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
LBST 2212-124, 125, 126, & 127 » December 4th: Posthumanism

December 4th: Posthumanism

Plan for the Day

  • Eileen Gunn’s “Computer Friendly” (1989)
  • Red Hot Chili Peppers “Californication” (1999)
  • Please do the online course evaluations by tomorrow!
    • As of 12/4/2019, I have 23% done, which is too low. Even if you hate the class, I would appreciate your feedback.
    • Evaluations for all your classes should be here

Ok…so I decided to separate the discussion into two different pages. It will help to keep from digressions.

A Little about the Late-1980s

This is a story from the late-1980s, a time of great suspicion about crime, job loss, and automation anxiety. The intrusive capabilities of new technologies (and new commodification) were also anxieties played out through late-1980s films, such as RoboCop (1987), They Live (1988), and Cyborg (1989). Many of these films had a dystopian feel to them and technologies are seen more as harmful to humanity as opposed to texts from the Star Trek universe, where technologies are (usually) considered helpful overall. Although video games had been in homes since the early 1970s, by the late-1980s, video game consoles and computer games were extremely popular. Computer games, video games solely available on PCs, were popular with a particular type of computer “enthusiast.” Not that I’m biased or anything, but those who were more interested in computer games, such as the Sierra Online games, were usually more cerebral and had better knowledge of computers because PCs, specifically, were less standardized, requiring the superb debugging skills of self-taught individuals who found workarounds. {While this passage may appear to be all satire, one should realize there’s quite a bit of truth in satire…}

Eileen Gunn’s “Computer Friendly” (1989)

This is another technological dystopia. It starts out like a story about a child’s first day of kindergarten or 1st grade, but there’s a twist…the school is testing the children to determine if they’re worthy to be part of the labor force. The biggest theme in the story is the push for predictability and standardization. Uniformity makes processing more efficient. Instead of technologies being created to fit human conditions (a humanistic approach), humans are “optimiz[ed] for predictability” (p. 652) to work efficiently and fit the technologies (system-centered approach). This is a projection (“if this continues…”) of Fordist/Taylorist goals of efficiency during the early 20th Century. In fact, here are some aspects of Taylorism for the mid-Industrial Revolution:

  • Henry Ford’s Assembly Line; Frederick Taylor’s Management Science
  • Taylor (1911/1967) asserted that “great gain, both to employers and employés,” will come “from the substitution of scientific rule-of-thumb methods in even the smallest details of the work of every trade” (p. 24, emphasis added).
  • Taylor argued that “[t]he enormous saving of time and therefore increase in output…can be fully realized only after one has personally seen the improvement’’ of Taylor’s scientific application (p. 24).
    • One major goal of Taylorism was efficiency from ‘‘[t]he general adoption of scientific management’’ to achieve ‘‘the increase, both in the necessities and luxuries of life, which becomes available for the whole country’’ (p. 142).
    • Also, another goal would be “the elimination of almost all causes for dispute and disagreement between [management and workmen]” (p. 142).
  • Although Taylor (1911/1967) directly addressed managers and workers, the results of his system were to be a benefit to all industrialized nations: ‘‘Is it not the duty of those who are acquainted with these facts, to exert themselves to make the whole community realize this [study of scientific management’s] importance’’ (p. 144).
    • Taylor (1911/1967) claimed, “our larger wastes of human effort, which go on every day through such of our acts as are blundering, ill-directed, or inefficient, and which Mr. [Theodore] Roosevelt refers to as a lack of ‘national efficiency,’ are less visible, less tangible, and are vaguely appreciated” (p. 5).

Basically, although we claim the pace of life has increased with the ubiquity of computer technologies since the late 1970s, the drive for efficiency is much older. Don’t forget the beginning of the semester’s Futurism readings:

  • ‘‘Futurism is grounded in the great discoveries of science’’ (1913/1973, p. 96, italics mine).

Standardization

Because Elizabeth (Lizardbreath) is in a school context, the practice of standardized testing jumps out at me. Think about all the standardized testing you had do in school. Why do you think schools use standardized tests? Are you away of a growing trend to drop requiring the SAT and ACT tests? Also, I’m pretty sure the school in the short story is based on the Francis W. Parker School in Chicago, IL, which currently has an innovative early childhood education curriculum.

  • p. 642: Why do you think it’s called the Asia Center?
  • p. 643: Why does Elizabeth’s dad need his brain wiped?
  • p. 644: Elizabeth’s dad tells her, in her future career, “you’ll be hardwired into the network…” cyborg style!
  • p. 644: Elizabeth’s dad says, “‘Being an executive is sort of like playing games all the time….the harder you work…the more fun you’ll have later.”
    • Someone else’s father also had a video game-type job…
    • He even had a special suit he wore.
  • p. 645: Her parents are happy that “her physical aptitude scores are even lower than Bobby’s”
    • What other story didn’t want people to have too much physical capability?
    • Semester’s coming full circle.
  • p. 646: Elizabeth dreams of Sheena not wanting to fall asleep.
    • What are the “white things in glass jars”?
  • p. 647: Elizabeth on lying–“It seemed to be mostly a matter of convincing yourself that what you said was true.”

(In)Efficiency

One of the pursuits of systems is efficiency–meeting goals with the fewest resources. Conventional wisdom claims that you make more profit if you reduce your costs, and one way to reduce costs is being more efficient. Computers (and other technologies) are supposed to make our lives more efficient. Elizabeth’s mother and brother have become efficient tools of “the system” by becoming machines. They don’t jack in like in The Matrix; they never leave cyberspace.

  • In order to get the most efficiency, the human is reduced to brain waves. So are animals. Brownie “fetches” information for Elizabeth.
    • Windows XP had a dog…
  • p. 649: All computer functions appear to be personified.
  • pp. 651-652: The Chickenheart was surprised about his creation and its insistence on optimizing for predictability.
    • What’s the problem with too much predictability?
  • p. 653: The Chickenheart brings Sheena and Oginga into the system.
    • “Things are too predictable here already. Same ideas churning around and around.”
    • “[Oginga] has a brand of curiosity we can put to use.”

Overall Questions for “Computer Friendly”

Because we have a social science fiction approach to our readings, consider what the following questions through that lens:

  • What comment is being made about our labor practices?
  • What’s the problem with too much predictability?
  • What other story showed a little change in the system at the end?
    • What might be Gunn’s comment on a little subversion in the system?
    • Also, what’s the bigger picture hierarchy of this system? Who are the cops, executives, and architects?
  • What’s the play on the phrase “user friendly”? What effect does changing “user” to “computer” have?

Posthumanism

The topic of posthumanism, like many philosophical terms, doesn’t have an exact definition. However, we can begin to understand the concept–after all, this course is all about leading you to more questions than answers–by thinking literally of “post” being after humans. Although many science fiction texts have humans becoming machine-like, I read that metaphorically as the ways in which technologies–socially constructed–have conditioned behaviors (but not values or worldviews necessarily). You have heard me say that we became posthuman once we used non-instinctual technologies. Humans are tool users, but we have also become tools for social systems that we cannot separate ourselves from. Although this concept has varying ideas about how much control humans can exert on a system, I argue that our control is extremely limited and tied to illusions of control embedded in a system that trained us to think and even dream the way the system wants.

There is certainly room for subversion, but how often is is co-opted by hegemonic actors? Perhaps, I’m too pessimistic and reject the overwhelming potential of small, incremental changes. Perhaps, others are too committed and too optimistic of the potential for individuals to effect change. Perhaps there’s more gray area.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the semester! Sorry I can’t tie up all the loose ends. Then again, what fun would that be?

Final Exam!!!

We’re done with class. Your Final Exam is December 11th–don’t forget–on Canvas. It will be 85-100 questions, and, yes, the exam is cumulative. I will set it up so you’ll definitely get questions from these last two short stories and, of course, our discussions. Good luck! And may the odds be ever in your favor.


Works Cited

Marinetti, F. T. (1913/1973). Destruction of syntax—[Wireless imagination]—Words-in-freedom. In U. Apollonio (Ed.), Futurist manifestos (pp. 95–106). Boston, MA: MFA Publications. (R. W. Flint, Trans).

Taylor, F. W. (1967). The principles of scientific management. New York: Norton. (Original work published in 1911).

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