Week Four

COMM 401Interpreting Strategic DiscourseWeek Four

Memory

Ancient Understandings of Memory

Memory in Rhetorica ad Herennium, Book III

Devoted to Arrangement, Delivery, Memory.

Memory is both natural and artificial (mnemonic devices).

Memory—The Lost Canon

Memory is the lost canon of ancient rhetoric

Was critical to earlier understanding of rhetoric

Homeric bards All ancient theories developed

elaborate codes of memory Why is it lost?

Different Senses of Memory Because Memory differs widely in what it can

mean as an aspect of rhetoric, rhetorical criticism in terms of Memory has equally broad possibilities: the degree to which a speaker successfully remembers

a memorized oration the facility with which a speaker calls upon his memory

of apt quotations and thoughts that effectively meet the rhetorical intention

an analysis of the methods a speaker uses in order for the message to be retained in the memory of those hearing (mnemonics)

assessment of direct appeals to memory or the mention of it or related terms

Collective Memory

Collective vs. individual memory Memory vs. history

Public memory: how we collectively understand our past; strategies,

discourses, symbols that we use to define and communicate the past.

Related to myth, narrative; discusses the stories we tell about the past.

Remembering vs. Forgetting What maintains its place in our

public/collective memory? What is remembered? What is

forgotten? Is there a value in forgetting? What

about American history should be forgotten? What has been forgotten but should be remembered?

How do we remember? How do we forget?

Valence of memory and forgetting Amnesia vs. nostalgia

Strategies of Memorializing

A very public way of communicating memory is through public memorializing.

Such memorials are complicated, complex, public rhetorical acts.

Presentism

The present tends to cloud our visions/rhetorics of the past.

Presentism is the dimension of collective memory where such rhetoric is dependent upon the present conditions, or defined by present circumstances.

Harding at Lincoln Memorial “No great character in all history has been more

eulogized, no towering figure more monumented, no likeness more portrayed. Painters and sculptors portray as they see, and no two see precisely alike. So, too. is there varied emphasis in the portraiture of words; but all are agreed about the rugged greatness, the surpassing tenderness, the unfailing wisdom of this master martyr. History is concerned with the things accomplished. Biography deals with the methods and the individual attributes which led to accomplishment.”

Harding at Lincoln Memorial “The supreme chapter in history is not

emancipation, though that achievement would have exalted Lincoln throughout all the ages. The simple truth is that Lincoln, recognizing an established order, would have compromised with the slavery that existed, if he could have halted its extension. Hating human slavery as he did, he doubtless believed in its ultimate abolition through the developing conscience of the American people, but he would have been the last man in the Republic to resort to arms to effect its abolition. Emancipation was a means to the great end—maintained union and nationality.”

Harding at Lincoln Memorial “Here was the great purpose, here the towering

hope, here the supreme faith. He treasured the inheritance handed down by the founding fathers, the ark of the covenant wrought through their heroic sacrifices, and builded in their inspired genius. The union must be preserved. It was the central thought, the unalterable purpose, the unyielding intent, the foundation of faith. It was worth every sacrifice, justified every cost, steeled the heart to sanction every crimsoned tide of blood.”

Image/Visual Rhetoric

Visual texts involve the cultural practices of seeking and looking, as well as the artifacts produced in diverse communicative forms and media.

Visual rhetoric = those symbolic actions enacted primarily through visual means, made meaningful through culturally derived ways of looking and seeing and endeavoring to influence diverse publics.

Visual rhetoric texts may include photography, film, posters, cartoons, bodies, drawings, demonstrations, memorials, emblems, ads, illustrations, televisions, computer screens…

Images and Their Power

Images are feared by many: Plato▪ Allegory of the Cave

The Bible▪ Ten Commandments:▪ You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the

form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

▪ 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me.

Islam▪ Some passages in the Koran and the Hadith are said

to prohibit images of the prophet.

Images and Their Power

Images were embraced by Thomas Aquinas (13th century), who argued for the “institution of images in the Church.”

Images were accessible, concise, powerful, emotional.

“Too Real” Photography

In U.S., early daguerrotypes by Matthew Brady communicated the reality/brutality of the Civil War to millions.

Reality seemed different; death was more vivid and “real”

Photographic Reality

The great irony of photography: The realer images become, the less real reality seems.

Jean Baudrillard’s “murderous capacity of images.”

Photographs remove character, romance, nuance, identity, and emotion.

Image Rhetoric

Performing & Seeing: Public performances often can affirm

and transmit culture by forging bonds or divisions.

How do public performances express or convey meaning? When do some become iconic/representative?

Who can perform publicly? Who is excluded? What are the roles, norms, expectations for public visual performances?

Seeing involves:▪ Gazing vs. surveillance▪ Scopophilia vs. voyeurism

Circulation & the Iconic Image

One dimension to the role of image and visuality in contemporary discourse is the circulation and recirculation of public images.

When an image is recirculated, that may be one marker of its iconic status.

Recirculation

Recirculation

Image Rhetoric

Remembering & Memorializing What events are deemed

worth remembering? What people?

How is that memorializing done in narrative? With myth? Visually?

What is lost to amnesia? What is not pictured, not seen?

Image Rhetoric

Confronting & Resisting Those rhetors who oppose

established institutions and resist the established order often employ visual rhetoric.

Demonstrations, marches, flag burnings, photos and videos—all can function as modes of resistance and confrontation.

Some become iconic.

Image Rhetoric

Commodifying & Consuming Commodification involves the

symbolic processes by which the motives of commercial exchange are integrated into social, political, and cultural relations.

Always involves some degree of consumption.

Convergence theory of media and image.

What is a Spectacle?

Spectacles are highly staged and constructed.

Spectacles are mediated.

Spectacles involve many people and considerable wealth/capital.

Spectacles are often ritualized expressions of communal values and ideals.

Understanding Spectacles

Spectacles are staged and constructed. Spectacles require

months of planning and preparation.

Spectacles involve many people and lots of money.

Choices are made in the staging of spectacles that may be important to a critic.

Understanding Spectacles

Spectacles are highly mediated. Mediation can obscure

meaning and power. Mediation adds another

layer to a spectacle’s message?

Mediation makes finding the spectacle’s source difficult.

The Critic and the Spectacle Criticism of spectacle asks:

How is the spectacle staged and constructed? What are the symbols/markers of the spectacle’s

meaning? What are the metaphors employed in the spectacle’s

performance? What are the mediation strategies at work in the

communication of the spectacle? Who are the sources of the message in the spectacle? What does the mediation of spectacle mean for

understanding of audience reception? What values are expressed by the spectacle? What is the hierarchy of values contained with the

spectacle? How is the spectacle ritualized?

Midterm Exam

Average: 69 Curve: +7 points After curve distribution

A = 2 B = 1 C = 3 D = 1 F = 2

A B C D F0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

Grade Distribution