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 17th: Verb is the Word!
    • February 24th: Coordination and Subordination
      • A Practical Editing Situation
    • 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
    • Major Assignments for New Media (Spring 2021)
  • 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 2213/HTAS 2100: Science, Technology, and Society » October 22nd: The Time Machine

October 22nd: The Time Machine

Literature and Culture

Some of you might be puzzled when I claim that “science fiction” is an important genre that reflects our values regarding science and technology. Is all science fiction like this. To some extent, yes, but it’s not always obvious. Just like all stories, some science fiction texts are more entertaining than others. Likewise, don’t get annoyed that we aren’t explaining the validity of interstellar travel, locating the Roswell aliens, or learning Vulcan (although we might reference the theoretical possibility of time travel). Fans of this genre are probably not too keen on having the stories looked at from a cultural perspective because it “ruins” their experience. Critical thinking will do that–it’ll ruin you. It’s only temporary while you reinstrumentalize yourself. Want to learn how to reinstrumentalize yourself? Check out the anime show Neon Genesis Evangelion–that’s sci fi!

There are many ways to interpret Literature. If this were an English class, we’d be going over types of interpretation and applying them to a variety of texts. Alternatively, in an English class, we might focus on a few works from several authors and look for similarities in their novels, poems, or short stories. We’re reading science fiction in order to think about technology (and science) from humanistic and rhetorical perspectives. Because technologies are products of the time period from which they come (just as texts are), we can understand the rhetoric embedded into ideas about technology. Even though sci fi can be far fetched, it still reflects ideology. This genre has themes that reoccur and says much about the cultures from which they come and how we (today) might find similar meanings in the texts of our time.

If you have time (ha!), watch a video about time travel and science fiction. This isn’t required, but, if you’re interested in quantum mechanics, you might enjoy this.

The Time Machine (1895)

Here’s a little bit about Wells from my copy of The Time Machine (Bantam Books reissue, 1991). The editor mentions that Wells had a lifelong pursuit for the “ideal woman” with whom he could have “a perfect relationship.” Wells died in 1946, so he saw the horrors of WWI and WWII, and “throughout the 1930s he took center stage in warning that humankind was on the brink of disaster, while zealously planning the reconstruction of society.” He warned against the pursuit of technologies that would destroy humanity and lived to see the development of the atomic bomb.

When the novella came out (1895), the Western world was well into the Industrial Revolution and society was being ordered to maintain the economic machine and, therefore, maintain society. For today, let’s consider Wells’s imagination and the reasons someone might conceive of going forward (or back) in time. We’ll definitely get into how this text is a product of its culture (and, maybe, how the movie adaptations are of their respective time periods), but let’s focus on main features of this text and how you responded to it during your reading.

Consider the following themes in the novella:

  • Gathering around to smoke, drink, and discuss issues of time travel…who are these guys?
  • Narrator’s role in (re)telling the story
  • Escaping/transcending one’s time (and place)
  • Dealing with foreigners in a foreign land (and time)
  • The Time Traveller’s* motivations for leaving 1899

*This is Wells’s spelling: t-r-a-v-e-l-l-e-r. The double ‘l’ is chiefly a British variant, so, because Wells uses it, I’ll use it when we refer to his character.

More questions to consider:

  • Why go into the future?
  • What does the Time Traveller do when he gets to 802,701?
  • What does this following assumption say about his cultural frame of reference (his values):
    The work of ameliorating the conditions of life–the true civilizing process that makes life more and more secure–had gone steadily on to a climax. One triumph of a united humanity over Nature had followed another. Things that are now mere dreams had become projects deliberately put in hand and carried forward. And the harvest was what I saw! (p. 37)
    • One possible interpretation is that he has the same assumption that we mainly have: technology and science always progress and solve problems.
    • He assumes humanity created utopia…
  • What is the understanding of knowledge in the book? Is knowledge power? A problem or burden? (p. 48)
    • Maybe being ignorant keeps you from walking away from Omelas…
    • The above is a story you might be interested in. It’s not required reading.

Time Traveller’s Comments

The Time Traveller makes observations and extrapolates on how the Eloi-Morlock world/s came to be. Like many European intellectuals of his time, H. G. Wells theorized about the merits of socialism as an economic system. One reading of a socialist vision of the future is utopia–one day all the evils of the world will be solved. Is that unique to socialism? What other theories of society or just human speculations end with utopia?

Places where Wells mentions communism (let’s not worry about the distinction between “communism” and “socialism” for our purposes with this novella):

  • p. 7: “‘To discover a society,’ said I, ‘erected on a strictly communistic basis.'” One possible finding in the future.
  • p. 35: “‘Communism,’ said I to myself….Then, in a flash, I perceived that all had the same form of costume, the same soft hairless visage, and the same girlish rotundity of limb….In costume, and in all the differences of texture and bearing that now mark off the sexes from each other, these people of the future were alike.”
    • I think the Eloi all looked like this…
  • p. 60: “At first, proceeding from the problems of our own age, it seemed clear as daylight to me that the gradual widening of the present merely temporary and social difference between the Capitalist and the Labourer, was the key to the whole position.
  • p. 61: “So, in the end, above ground you must have the Haves, pursuing pleasure and comfort and beauty, and below ground the Have-nots, the Workers getting continually adapted to the conditions of their labour.”

Places where Wells mentions women’s and men’s roles:

  • p. 35: “for an efficient family, and the specialization of the sexes with reference to their children’s needs disappears. We see some beginnings of this even in our own time, and in this future age it was complete.” {italics mine}
  • Notice that Wells, definitely aware of the Women’s Suffrage Movement of the late-19th Century, extrapolates that women’s “traditional” roles appeared to be changing circa 1900.

Places where Wells mentions Science and Technological improvements–bettering human life with agriculture and medicine:

  • p. 38: “The ideal of preventive medicine was attained. Diseases had been stamped out. I saw no evidence of any contagious diseases during all my stay.”
  • p. 37: “After all, the sanitation and the agriculture of to-day are still in the rudimentary stage. The science of our time has attacked but a little department of the field of human disease, but even so, it spreads its operations very steadily and persistently..”
  • p. 37-38: A little way down, The Time Traveller explains his time’s agricultural artificial selection isn’t as vast as the Eloi–or so he assumes–because “our knowledge is very limited.”
    • p. 38: “Some day all this will be better organized, and still better.”
    • Remember, our ideology makes us believe new techniques, new technologies, and new scientific knowledge will increase in the future.

Quest for Knowledge

So how is the Time Traveller separated from the Eloi? His desire to know. On p. 64 he explains, “It was this restlessness, this insecurity, perhaps, that drove me further and further afield in my exploring expeditions” to get to the Palace of Green Porcelain.

  • Why does the Time Traveller privilege knowledge?
    • For one thing, he’s a scientist, who conducts experiments.
    • He’s immersed in Western culture, which privileges the scientific method.

The Time Traveller’s Thoughts on What Happened to the Future

  •  p. 25: Question about (de-)evolution–“What if…the race had lost its manliness, and had developed into something inhuman, unsympathetic, and overwhelmingly powerful?”
  • p. 37: “It seemed to me that I had happened upon humanity upon the wane….the sunset of mankind.”
  • p. 37: “The science of our time has attacked but a little department of our field of human disease, but, even so, it spreads its operations very steadily and persistently.”
    • Remember, there’s a belief–a prevailing belief–that technology will improve and we’ll steadily establish new science.
    • Why do I keep bringing this up in the context of our class?
  • p. 47: Patience…lost on the Time Traveller–“I am too Occidental for a long vigil. I could work at a problem for years, but to wait inactive for twenty-four hours–that is another matter.”
    • I’d say this is more his being industrious than wanting instant gratification.
    • Occidental is a fancy way of saying Western as in Western Civilization.
    • While we’re on the subject of turn-of-the-last-century literature, the fancy French phrase for this time period (around 1900) is fin de siècle {pronounced: fan-dee-see-ahk-la}
  • p. 50: Compares discussing his time to the Eloi with comparing “his world” with foreigners from lesser-developed places.
  • p. 66: Modernist literary theme of science and technology cutting into nature: When the Time Traveller enters the Morlocks’ domain underground, “The air was full of the throb and hum of machinery pumping air down the shaft.”
  • p. 68: “I had started with the absurd assumption that the men of the Future would certainly be infinitely ahead of ourselves in all their appliances.”
    • Of course, he would have this assumption. Science and technology always advance, right?

Morlock Behavior and Evolution

  • p. 72: “Ages ago, thousands of generations ago, man had thrust his brother man out of the ease and sunshine. And now that brother was coming back–changed!”
  • p. 77: Morlocks possibly ate “rats and such-like vermin. Even now [1895] man is far less discriminating and exclusive in his food than he was–far less than any monkey.”
    • We’ve certainly evolved in our food tastes…Popeye’s Chicken Sandwiches
    • In case the sarcasm didn’t come through, waiting in line for food (or Black Friday deals) is zombie behavior.
  • p. 78: “I even tried a Carlyle-like scorn of this wretched aristocracy in decay. But this attribute of mind was impossible.”
    • p. 78: “…the Eloi had kept too much of the human form not to claim my sympathy…”
    • They looked too much like him.
    • Thomas Carlyle, a Scottish Victorian-era philosopher, was vehemently opposed to noble heredity and thought aristocracy by birth wouldn’t result in the best leaders but would damage society.

The Problem with Utopia

  • p. 97: “No doubt in that perfect world there had been no unemployed problem, no social question left unsolved. And a great quite followed.”
  • p. 97: “There is no intelligence where there is no need of change. Only those animals partake of intelligence that have to meet a huge variety of needs and dangers.”
    • What might Asimov say about this?

The Time Traveller eventual gets to the end of the Earth (the end of time?). Why did the Time Traveller disappear for 3 years?

  • How far ahead does he go?
  • p. 103: What type of creature (or creatures) does he find?
  • p. 106: “All the sounds of man, the bleating of sheep, the cries of birds, the hum of insects, the stir that makes the background of our lives…”

“Filby, an argumentative person with red hair…”

In the novella, Filby is just one of the observers, but in both versions of the movie, he’s a friend and mentor. The novella is mainly the narrator’s retelling of the Time Traveller’s story. Both the novella and the 1960’s film show science being discussed. Although time travel is just theoretical (is it?), the various men in the room contemplate the possibility of actually traveling through time. This is an important allegory to how science gets verified: new ideas must be vetted (tested and approved) by an established group–usually a discourse community. This “dinner party” is metaphoric in that the attendees vet the Time Traveller’s experiment.

Film Adaptations

I hope to have more clips from the 1960 and 2002 film adaptations of the Time Machine, but please watch these links below. There will be questions about these clips on Test 2 and the Final Exam.

  • Time Travel–1960 (4:05)
  • Time Travel–2002 (2:10)

Next Week

We’ll continue with H.G. Wells’s The Time Machine (1895) next week. Don’t forget to do your weekly discussion prompt before Friday, 10/23, at 11:00 pm.

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