Feminist Rhetorical Practices (March and April)

[John]

Let's dive in!

[Caitlin]

Hi, John! I'm about halfway through now and really enjoying the book. Who else is reading?

[John]

Fantastic news!

I'm glad to see someone is reading (and enjoying) the book. I read the first two chapters in early March, but then CCCC and post-CCCC got in the way. Your post is the motivation I need to get back on track.

I do know that Dawn Armfield is reading, too.

Anyone else?

Caitlin, do you have any questions to get our discussion going (while I catch up)? I guess I have one for you: Does this book connect with your research interests? If so, what kinds of stuff are you working on?

Cheers!

[John]

In a Twitter conversation about this book (I was promoting this reading group), Kristen R. Moore said to "Note the use of assaying as an [?] metaphor we might trouble." *note: the question mark is her own.

Here's what we get from the internetz' favorite dictionary, thefreedictionary.com

assay
n.
a. Qualitative or quantitative analysis of a metal or ore to determine its components.
b. A substance to be so analyzed.
c. The result of such an analysis.
2. An analysis or examination.
3. A bioassay.
4. Archaic An attempt; an essay.
v. (ă-sā′, ăs′ā′) as·sayed, as·say·ing, as·says
v.tr.
1.
a. To subject (a metal, for example) to chemical analysis so as to determine the strength or quality of its components.
b. To bioassay.
2. To examine by trial or experiment; put to a test: assay one's ability to speak Chinese.
3. To evaluate; assess: assayed the situation before taking action. See Synonyms at estimate.
4. To attempt; try.
v.intr.
To be shown by analysis to contain a certain proportion of usually precious metal.

I'm glad this was brought up on Twitter, because I've been thinking a lot about their use of geological and mining metaphors. It does seem strange to talk about history of rhetoric and specifically feminist histories of rhetoric in this way. But strange isn't always bad, I guess.

What do others think about assaying? Does it work? Is it a helpful way of thinking about this material? If so, what does it allow us to see differently? What does it limit us from seeing?

[Caitlin]

I do like this metaphor because of what it implies about feminist rhetorical practices, especially historical ones that require archival work. The process of digging around in a lot of "worthless" stuff (at least to you) to look for something precious (at least to you) puts a lot of value on historical feminist rhetoric and examples of it, as well as helps to think about the ways we present the kinds of information we do find. And, I think this approach relates to their desires to go simply from "uncovering" and making more present those rhetorical acts to moving beyond it. (Sorry, I'm responding without my book present right now!) I definitely would not have made this comparison, but I think it's very apt! Of course, I have been wondering about the abilities of non-women rhetors to employ feminist rhetorical practices. Maybe I'm just not far enough into the book yet, but this metaphor might also prevent us from seeing other valuable rhetorical practices if they are not precisely what we anticipate.

[John]

Cool! Thanks for writing back, Caitlin. I'm happy to have someone participating. I too like the idea of digging around in a lot of "worthless" stuff, and I also like the idea that this approach allows us to move beyond simple "uncovering."

But……when I first read "assaying," I was thrown for a bit of a loop; the metaphor does not seem to match up with a lot of what I was reading Royster and Kirsch discussing and valuing in feminist scholarship. Assaying (as a process generally, not necessarily how they're discussing it) seems aggressive and phallocentric. I have an image of digging and drilling for oil and mining for ore. I think about a lot of heavy machinery ripping apart the landscape and blowing smoke into the air. Also, in mining, the purpose is profit. They're digging around to find whatever they can sell.

So essentially I have this scorched earth image of a strip mine where the earth has been torn apart for profit. Is that how scholars want to think about feminist rhetorical scholarship? Maybe I'm being way too cynical. Or maybe I'm missing how they're using assaying in a way that's kind of tongue in cheek.

Or maybe it's just too late on a Friday night and I should go to sleep. I'll go with that one and pick this up tomorrow.

[John]

Hold the phone, I'm going to do a 180 degree turn on what I said last night. Well, maybe more of a 90.

Rereading the definition of assaying that I pasted a few posts above, it seems to be more about *analyzing* the precious metals than digging for them. So I think my last post is wrong.

Maybe the scorched earth is traditional rhetorical criticism that excluded women or even traditional feminist rhetorical criticism that is all about "rescue, recovery, and reinscription."

In this way, assaying as a metaphor is dealing with the precious metals that we already have--figuring out how to analyze them appropriately, perhaps even ethically.

But I think we run into two problems with this:

1) We still don't get rid of assaying as driven by profit. The "precious" metals are only precious insomuch as they can be sold on the market.

2) If assaying is about analysis and not "digging," then how do we find more "precious metals" to assay?

Maybe a 3rd question is about historiographic method. How do we discover without digging? Is that possible? Is the "digging" metaphor actually a problem?

[Caitlin]

I think your first two questions can be discussed together, at least a bit. It seems to me that their goal is to illuminate ways for us to re-evaluate the rhetorical practices around us, especially those that were historically deemed unsuccessful or not worth studying. Royster & Kirsch discuss scholarship that turns more toward valuing what wasn't traditionally valued, like Powell's research on the letters of women to the government trying to keep their homesteads from being turned into a national park. I feel like this metaphor is meant to get us thinking about what we define as "precious" rhetorical actions.

If we think about it in this way, I see elite, white men's rhetoric as the gold we might find--traditionally valued and what many people are out looking for when they think about rhetoric. But Royster, Kirsch, and the scholars they discuss would like to see us turn to valuing the less-polished rocks and fragments of other gems not traditionally seen as precious. These would be things like "ordinary writing," at least historically. So Royster and Kirsch are trying to help explain the tools that feminist rhetorical scholars use to analyze and therefore place value on traditionally ignored rhetorical practices (and especially those by women).

I'm not sure that we can escape the digging aspect, completely; however, I think this is probably important when thinking about archival work especially. There is a lot of "digging" required of working with texts written by other individuals. Does this relate to their idea of strategic contemplation in some way? As scholars, we have to be open to exploration and discovery. Digging seems to imply that we have a goal and are searching specifically for that item (like gold), but I think feminist rhetorical practices would ask us to be less goal-oriented in that way and to instead meditate more on the texts we do find and how we can find them. If we are "digging through the archives," we might pass over a woman's diary full of shopping lists, but if we are contemplating these texts strategically, we might see how it has more value than we initially perceived.

[John]

I've been swamped, but I wanted to say that I've been thinking a lot about your response. And I really like your idea that the assaying metaphor "is meant to get us thinking about what we define as 'precious' rhetorical actions." I'll write more soon. Cheers!