Rhetoric & Technical Communication
Rhetoric & Technical Communication
Toscano, Aaron, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Dept. of English

Resources and Daily Activities

  • Dr. Toscano’s Homepage
  • ENGL 2116-083: Introduction to Technical Communication
    • ENGL 2116 sec. 083 Major Assignments (Summer 2020)
      • Final Portfolio Requirements
      • Oral Presentations
    • June 11th: Continue with I, Robot
    • June 15th: Ethics and Perspective Discussion
      • Ethical Dilemmas for Homework
      • Ethical Dilemmas to Ponder
      • Mapping Our Personal Ethics
    • June 16th: More on Ethics
    • June 1st: Effective Documents for Users
    • June 2nd: Final Project and Research Discussion
      • Epistemology and Other Fun Research Ideas
      • Making Résumés and Cover Letters Better
      • Research
    • June 3rd: Technology in a Social Context
    • June 8th: Information Design and Visuals
    • June 9th: Proposals, Marketing, and Rhetoric
    • May 18th: Introduction to the course
    • May 19th: Critical Technological Awareness
    • May 20th: Audience, Purpose, and General Introduction
    • May 21st: Résumé Stuff
      • Making Résumés and Cover Letters More Effective
      • Peter Profit’s Cover Letter
    • May 25th: More Resume Stuff
    • May 26th: Plain Language and Prose Revision
      • Euphemisms
      • Prose Practice for Next Class
      • Prose Revision Assignment
      • Revising Prose: Efficiency, Accuracy, and Good
      • Sentence Clarity
    • May 27th: More on Plain Language
    • May 28th: Review Prose Revision
  • ENGL 4182/5182: Information Design & Digital Publishing
    • August 21st: Introduction to the Course
      • Rhetorical Principles of Information Design
    • August 28th: Introduction to Information Design
      • Prejudice and Rhetoric
      • Robin Williams’s Principles of Design
    • Classmates Webpages (Fall 2017)
    • December 4th: Presentations
    • Major Assignments for ENGL 4182/5182 (Fall 2017)
    • November 13th: More on Color
      • Designing with Color
      • Important Images
    • November 20th: Extra-Textual Elements
    • November 27th: Presentation/Portfolio Workshop
    • November 6th: In Living Color
    • October 16th: Type Fever
      • Typography
    • October 23rd: More on Type
    • October 2nd: MIDTERM FUN!!!
    • October 30th: Working with Graphics
      • Beerknurd Calendar 2018
    • September 11th: Talking about Design without Using “Thingy”
      • Theory, theory, practice
    • September 18th: The Whole Document
    • September 25th: Page Design
  • ENGL 4183/5183: Editing with Digital Technologies
    • Efficiency in Writing Reviews
    • February 3rd: I’m in Love with the Shape of You(r Sentences)
    • January 20th: Introduction to the Course
    • January 27th: Rhetoric, Words, and Composing
    • Major Assignments for ENGL 4183/5183 (Spring 2021)
  • ENGL 4275: Rhetoric of Technology
    • April 13th: Authorities in Science and Technology
    • April 15th: Articles on Violence in Video Games
    • April 20th: Presentations
    • April 6th: Technology in the home
    • April 8th: Writing Discussion
    • Assignments for ENGL 4275
    • February 10th: Religion of Technology Part 3 of 3
    • February 12th: Is Love a Technology?
    • February 17th: Technology and Gender
    • February 19th: Technology and Expediency
    • February 24th: Semester Review
    • February 3rd: Religion of Technology Part 1 of 3
    • February 5th: Religion of Technology Part 2 of 3
    • January 13th: Technology and Meaning, a Humanist perspective
    • January 15th: Technology and Democracy
    • January 22nd: The Politics of Technology
    • January 27th: Discussion on Writing as Thinking
    • January 29th: Technology and Postmodernism
    • January 8th: Introduction to the Course
    • March 11th: Writing and Other Fun
    • March 16th: Neuromancer (1984) Day 1 of 2
    • March 18th: Neuromancer (1984) Day 2 of 2
    • March 23rd: Inception (2010)
    • March 25th: Writing and Reflecting Discussion
    • March 30th & April 1st: Count Zero
    • March 9th: William Gibson’s Neuromancer (1984)
  • ENGL 4750-090 & ENGL 5050-092 Video Games & Culture
    • Assignments for Video Games & Culture
    • August 25th: Introduction to the Course
    • November 10th: Aggression & Addiction
    • November 3rd: Moral Panics and Health Risks
    • October 13th: Narrative, ludology, f(r)iction
    • October 20th: Serious Games
    • October 27: Risky Business?
    • October 6th: Hyperreality
    • September 1st: History of Video Games
    • September 22nd: Video Game Aesthetics
    • September 29th: (sub)Cultures and Video Games
    • September 8th: Defining Video Games and Critical Theory Introduction
      • Marxism for Video Game Analysis
      • Postmodernism for Video Game Analysis
  • ENGL 6166: Rhetorical Theory
    • April 13th: Umberto Eco & Jean Baudrillard
    • April 20th: Moving Forward on Theory
    • April 27th: Last Day of Class
    • April 6th: Lyotard’s The Postmodern Condition
      • What is Postmodernism?
    • February 10th: St. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine [Rhetoric]
      • Oratory and Argument Analysis
    • February 17th: Knoblauch on Magical and Ontological Rhetoric
    • February 24th: Rene Descartes’ Discourse on Method
    • February 3rd: Aristotle’s On Rhetoric Books 2 and 3
      • Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 2
      • Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 3
    • January 13th: Introduction to Class
    • January 27th: Aristotle’s On Rhetoric Book 1
    • March 16th: Friedrich Nietzsche
    • March 23rd: Mythologies and Meaning of Meaning (part 2)
    • March 30th: Derrida’s (refusal to have) Positions
    • March 9th: Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women
    • Rhetorical Theory Assignments
  • LBST 2212-124, 125, 126, & 127
    • August 21st: Introduction to Class
    • August 23rd: Humanistic Approach to Science Fiction
    • August 26th: Robots and Zombies
    • August 28th: Futurism, an Introduction
    • August 30th: R. A. Lafferty “Slow Tuesday Night” (1965)
    • December 2nd: Technological Augmentation
    • December 4th: Posthumanism
    • November 11th: Salt Fish Girl (Week 2)
    • November 13th: Salt Fish Girl (Week 2 con’t)
    • November 18th: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Part 1)
      • More Questions than Answers
    • November 1st: Games Reality Plays (part II)
    • November 20th: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Part 2)
    • November 6th: Salt Fish Girl (Week 1)
    • October 14th: More Autonomous Fun
    • October 16th: Autonomous Conclusion
    • October 21st: Sci Fi in the Domestic Sphere
    • October 23rd: Social Aphasia
    • October 25th: Dust in the Wind
    • October 28th: Gender Liminality and Roles
    • October 2nd: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
    • October 30th: Games Reality Plays (part I)
    • October 9th: Approaching Autonomous
      • Analyzing Prose in Autonomous
    • September 11th: The Time Machine
    • September 16th: The Alien Other
    • September 18th: Post-apocalyptic Worlds
    • September 20th: Dystopian Visions
    • September 23rd: World’s Beyond
    • September 25th: Gender Studies and Science Fiction
    • September 30th: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
    • September 4th: Science Fiction and Social Breakdown
      • More on Ellison
      • More on Forster
    • September 9th: The Time Machine
  • LBST 2213/HTAS 2100: Science, Technology, and Society
    • December 10th: Violence in Video Games
    • December 15th: Video Games and Violence, a more nuanced view
    • December 1st: COVID-19 facial covering rhetoric
    • December 3rd: COVID-19 Transmission and Pandemics
    • December 8th: 500-word Essay
    • November 10th: Planet of the Apes. (1964) Ch. 27-end
    • November 12th: Frankenstein (1818) Preface-Ch. 8
    • November 17th: Frankenstein (1818) Ch. 9-Ch. 16
    • November 19th: Frankenstein (1818) Ch. 17-Ch. 24
    • November 3rd: Planet of the Apes. (1964) Ch. 1-17
    • November 5th: Planet of the Apes (1964) Ch. 18-26
    • October 13th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 5 and 6
    • October 15th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 7 and Conclusion
    • October 1st: The Golem at Large Introduction & Ch. 1
    • October 22nd: The Time Machine
    • October 29th: H.G. Wells and Adaptations
    • October 6th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology) Ch. 2
    • October 8th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 3 & 4
    • September 10th: Science and Technology, a Humanistic Approach
    • September 15th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 2
    • September 17th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 3 and 4
    • September 22nd: Collins & Pinch Ch. 5 & 6
    • September 24th: Collins & Pinch Ch. 7 & Conclusion
    • September 29th: Test 1
    • September 8th: Introduction to Class
  • New Media: Gender, Culture, Technology (Spring 2021)
    • February 16: Misunderstanding the Internet
    • February 23rd: Our Public Sphere and the Media
    • February 2nd: Introduction to Cultural Studies
    • January 26th: Introduction to New Media
  • Science Fiction in American Culture (Summer I–2020)
    • Assignments for Science Fiction in American Culture
    • Cultural Studies and Science Fiction Films
    • June 10th: Interstellar and Exploration themes
    • June 11th: Bicentennial Man
    • June 15th: I’m Only Human…Or am I?
    • June 16th: Wall-E and Environment
    • June 17th: Wall-E (2008) and Technology
    • June 18th: Interactivity in Video Games
    • June 1st: Firefly (2002) and Myth
    • June 2nd: “Johnny Mnemonic”
    • June 3rd: “New Rose Hotel”
    • June 4th: “Burning Chrome”
    • June 8th: Conformity and Monotony
    • June 9th: Cultural Constructions of Beauty
    • May 18th: Introduction to Class
    • May 19th: American Culture, an Introduction
    • May 20th: The Matrix
    • May 21st: Gender and Science Fiction
    • May 25th: Goals for I, Robot
    • May 26th: Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot
    • May 27th: Hackers and Slackers
    • May 30th: Inception
  • Teaching Portfolio
  • Topics for Analysis
    • American Culture, an Introduction
    • Feminism, An Introduction
    • Frankenstein Part I
    • Frankenstein Part II
    • Futurism Introduction
    • Langdon Winner Summary: The Politics of Technology
    • Marxist Theory (cultural analysis)
    • Oral Presentations
    • Our Public Sphere
    • Postmodernism Introduction
    • Protesting Confederate Place
    • Punctuation Refresher
    • QT, the Existential Robot
    • Religion of Technology Discussion
    • Rhetoric, an Introduction
      • Analyzing the Culture of Technical Writer Ads
      • Rhetoric of Technology
      • Visual Culture
      • Visual Perception
      • Visual Perception, Culture, and Rhetoric
      • Visual Rhetoric
      • Visuals for Technical Communication
      • World War I Propaganda
    • The Great I, Robot Discussion
      • I, Robot Short Essay Topics
    • The Rhetoric of Video Games: A Cultural Perspective
      • Civilization, an Analysis
    • The Sopranos
    • Why Science Fiction?
    • Zombies and Consumption Satire

Contact Me

Office: Fretwell 280F
Phone: 704.687.0613
Email: atoscano@uncc.edu
ENGL 6166: Rhetorical Theory » March 30th: Derrida’s (refusal to have) Positions

March 30th: Derrida’s (refusal to have) Positions

Plan for the Class

  • Finish up Knoblauch’s Chapter 5: “Expressivist Rhetoric”
  • Mention the Derrida documentary on Youtube
  • Let’s figure Derrida out…

Derrida’s Positions

The three interviews shouldn’t be considered a totality of Derrida’s ideas; nor should we think all of deconstruction is answered. As he was quoted in his obituary, “deconstruction requires work”; therefore, its meaning can’t be handed to you.

Terms to Define

I think the following terms need to be defined, so we’re all (somewhat) on the same page. This discussion is our introduction to Derrida, but his influence will be felt for quite some time:

  • Phenomenology: the study of the structure of experience; reflection of consciousness.
  • Existentialism: the idea that human (individual) existence comes from experience, that of the individual.
  • Structuralism: studying culture as a system made up of identifiable connections that are all related to a grand structure, an overarching paradigm.
  • Post-Structuralism: well, this is structuralism “deconstructed.” What? Refer to p. 41 in Positions.
  • Liguistic terms
    • grammatology: writing doesn’t reproduce speech (the window pane theory); instead, everything to do with writing constructs/affects meaning.
    • phoneme: basic (smallest) unit in a language that builds words. (think phonetic…do re mi)
    • grapheme: words, punctuation, numbers–they don’t carry meaning themselves
  • Absolutist/Monolithic Critiques
    • logocentrism: the Western assumption that “the word” is the superior conveyor of meaning, one that has an identifiable in an ideal form.
    • différance:
      1) “the systematic play of differences, of the traces of differences, of the spacing by means of which elements are related to each other” (p. 27)
      2) “reference to a present reality [or meaning] [is] always deferred” (p. 29)
    • trace: Because the meaning of a sign is generated from the difference it has from other signs, especially the other half of its binary pairs, the sign itself contains a trace of what it does not mean.
    • transcendental signified: the first cause or zero point–absolute origin.

Now, we just need to figure out where to go next. If I haven’t already, let me mention my approach to Derrida and, more importantly, teaching Derrida. Maybe one of my mentors can help us out…

Discussion Questions/Points

Derrida list several homonyms–words that sound alike but have different meanings (p. 40 and 42). Let’s consider some English words:

  • eight/ate
  • band/banned
  • beaut/butte
  • bight/bite/byte
  • brows/browse
  • whose/who’s

Derivatives of cat?

cat, catsup, Catawba, catch

What about cognates across Italian and English? (Beware of false friends!)

  • federazione–>federation
  • stazione–>station
  • folcloristico–>????
  • preservativo–>????

Let’s get into groups and try to “trace” meaning in the following terms:

widow, crime, slut, chaos, education

The linearity of Bob Dylan.

Looking Closure at Derrida’s Interviews

It strikes me as ironic (at first) that a theorist as loquacious as Derrida has a paragraph introduction for these republished interviews. Then again, I think about what an introductory is and how it frames a text. Introductions and the opposite, conclusions, bookend a text, which reproduces the idea–that Derrida works against–that the physical book, the writing between the covers of a book is the complete story.

Of course, I still would like more of an “Introduction”! Derrida does give us some context in that short introduction when he identifies that “these three interviews….form…the gesture of an active interpretation,” which are “arrested here” (p. vii).

“Implications” Interview with Henri Ronse

  • p. 5: Concerning the three texts he cites, “All these texts, which are doubtless the interminable preface to another text that one day I would like to have the force to write, or still the epigraph to another I would never have the audacity to write”
  • p. 6: “what is dead wields a very specific power.”
  • And, as Bob Dylan tells us, “Forget the dead you left / they will not follow you” (“Baby Blue”)
  • p. 8: “First, différance refers to the (active and passive)…deferring by means of delay, delegation, reprieve, referral, detour, postponement, reserving….What defers presence, on the contrary, is the very basis on which presence is announced or desired in what represents it, its sign, its trace…”
  • p. 10: ontico-ontological
    • ontico: pertaining to real
    • ontological: the study of being
  • p. 13-14: “writing does not begin. It is even on the basis of writing…that one can put into question the search for an archie, an absolute beginning, an origin. Writing can no more begin, therefore, than the book can end…
  • p. 14: “To risk meaning nothing is to start to play, and first to enter into the play of différance which prevents any word, any concept, any major enunciation from coming to summarize and to govern from the theological presence of a center the movement and textual spacing of differences.”

“Semiology and Grammatology” Interview with Julia Kristeva

Let’s start off by thinking about the different meanings of “metaphysics”:

  • philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world.
  • Modern, non-empirical inquiry into the nature of existence.

I should also point out this interview was first published in Information sur les sciences sociales. How would you define “social sciences”?

  • p. 17: “All gestures here are necessarily equivocal.”
  • p. 19: “‘everyday language’ is not innocent or neutral. It is the language of Western metaphysics.”
  • pp. 19-20: “‘transcendental signified,’ which in and of itself, in its essence, would refer to no signifier, would exceed the chain of signs, and would no longer itself function as a signifier.”
  • p. 20: On translation…”We will never have, and in fact have never had, to do with some ‘transport’ of pure signifieds from one language to another, or within one and the same language, that the signifying instrument would leave virgin and untouched.”
  • p. 24: Goal of deconstruction–“Like the concept of the sign–and therefore semiology–it can simultaneously confirm and shake logocentric and ethnocentric assuredness.”
    • “transform concepts, to displace them, to turn them against their presuppositions, to reinscribe them in other chains, and little by little to modify the terrain of our work and thereby produce new configurations.”

“Positions” Interview with -Jean-Louis Houdebine and Guy Scarpetta

  • p. 41: “One of the two terms governs the other…or has the upper hand. To deconstruct the opposition, first of all, is to overturn the hierarchy at a given moment.”
  • p. 49: “‘thought’ means nothing.”
  • p. 57: “The metaphysical character of the concept of history is not only linked to linearity, but to an entire system of implications (teleology, eschatology…a certain type of traditionality, a certain concept of continuity, of truth, etc.)”

Deconstruction

Let’s try to deconstruct, if possible, the following passage from the preface of Ashley Montagu and Floyd Matson’s The Dehumanization of Man:

It neither kills outright nor inflicts apparent physical harm, yet the extent of its destructive toll is already greater than that of any war, plague, famine, or natural calamity on record—and its potential damage to the quality of human life and the fabric of civilized society is beyond calculation. For that reason this sickness of the soul might well be called the “Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse.” Its more conventional name, of course, is dehumanization (p. xi).

Next Week’s Reading

Next week (4/06–can you believe it’s already April?) we continue into postmodernity with Lyotard’s The Postmodern Condition. Don’t forget to read the Appendix–pp. 71-82.

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