the rhetoric of science
Imagining Places: The Roles of the Place Trope in the Discursive Constructions of Indigenous Knowledge
Get PDF“Should You Encounter”: The Social Conditions of Empathy
Get PDFIn this essay I analyze a series of first-person homeless accounts and reader responses in the Las Vegas Sun newspaper in order to highlight the social conditions that support or inhibit empathy. I review the rhetorical study of empathy and incorporate work from social psychology and moral philosophy to identify and examine the conditions of assessing victimhood and recognizing of self-other overlap. I find the irony of empathy to be that the very social forces that would necessitate an expansion of empathy also inhibit it through increasing social division and the reluctance of readers to recognize their own vulnerabilities in the positions of others. I contend throughout that a focus on empathy as an individual experience overlooks the social production of empathy, which is more appropriately considered through a rhetorical perspective