Posts Tagged 'labor'

Marxist rhetorical theory and DIY print cultures

Published April 7, 2013 Reading notes Leave a Comment
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Buffalo Small Press Fair

Buffalo Small Press Fair: view from upstairs

A bit exhausted this weekend after travelling to WNY to attend the Buffalo Small Press Book Fair (more on that below) and to catch up with some great friends in the Queen City. At the expense of having deep engagement with the other readings this week, I spent some quality time with James Aune’s “Cultures of Discourse: Marxism and Rhetorical Theory” trying to tag it with detailed marginalia since it’s one of the few pieces from Contemporary Rhetorical Theory that are on my exam list for comps. Being a neophyte when it comes to Marxist histories and theories, I’m sure I gleaned less than 10% of the text; nevertheless, I found it interesting and potentially and unexpectedly helpful.

The piece is pulled from (as far as I can tell) an unremarkable 1990 edited collection called Argumentative Theory and the Rhetoric of Assent. Aune begins by plotting “a map of [Marxism's] research program,” leaning heavily on Alvin Gouldner’s synthesis, and pulling a productive dialectic from a key tension between structure and struggle. By structure Aune means Marxism as a science, stressing “a deterministic view of ideology,” where capitalism’s fall is inevitable (citing Lenin and Althusser as key figures). By struggle Aune imagines the version of Marxism that foregrounds critique, and requires some form of organizing, resistance — and ultimately persuasion — in order to engender revolution (he cites Gramsci, Horkheimer and Adorno, and Eagleton as key figures in the second). He then sketches four ways that Marxism has traditionally attended to this tension, arguing that Marxism has only tangentially dealt with rhetorical theory, while rhetorical theory has only tangentially dealt with Marxism.

Aune’s hope, then, is to begin a conversation in the field that retains the ongoing critique of ideology while promoting some sort of material political and social change. To do so, he focuses on one of three levels of abstraction — the mode of production — in social analysis as articulated by Erik Olin Wright in Classes (1985).

Researchers focusing on the mode of production examine “the way in which dominant forms of argument relate to forces and relations of production in the most abstract way” (545; emphasis in original). For Aune, focusing on the mode of production helps dodge rhetorical studies’ “privileging of symbol-use over labor as the constitutive activity of human beings” which “risks being coopted by larger forces of domination in our culture” (546). Aune would have us pay attention to rhetoric’s dominant forms of argument — as cultures of discourse — as products of labor, “as material as a factory or a Hitler speech” (546). He describes these cultures of discourses in detail as traditional, critical, and poststructural and then proceeds to offer four takeaways on developing a Marxist rhetorical theory, including foregrounding the role of labor and class struggle in our theorizing, but also revisiting certain helpful aspects of the cultures of discourse that might contribute to Marxist theory, such as using common sense as the origin of enthymeme or thinking more broadly about oppression in terms of race, sexuality, or via the status of professionalized/specialized (and thus authorized) discourses.

As I returned from the Small Press Book Fair this weekend, of course, modes of production — specifically material ones — are front an center in my mind, especially since the purpose of the trip was to see how (1) I might propose a similar fest/fair here in Syracuse and (2) to think about potential sites for dissertation research. Zine and small press fairs exist all over the US. And although they are largely white, they are diverse in other ways and bring together a mix of working class/artistic subjectivities. What Aune’s piece does for me then, is help me think through “Do It Yourself” articulations from the perspective of Marxist rhetorical theory. The very phrasing of DIY emphasizes labor (“do it!”), but for much of my class and my blogging this semester I’ve been framing it via ecologic rhetorical theory — emphasizing the “yourself” part of the phrase, the part that considers the self as a node in a network. And while Aune also helps address co-optation, a Marxist rhetorical theory could help think critically about the craft of print culture and potentially address the question of why print still hold a special place in our hearts. Perhaps it’s because our labor is still marked, inscribed, and circulated though the paper, the binding, and the edges of the book. It’s maybe a reminder that writing is work.

Booty from Buffalo Small Press Book Fair 2013

Booty from Buffalo Small Press Book Fair 2013

Front Matter & Ch 1: Graduate Study for the 21st Century

Published June 27, 2011 CCR , Reading notes Leave a Comment
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As I mentioned last week, while in Canada I started Gregory Colon Semenza’s 2005 book, Graduate Study for the 21st Century: How to Build an Academic Career in the Humanities. I first heard about it a few years ago from Collin Brooke, and received it as a gift from my sis for my following birthday (2006?). I’ve skimmed pieces from it since, but now I’m hoping to use it to string together some pertinent advice to sustain me over the next few years. Semenza is a lit professor at UConn and penned this book in the years immediately following the completion of his doctorate at Penn State, a fact he makes known in the introduction.

Front matter (acknowledgements, forward by Berube and intro):

  • Acknowledges Kathryn Hume’s Surviving Your Academic Job Hunt (will be checking this out in the next 3 years)
  • Berube: A professor’s job is a 60-hour week, but “you get to choose which 60″ (xv).
  • Berube: A good professional means earning people’s trust. Success = having “your colleagues say, ‘good call’” (xv).
  • University brands don’t matter as much as they used to. Today, academics who work hard and distinguish themselves (usually via a solid publishing record and good teaching evals) get hired.
  • The primary objective of graduate school is “the accumulation of knowledge in an advanced area of study” or “to know something extraordinary or at least something ordinary deeply.The second should be to lean how to discuss that subject clearly and persuasively”(4).
  • Burnout is real danger, but at the same time, expect to work 70 hours per week (huh?!)
  • Graduate student unionization can and should play a key role in improving the work conditions of both graduate students and faculty.

Notable numbers:

  • 10%: the percentage of universities that are considered research (R1s). Although specialization is important, a broad area of knowledge is a smart approach.
  • 9 years: “the average time for completing the Ph.D. … in the humanities” (5)
  • 40-50%: the attrition rate for Ph.D. programs in the US in 2004 (according to the Chronicle)
  • 9%: the rate at which TT jobs decreased between 1981 and 2005 (partially thanks to graduate student labor).

Chapter 1: The Culture of a Graduate Program

Semenza first outlines the typical organization of a department: administrators, faculty (assistant, associate, professor), staff, contingent faculty, GAs, and admin assistants/secretaries and gets it right. Reading this made me realize how much my WPA training has taught me. I pieced this all together on my own during my first year as WC admin.

On research, teaching, service and tenure:

  • Brief discussion on tenure and its importance. Semenza encourages any future scholar to research the history and purpose of tenure, calling it “the primary legal guarantor and protector of academic freedom” (19).
  • Most R1s weigh tenure cases as such: 60% research, 30% teaching, and 10% service.
  • Expectations at R1s = an article per year and a book every 6 or 7 years; however, guidelines are hardly explicit and the definition of a “regular” publishing record is purposely vague in contracts to reserve the right to deny tenure
  • Teaching is important in the humanities because its well-being is weighed by enrollment, not by research grants and the like.

On the politics of the place:

  • “You must show respect for the ghosts that linger in your department” (25). That is, pay attention and understand why things are the way they are. Why Prof X won’t work well with Prof Y, why your TA training program is set up a certain way, or why the Department has particular (if not peculiar) policies. The consequences for arguing from ignorance can be big.
  • The cast of department characters include: The High Priest(esse)s, Deadwood, The Black Sheep, The Careerists, Service Slaves, The Curmudgeons, The Young Turks, The Talker, Theory Boy (or Girl), Life-Long “Learners,” Everyman/woman (26-28). Hilarious and true.
  • “As a graduate student … you will always feel transitional, a hybrid between what you were, and undergrad, and what you hope to be, a professor” (29). Where does that place me? Seems to character 75% of current doc students.

On merit:

  • Graduate students who fail do so because they lack organization and motivation; not because they lack intelligence or creativity. Semenza argues that if profs are working 65 hours per week grad students should work 70.
  • “You should become a professor because you are so completely obsessed with your subject and the skills it demands and because you believe it is the single most important thing you can pass on to other people. Nothing else will do” (30).

Ruining your kid

Published June 23, 2011 Reflections , Teaching 1 Comment
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AM got her face scratched by the cat two weeks ago, fell and broke her collarbone last week in Canada, and now, as we were on our neighborhood walk last night, smacked her face on concrete stairs that lead to the reservoir near our house. She fell forward and kissed the edge of the next step, biting her tongue and cutting her chin open. Thankfully it wasn’t serious, but it was bloody and it set us off. But after the initial fall she cried more about having to go home than about her swollen tongue and scraped chin. After some ice chips and a band aid, a bath and some Sandra Boynton action, she slept through the night and awoke ready to play again this morning.

I would argue that Emily and I are pretty chill parents and tend not to overreact or get hysterical when AM falls or hurts herself. But given these recent scares, imagine my guilt in reading Lori Gottlieb’s recent piece from the Atlantic, “How to Land Your Kid in Therapy.” Gottlieb’s point, hardly a new one in parenting or educative circles lately, is that we are “ruining” our children by protecting them from unhappiness. While not quite as extreme as the Tiger Mom tenets, the piece is heavy on anecdotal evidence to support a supposed epidemic of overprotective, hyperactive parents. According to Gottlieb and the therapists she quotes, parents should back off their kids and reflect on how their own issues get in the way of their child’s best interest. Parents, they say, get home from work and don’t want to spend their time arguing with Holden Caulfield. One psychiatrist goes so far to give this example: if a toddler trips on a rock at a park (or a staircase?), let her “experience that momentary confusion” in order to “grapple with the frustration of having fallen.” You hear that, kid? Wipe that blood off your own chin.

Ok, ok. I’m being a bit unfair. I work at private northeastern university, so her point isn’t lost on me. I’ve seen helicopter parenting here, for sure, but also at the relatively wealthy public jr/sr. high school I taught at 10 years ago. My wife saw the same narcissism at a private local K-12 school in the last five years. I’ve seen the effects of inflated self-esteem in some of my students and my teaching evals sketch me as a tough grader. I understand the problem is out there and how it gets in the way of honesty. That said, Gottlieb refuses, like Atlantic authors before her, to ignore that the “us” and the “our” tends to be families of privilege. “Nowadays,” she frames the problem, “it’s not enough to be happy—if you can be even happier.” And by the way, too many choices leads to a personality crisis.

The latter complaint reminds me of Jean Anyon’s classic article “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work.” In her essay, Anyon notes that the extent of “choice” children are given in their schooling is reflective of social class and what also factors into whether said child will enter into a mechanical profession or one that is more geared toward knowledge work (managers, lawyers, doctors, etc). The working class student, so it goes, will be told what to do. The affluent professional’s kid is always given options.

I bring this up only to say that what bugs me about this article is not only its exaggerated claims (a very small minority of parents will fuck their children up by helicoptering), but that the evidence simply places too much emphasis on the agency of the parent at the expense of ignoring the social-political context of family itself. While a parent can certainly “ruin” a kid through abuse or through spoiling, Gottlieb’s arguments smack of upper class anxiety (or perhaps, resentment). Either way, I’m not buying it.

Ceruzzi, Paul. “The Advent of Commercial Computing, 1945-1956.” A History of Modern Computing. 2nd ed. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003. 13-46. Print.

Published January 25, 2010 Reading notes 1 Comment
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Summary

Ceruzzi traces the development of commercial computing by narrating its history in relation to the most influential machine birthed from that era, the UNIVAC, “Universal Automatic Computer,” completed in 1951 by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly. The UNIVAC was designed as a system with an internal design that allowed users to manipulate it based on the problems to be solved. Its internal memory and use of tape for input/output made for a much faster machine, which helped with sorting data as an “information processing system,” fulfilling a growing need for businesses. The UNIVAC’s ability to automate functions, saved companies time and labor, helped its assent and influence on subsequent computers, such as IBM’s 701. Although Ceruzzi touches on other technology, including the drum, the purpose of this chapter is to explain how the UNIVAC’s design made it the first true electronic computer.

Quotes

Computing after 1945 is a story of people who at critical moments redefined the nature of the technology itself. In doing so they opened up computing to new markets, new applications, and a new place in the social order. (14)

The acronym came from “Universal Automatic Computer,” a name that they chose carefully. “Universal” implied that it could solve problems encountered by scientists, engineers, and businesses. “Automatic” implied that it could solve complex problems without requiring constant human intervention or judgment, as existing techniques required. (15)

No one who saw a UNIVAC failed to see how much it differed from existing calculators and punched card equipment. It used vacuum tubes – thousands of them. It stored data on tape, not cards. It was a large and expensive system, not a collection of different devices. The biggest difference was its internal design, not visible to the casual observer. The UNIVAC was a “stored program” computer, one of the first. More than anything, that made it different from the machines it was designed to replace. (20)

Many design features that alter became commonplace first appeared in the UNIVAC: among them were alphanumeric as well as numeric processing, an extensive use of extra bits for checking, magnetic tapes for bulk memory, and circuits called “buffers” that allowed high-speed transfers between the fast delay line and slow tape storage units. (29)

To the extent that its customers perceived the UNIVAC as an “electronic brain,” it was because it “knew” where to find the desired data on a tape, could wind or rewind a tape to that place, and could extract (or record) data automatically. Customers regarded the UNIVAC as an information process system, not a calculator. As such, it replaced not only existing calculating machines, but also the people who tended them. (30)

Questions

How does this chapter – and the UNIVAC specifically – factor into the focus of this week theme, “what the web was built for”? That is, what role did these computers play in the development of the web?

Ceruzzi primarily focuses on the technical innovations of commercial computing, but does indicate a few of the social and cultural effects of them, such as the effect the tape system had on labor in companies. What might be some others? How would a more complete understanding of the history of computing, or perhaps of business, help to understand this?

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I'm a grad dad studying & teaching composition at Syracuse. I collect zines, LPs, and stuff in between. Email me at jwluther at gmail dot com. Or follow at:
 

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