R.I.P. Benazir Bhutto (1953-2007)

Activists around the world mourn the loss of former prime minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto, 57, who was assassinated in Rawalpindi on Thursday. Que en pas descanse.

(Photo courtesy of "Historische Portraits" at portrait.kaar.at)

R.I.P. --- Maria Isabel Aguilera (1922-2007)

On November 15, 2007, my grandmother entered the spiritual world after a painful struggle with cancer. My beautiful mother took wonderful care of her until her last day. My grandmother was a hard working woman who represented strength and persistence to me. Thank you for being part of my life, abuelita. I will never forget you.

We will miss you this Christmas.

Dissertation Prospectus & The Philosophy of Memory

I’m currently putting together my dissertation proposal and I’m being quite strategic with every component of it with regard to each word, every paragraph and the shifting of substantial evidence to support my argument. I’m thinking about its structure in an architectural sense where the literature review is the foundation for the minor parts that rise at different moments to signify the critical components of the proposal.

I’m putting a lot of faith in this project since I’ve had goosebumps just reading a vast amount of critical inquiry related to history, memory, rhetoric and autobiography during the preparation phase of this prospectus.

The works of John Frederick Reynolds, Sharon Crowley, and Frances Yates have been influential, of course. Connecting all of these ideas from all of these inquiries is truly the exciting aspect of composing this proposal!

Along the lines of research and compiling sources, John Sutton, a Philosophy scholar at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, features an interesting bibliography and index page titled “Memory,” with “Philosophy of Memory” as a list of key sources for extensive research in memory such as kinestethic and skill memory.

Also, check out “Writing and Remembering: Why We Remember What We Write,” an article that I found through John Walter's blog Machina Memorialis, who posted it from Clay Spinuzzi’s blog. Muy interesante!

I’ll give my thoughts on this article next time!

Hasta la proxima!


Currently Listening To:




PJ Harvey, "White Chalk"

Memory on TV: "Samantha Who?"

Tonight, ABC will premiere its new comedy "Samantha Who?" starring Christina Applegate as "Samantha Newly," a woman who loses her memory and attempts to find out if she was really "a good girl or bad girl." From the previews, it seems like its going to be a funny show.

Check out the previews:

Is Human Memory Going Extinct?

Check out the link to "Your Outboard Brain Knows All," a great article from Wired that my advisor, Dr. Beth Brunk-Chavez, e-mailed a few days ago. I told her that this article confirms my belief that blogs have become modern storage spaces for all our written ideas, which are strategically organized in chronological order ("online journals" sounds a bit "icky"). It also taps into Freud's theory about the unconscious being the storage space for memories. I was also thinking about Crowley's discussion about technology enhancing human memory--which is ideal.

Check it out!

"Your Outboard Brain Knows All" by Clive Thompson

(Illustration by Luke Hayman/Pentagram, with Darrow, courtesy of Wired)

"Oral Tradition" Now Online

"We are very pleased to notify you that all 22 years of our journal Oral Tradition are now available online and free of charge at http://journal.oraltradition.org/

This site now contains nearly 500 articles and 10,000 pages, with all of the contents downloadable as pdf files that you can read online or print out asyou wish. The entire electronic archive of Oral Tradition is also searchable by keyword or author name, with phrase-based and Boolean searches possible aswell.

In return, may we ask you to forward this e-mail announcement to at least five colleagues in your field? It would be especially helpful if you selectedcolleagues whom you feel might not be aware of Oral Tradition's migration to an internet-based, open-access format, or who might not already know that the entire run of the journal is now available gratis.

There are also several other ways to assist us with the process of notifying colleagues, and we would greatly appreciate your assistance: electroniclinks to the site in (1) personal blogs and (2) professional websites, as well as (3) announcements in journals and newsletters in your field. Any or all ofthese strategies would certainly help to get the news to colleagues on a broad scale.

Thank you for whatever you can do to help inform our community and share a resource that was created for the common good.

The Center for Studies in Oral Tradition at the University of Missouri (http://oraltradition.org/ )is gratified to be able to offer Oral Tradition to anyone worldwide with an internet connection and a browser. We hope that the online, open-access formatwill enlarge and diversify the journal's readership, and particularly that it will offer everyone interested in the world's oral traditions - regardless of their location and academic context - an equal opportunity to contribute actively to the discussion. Our shared field will prosper most readily if it operates as an academic democracy without financial or distributional barriers.As for future contents, the next issue of Oral Tradition (volume 22, number 2) will be a special collection devoted to Basque traditions, and will include descriptive and analytical articles, interviews with oral poets, and an eCompanion with photographic, audio, and video support. Beyond that issue we will be publishing articles on Albanian oral law, Native American storytelling, modern Greek oral poetry, Welsh saints' lives, modern Balinese epic, and many other topics across the international spectrum.

We welcome your comments and especially your submissions for publication."

John Foley

Editor, Oral Tradition

Quote of the Day

"Writing always presupposes the selection of a psychological attitude, a rapport with the world, a tone of voice, a homogeneous set of linguistic tools, the data of experience and the phantoms of the imagination — in a word, a style. The author is an author insofar as he enters into a role the way an actor does and identifies himself with that projection of himself at the moment of writing."

- Italo Calvino

Jealous and Envy

Dear Raza,

Why is that one individual must always have the need to be jealous of another individual's success?

Why is it that one individual cannot say to another: "Hey, what you did is great! It inspires me that a person from nuestra raza is aiming for the sky and I'm incredibly inspired! I'm so proud of you!"

Why is it that individuals--usually from our tribe, nuestra gente, nuestra cultura--do everything in their power to try to drag you down when one is soaring or attempting to get up from a bad fall?

Why is it that individuals cannot reciprocate the fact that one individual goes out of their way to help them?

Why can't an individual say: "There are individuals in my life that have helped me and I am committed to taking care of these individuals since they are the ones that nurse my wounds at my time of need."

Why must individuals be greedy when they are given something out love?

Why must individuals feel the need to want to run another individual's life when their own lives are in complete disarray?

Why is it so difficult for an individual to say three simple words: "I am sorry." (and carry out the words with actions)

Why is it so difficult for an individual to say three other simple words: "I love you." (and carry out the words with actions)

Why are these questions not clear to you?

Not yours,

Hector

Quote of the Day

"How greatly we misunderstand when we reduce ancient and medieval memoria to our word 'memorization'."

Mary Carruthers, The Book of Memory

"The Rhetoric of Sentimental Memory"

The web page for "The Rhetoric of Sentimental Memory," a Communications course at the University of Minnesota, features some excellent readings, which you can download using Adobe Acrobat. I would like to know who teaches this course!

Enjoy!

Feliz Dia de la Independencia!

Feliz Dia de la Independencia a Nuestros Paisanos en Mexico y los E.U.!!!!!!!!!

Nunca seremos vencidos paisanos Mexicanos y Chicanos! A Celebrar!!!!!

Memory and Sexuality

One of the leading voices in gay Chicano fiction and LGBT literature--John Rechy--is ready to release his new book "About My Life and the Kept Woman," a memoir about Rechy's discovery of his racial and sexual identity.

I hope the book will be better than his prior work, which has not been that impressive. Although, "City of Night," his debut novel, continues a classic in the world of letters. However, much of his work thereafter has not impressed (with the exception of "Numbers").

And here I was thinking that Rechy was against memory and memoirs because of his comments in Charles Casillo's biography "Outlaw: John Rechy," where he expressed his refusal to write a memoir. Hmmmmm?????? Prove me wrong, John!

Hasta la proxima...

Remembering Gil Cuadros (1962-1996)

I found the following photograph of the brilliant gay Chicano escritor Gil Cuadros, who left this world too soon. Cuadros' debut "City of God" is a masterpiece in Chicano literature. He has joined the ranks of other important gay Chicano escritores such as John Rechy, Michael Nava, Luis Alfaro and Richard Rodriguez. However, there will never be another voice like his. Te recordamos siempre, Gil.

(Photo by Laura Aguilar and courtesy of UCLA LGBTS)

2008 RSA Conference Call for Papers

RSA Conference
13th Biennial Conference The Westin - Seattle, Washington 23-26 May 2008
RSA 2008: Call for Proposals
Theme: The Responsibilities of Rhetoric

"Seattle, the location of RSA 2008, by virtue of its identity and its imagery compels us to meditate together on the macroforces that are currently shaping our discipline and our democracy.

Seattle means coffee and Boeing and the Port--all of them symbols of the international, globalized market economy and its attendant perils. Seattle means Microsoft and Amazon.com --megacorporations produced by and producing new (and sometimes vexing) communications technologies and practices. Seattle means "metronatural" life: REI (Recreation Equipment Inc.) and bicycles, eco-consciousness and the just-launched Puget Sound Partnership, urban spaces surrounded by Elliott Bay and Mt. Rainier--all of it a reminder of ecological challenges that must be negotiated through rhetoric. And Seattle means multiculturalism: the polyglot citizens who gather at Pike Place Market or Starbucks are African American and native American, Anglo and Asian, Latino and mestizo, native and immigrant.

Let us come together in Seattle, therefore, to consider The Responsibilities of Rhetoric. How can the study and practice of rhetoric contribute to social progress? What does rhetoric offer as means of understanding and coping with globalization, particularly at a time when "global" is associated with "terror" and "exploitation"? What do rhetorical studies have to offer in a presidential election year when political discourses and popular fundamentalisms are polarizing, confrontational, divisive? How do new media affect civic participation and the conduct of argument half a century after The New Rhetoric, The Uses of Argument, and The Rhetoric of Motives? How can rhetorical studies contribute to scientific exchange, technology transfer, and risk management--all in the interest of public and disciplinary good, and particularly on environmental issues? In a nation suspicious of difference, concerned with security, and newly armed with snooping technologies, can rhetorical pedagogies nevertheless protect civil liberties, sustain civic cooperation, and promote understanding and identification? And how can our professional society be sure that our scholarly methodologies and assumptions are themselves highly ethical?

While participants are invited to present their current research on all the topics that fall within the domain of rhetorical studies, the Program Committee will especially appreciate proposals that engage with The Responsibilities of Rhetoric.

Proposals for sessions, special events, and individual presentations – due by September 15, 2007 – must be submitted electronically: click on the "Submit a Proposal" tab (above left) for directions. There you will also find information (and regular updates) on housing, registration, special features, and other aspects of RSA 2008."

En Memoria: Luciano Pavarotti (1935-2007)

You Must Listen To...

Music, along with writing, is central in my life. I am currently listening to the amazing, the one and only, and there will never be another....


Ben Harper





He is the man!


Check out his masterpiece: "Both Sides of the Gun," which has been compared to The White Album and London Calling...but Harper stands alone in his talent, originality and influence. What a musical magician!

ECA Convention Call for Papers

CALL FOR PAPERS – Second Call
Kenneth Burke Interest Group
Eastern Communication Association Convention
2008 ECA Convention“Making a Difference”Omni William Penn
Pittsburgh, PA
May 1 - May 4, 2008

The Kenneth Burke Interest Group of the Eastern Communication Association invites submission of papers, program proposals, and round-table discussions for the 99th annual ECA Convention in Pittsburgh, PA. The convention theme, “Making a Difference,” brings together three important areas: scholarship,teaching, and service. Each of these areas makes a difference to the discipline, and, together, they make a great difference in those we reach within and beyond the classroom.

The interest group welcomes papers and panel proposals in keeping with the convention theme that engage Burke’s theoretical and critical approach, examine rhetorical artifacts or contemporary or historical events from a Burkean perspective, situate Burke’s ideas with respect to other lines of scholarship, or take Burke’s scholarship in a new direction. Especially welcome are papersand panels that examine Burke’s ties to Pittsburgh.

Submissions of completed papers should include: (1) a detachable title pagewith the title of the paper and the author’s affiliation, mailing address, telephone number, and e-mail address, (2) the word “Debut” on the title page if the author has not presented previously at a regional or national convention, (3) a 75 word abstract on the second page, (4) a statement of professional responsibility on the second page (see below), and (5) four copies of the completed paper (unless sent by e-mail, which is strongly encouraged). If a paper has multiple authors, please indicate who will be presenting at the convention. Papers should not exceed 25 double-spaced typewritten pages (not including abstract, references, and notes), nor should they have been previously presented at other conferences.

Submissions of panel or round-table proposals should include: (1) A thematic title for the program, (2) names of chair and respondents, if any, (3)names, mailing addresses, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, and institutional affiliation of all participants, (4) title and abstracts for each paper or presentation, (5) program copy (a 75 word description) as it will appear in the final version, (6) a detailed rationale for the program/panel, (7) astatement of professional responsibility (see below), and (8) four copies of all ofthe above (unless sent by e-mail, which is strongly encouraged).

As noted above, the following statement of professional responsibility must be included in all submissions:

In submitting the attached paper or proposal, I/we recognize that this submission is considered a professional responsibility. I/we agree to present this panel or paper if it is accepted and programmed. I further recognize that all who attend and present at ECA’s annual meeting must register and payrequired fees.

ECA Technology PolicyTechnology use is expensive. Although every effort will be made to provide technology as requested, the Convention Planner will necessarily examine whether the integrity of the submission will be jeopardized if technology is notavailable. ECA will not approve requests for the following technology: personal computers, laser printers, satellite links, teleconference equipment, LCD panels and projectors, video data projects, and digital versatile/video discequipment. Although ECA members may wish to rent this equipment from the hotel at their own expense, those individuals are responsible for the equipment,including protecting it from damage and theft. Further, ECA is not responsiblefor this equipment. Finally, the hotel should not be expected to provide service for, or assistance with, personal technology that is brought into the hotel. For more information regarding ECA’s technology policy, please refer to the association’s webpage.

Send papers and program proposals by mail or e-mail attachment for receipt by October 15, 2007 to the address listed below. And questions, programming suggestions, and ideas concerning the Burke Interest Group are welcome. ECA’s 2008 convention will feature Spotlight on Scholarship programs, shortcourses, poster sessions, workshops, roundtables, and panels. Proposals addressing the convention theme but NOT directly related to one of the interest group areas should be sent to Sara Weintraub, ECA First Vice-President.

Robert Westerfelhaus
Associate Professor
Department of Communication
College of Charleston
66 George Street
Charleston, SC 29424843-953-6533
westerfelhausr@cofc.edu

Learning Culture & Language Using Memoria

In keeping with the habit of featuring blogs and websites about memory, I want to highlight Simon Ager's "Omniglot--The Blog". Ager is a fella from England who has learned several languages, including French, German, Japanese, Spanish, Welsh, Mandarin Chinese, and is currently studying Czech. In "Writing and Memory," Ager talks about the use of memory in learning a new language. He states that relying on written notes--when learning a new language--proves faulty because it discourages the use of memory when the learner actually uses the learned language in conversation. In having written down notes during the learning process, the brain, Ager believes, dissolves all the recorded information that was studied. Although, I'm not sure if this is quite so because I continue believing that speaking and writing are different psychological processes.

Nevertheless, Ager's posting is salient because it reminded me of the discussion about memory and writing between Socrates and Phaedrus in Plato's Phaedrus. Plato's Socrates recounts the story about Thamus, King of Egypt, and Theuth, "the father of writing" (79). Theuth tells Thaums that writing will make people wiser and sharpen people's memory skills. However, Thamus counters Theuth by stating (in the words of Socrates):

"O most expert Theuth, one man can give birth to the elements of an art, but only another can judge how they can benefit or harm those who will use them. And now, since you are the father of writing, your affection it has made you describe its effects as the opposite of what they really are. In fact, it will introduce forgetfulness into the soul of those who learn it: they will not practice using their memory because they will put their trust in writing, which is external and depends on signs that belong to others, instead of trying to remember from the inside, completely on their own. You have not discovered a potion for remembering, but for reminding; you provide your students with the appearance of wisdom, not with its reality. Your invention will enable them to hear many things without being properly taught, and they will imagine that they have come to know much while for the most part they will know nothing. And they will be difficult to get along with, since they will merely appear to be wise instead of really being so." (79-80)

Thamus' words perfectly describe what Ager says in his posting about the injurious nature of writing on the use of memory. However, in Ager's case, we are dealing with the learning of a new language. Those that simply recall information mimic, yet those that use this information through memory, in converting theory into practice, are those that are truly learned and wise. This point emphasizes the often ignored difference between mimicking and truly being learned, between performance and substance. More importantly though is the most ignored factor in all of this conversation--culture.

One cannot ignore the cultural factor when learning a new language. One cannot forget the historical conditions of a particular's culture's use of language. Language cannot just be learned with a sharp memory. Learning another culture's language requires the learning of that culture's history. A sharp memory learns a culture's struggles and their use of language as a means to shape their identity and how power has circulated within that culture. Therefore, cultural memory is so important. So, in becoming a polyglot, aim to become "polycultural". N'est pas?

Hasta la proxima.

h

Quote of the Day

"Memories connect you not only to past images and past senses, but also to past emotions. That is because whenever a memory is stored, bits of it get connected through nerve pathways to those centers in your brain that add an emotional charge -- the amygdala for fear and anxiety, the nucleus accumbens for pleasure. Nerve cells in each emotional center in the brain make and release different nerve chemicals that help cement the memory: dopamine for pleasure and addiction, adrenalin-like norepinephrine for fear. The brain’s stress center, the hypothalamus makes the stress hormone CRH, corticotropin releasing hormone. Through hard-wiring and these nerve chemicals, memories formed at the same time that a strong emotion is experienced are seared indelibly into the brain."

Esther M. Sternberg, M.D., "Writing, Emotions and Memory"

Back to Memoria/Memory is Blind

I took the quals last weekend and used this week to get back into the groove for teaching and, of course, for finishing up my diss. proposal. I've already gathered quite a bit of articles that I'll be featuring on the blog. Also, I've found some important dissertations on memoria and rhetoric that I have to feature here as well. I'll stay focused as to featuring only these articles and dissertations since I know I've been getting off track with the purpose of this blog. My apologies.
Now if I can only get over my allergies and get my energy back! :(

Anyways, check out Charles Q. Choi's article "Blind People Have Superior Memory Skills," which describes a small study that proved that sequencing lies at the root of why blind individuals have a sharper memory than individuals with the sense of sight. These findings recall what we know about the art of memory with regard to the placement of constructed images both in the background and foreground. However, in this study, constructed images by the imagination are replaced by the sequence of names or objects that facilitate the retention of information in the mind.

This article makes me think alot about Quintilian's association of memory with arrangement in terms of how a text's strong organization was key to it being successfully memorized versus the challenge of memorizing a disorganized text. Also, it makes me think about Aristotle's discussion of how images from memory are only able to be derived from sense perception. Therefore, if blind individuals are without this perception, they rely on sequencing to memorize, and a lot of this sequencing is, I think, based on sound, as in the case of how the study participants had to memorize a list of 20 words. This sequencing is important because its raising issues of of arrangment, but also important because it raises the issue of concentration, which Quintilian believed was crucually instrumental to enhaning memoria. No doubt that blind individuals have sharp concentration skills.

Muy interesante todo esto...verdad?

Hasta la proxima!

Thank You Lila & Chavela

At a stressful point in time, I always rely on the music of Lila Downs and Chavela Vargas to allow room for me to breathe and remain calm.

Thank you for your music, Lila and Chavela!

Check out Lila's interview about the music featured in the film "Frida" (which also features the amazing Brazilian composer Caetano Veloso).




Lila's interview was posted by OmarLA

Also, check out Lila's rendition of "Paloma Negra" (it's right up there with Lola Beltran's version). Que gran voz!




Lila posted by 2Hermano

And la Diosa, Chavela Vargas, singing "Que Te Vaya Bonito". Te amo, Chavela!

(posted by NPerry5000)

One More Day Before My Comp Exam!

One more day before my Comprehensive Exam! The pressure is on! I'm going to need lots of Tylenol and Mylanta! Yes indeed!



I've been studying Stuart Hall's "Race, Articulation, and Societies Structured in Dominance" and wanted to feature the page with Hall's academic background. In this particular article, Hall builds on the work of Gramsci and Althusser. Hall remains a seminal theorist in Critical Race Theory. Check out one of Hall's discussion about globalization at London University.


Also, currently studying Steven Fenton's "Ethnicity and the Modern World: Historical Trajectories," which makes the claim for the construction of ethnicities and how they are "sociologically grounded". This excerpt was salient with respect to the sociological and the role of memory:

"...people really do participate in collective memories, do share a language through which sentiment and shades of meaning are expressed and music and love are made, and learn within families the custom and practice of a wider community" (59).

Check out the links to these important thinkers.....

Wish me suerte!

Hasta la proxima!

Quote of the Day

“Women historically linked to Africa have been speaking in public arenas, writing, and thinking critically about writing and themselves as writers for many, many centuries. A challenge for rhetorical history, then, is to imagine the possibility, even the likelihood, of a comparable trajectory for the participation of women of African descent in rhetorical history, theory, and performance as well. When we establish a less Western point of view, based on the idea that humans have the capacity to use language resources well wherever they happen to reside, how far-fetched can such a possibility really be?”

Jacqueline Jones Royster, “Disciplinary Landscaping , or Contemporary Challenges in the History of Rhetoric” (2003)

James E. Porter on "Intertextuality"

A couple of days ago, I finished reading James Porter's "Intertextuality and the Discourse Community," which was first published by the Rhetoric Review (Vol. 5.1, Fall 1986) and republished in Composition in Four Keys: Inquiries into the Field. (Eds. Mark Wiley, Barbara Gleason, and Louise Wetherbee Phelps. Mountain View, CA: Mayfield, 1995). The article's main claim about the nature of intertextuality, which is a term and concept coined by Kristeva (during the late 1960s) and its pedagogical implications, have me thinking a lot about the nature and function of autobiographical writing. The relationship between intertextuality and memory is something that I want to explore further. It's also making me think about the way in which the film Memento is presented to an audience. It's also making me think about fragmentation. Lots of thinking right now.

Here is Porter's online bio and CV which includes other publications that will help illuminate the nature of his thought in order to prevent us from judging Porter based on this one article which, alone, is enough to strike a nerve among those that continue to insist on a romantic view of writers, as well as upsetting traditional historians. His grounds for the claim about the writing of the Declaration of Independence no doubt should raise lots of eyebrows! Check it out for yourselves!

Also, check out Dr. Porter's excellent online webpage for his "Rhetoric Theory and History" course. Amazing!

Hasta la proxima

Quote of the Day

"Speech is a powerful lord, which by means of the finest and most invisible body effects of the divinest works: it can stop fear and banish grief and create joy and nurture pity."

Gorgias, "Encomium of Helen"

(photo courtesy of "The Athenaeum Reading Room"

Xicana Escritora Talks to KVIA-Channel 7

"Home is where your books are." Ana Castillo, 2007

KVIA-Channel 7--a channel I rarely watch (heck, I rarely watch TV)--has impressed by featuring an interview with escritora extraordinaire Ana Castillo, who just released a nueva novela titled "The Guardians."

Check out the interview and Ana's website.

For All Music Lovers...

For all music lovers out there, check out "Hospital Music," the newly released CD by writer, activist and musician Matthew Good, whose website merits being part of your Yahoo Favorites. Great songwriting and memorable melodies.



Who says us fellas who wear glasses are not talented?!

The Court of Composition Studies

“The court of composition studies consists of scholars who are both knowledgeable about the range of existing research and contributing to one or the other types of inquiry about written discourse. They evaluate the quality of research and substantive reasons that support new work, guided by the degree of relationship between the work and the field’s ideals and score of unresolved problems. They also take into consideration man’s accumulated experience in all cultures and historical periods.”

Janice Lauer, from "Composition Studies: Dappled Discipline"

The Heretical Socrates in Plato's "Phaedrus"

I want to share some memorable quotes by Plato's Socrates in Phaedrus, which should make us continue asking if Plato was our friend or foe:

"If you have a natural ability for rhetoric, you will become a famous rhetorician, provide you supplement your ability with knowledge and practice. To the extent that you lack any one of them, to that extent you will be less than perfect."

"...those who now write Arts of Rhetoric...are cunning people; they hide the fact that they know very well everything about the soul. Well, then, until they being to speak and write in this way, we mustn't allow ourselves to be convinced that they write on the basis of the art."

"...one who intends to be an able rhetorician has no need to know the truth about the things that are just or good or yet about the people who are such either by nature or upbringing. No one in a lawcourt, you see, cares at all about the truth of such matters. They only care about what is convincing. This is called 'the likely,' and that is what a man who intends to speak according to art should concentrate on....Whatever you say, you should pursue what is likely and leave the truth aside: the whole art consists in cleaving to that throughout your speech."

Socrates, Phaedrus

(Photo Courtesy of Pinacotheca Philosophica)

What's Left "Old School" Writing?

I created a LiveJournal account recently in hopes of using it to study for comps; however, I’ve rarely used it since I’ve been taking notes and writing by hand—the “old school” way. LiveJournal doesn’t really appeal to me anymore because journals seem to be more about intimacy and remains a tool which serves to give an individual the right to enjoy and secure their privacy.

So what benefits have I received by writing long hand? Lots of hand cramps! There is a lot of pain but also endurance. As I write numerous notes, ideas and fragments for evidence from readings, I’m struggling with my poor left hand, who hasn’t given up on me yet. Yes, I’m a Southpaw. All throughout my years as a student in public schooling, I struggled with desks designed for right handed students. Talk about being isolated!

Even though I choose to struggle with my left hand, I always have a sense of accomplishment writing by hand. I feel free with my ideas and a blank page. I can scratch, draw and erase. I can do and undo. I can see all of my notes and drafts as a journey toward that last draft. Because of this sense of freedom, I now write in my journal by hand. I draw and paint. I’ve even used a black marker to scratch out portions that I want out forever. I censure myself. I revise myself. All of this writing is coming from my instrumental hand which cannot function the same way in typing. Writing using a laptop is nothing like playing the piano. It’s not artistic like writing by hand. Yet, writing by hand is more troublesome. It’s more disruptive. It’s an act of hard work…stemming from the physical not technological.

So, at this point, I have written all of my papers by hand. I am writing for comps by hand. I write in my diary by hand. I guess you could call me “a Southpaw on overdrive.” Writing cannot surface by punching those stubborn keys on the board, it has to come through those fingers in unison working to shape that letter, word, image giving me some voice that I sometimes worry is dangerously formulaic. The audience is too close when I am in front of a laptop or computer screen. I can evict the audience when I am in front of that blank page. I can just ask as many questions and complicate things as much as I want while my hand dances across the page. When did I come to this realization? Hmmm…let me think…I guess when I started writing in a journal shortly after entering college.

Please don’t think that I want to romanticize or idealize writing in a journal. Journals often stress me out with those dictating lines across each page. Those lines want to direct me too much. I want them erased so I can write in slant or draw backwards. In other words, they cut into my creativity. But not creativity in terms of creative writing, creativity in terms of drafting an essay or term paper. This has nothing to do with psychology; it has to do with ritual.

There may be no lines on LiveJournal but the final product, after being posted, shows up in neat and linear lines for an audience. My writing is put into a linear box with lines that don’t understand the messiness of all my thoughts. Same goes for eblogger (thanks for the rigid margins, y’all!)

So with more thoughts, come more blank pages. With more blank pages, my left paw keeps going…energized….with hand soreness and all.

Hasta la proxima.

Quote of the Day

"Words exist because of meaning. Once you've gotten the meaning, you can forget the words. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can talk with him?"

-- Chuang-tzu

A Critical Lens on Michael Moore's "Sicko"

I went to see Michael Moore’s latest film “Sicko,” which I was rather hesitant to see. First let me say that when I watch a documentary, I’m always interested in the approach the filmmaker takes in presenting her/his argument. I’ve certainly been critical of Morgan Spurlock’s “Super Size Me,” which I’ve taught in composition courses, where students study and write using theories by Toulmin and Bitzer. With that said, I either have Burke’s Pentad or Bitzer’s Rhetorical Situation ready to serve as a critical lens when watching documentaries.

In his last two films, Moore has created a trend of presenting what I call “messy arguments” that have created a multitude of assumptions even before the grounds for his claim start to unfold. By the end of film, I've experienced a sense of being lost in an argument whose assumptions left me out in the cold. In this way, “Bowling for Columbine” and “Farenheit 911” left me disoriented. With this previous reaction, I was ready to be critical of Moore a third time.

Without revealing too much about the film, I must say that while watching, I kept thinking of Toulmin’s theory about “casuistry” and his discussion of the locked binary between absolutism and relativism. I kept asking whether Moore was falling within the category of relativism or if insurance companies would use casuistry as a means by which to ground their claim to deny health care to particular individuals. I also kept thinking about the displacement of logical appeals in favor of so much pathos driven evidence.

Students often think that I am out of my mind for distancing myself from the pathos. But I figure that if Moore presented a strong logical appeal, he would displace much of that self-invented ethos of being humorous instead of being critical. Or can you be critical while being parodic? This is the same question that I initially presented after watching Spurlock’s film.

Audience members were certainly not laughing during "Sicko." The exception was a Latino couple, two elder folks, who applauded after the film. Yet, the rest of the audience members didn’t move as the credits rolled. Was it shock? Disappointment? Disapproval? It was then that I was more interested in observing reactions by fellow audience members in the theater than entertaining the questions I had for Moore.

Moore has certainly presented an exigence, but I wonder how much of that logical appeal is forsaken in favor of evidence so driven to pull emotional strings? Maybe this is a question for the classroom.

As far as Toulmin’s theory of casuistry, I’m left wondering how that theory has become obsolete in Moore’s presentation of his (weak/strong?) argument. Where was the counterargument? In France? Among the British?

Enough questions! Go see the film for yourselves…but don’t forget that critical lens!

Hasta la proxima!

Composition Studies and Postcolonial Studies in Dialogue

With postcolonial theory in mind, I have to make the following recommendation: Crossing Borderlands: Composition and Postcolonial Studies (Lunsford and Ouzgane, eds, 2004), a collection that aims to put composition studies and postcolonial studies into conversation about issues such as writing, pedagogy, race, transnationalism, and literacy. I actually wrote a review of it but cannot find it! Argh! I'm still searching for the document though. As soon as I find it, I'll post.

In the meantime, check out contributions by Gary A. Olson, Susan C. Jarratt, Jaime Armin Mejia, C. Jan Swearingen and Lunsford's republished interview with "la jefa" Gloria E. Anzaldua.

Rhetoric and Postcolonial Theory: Reading Dr. Raka Shome

One of the final readings in my summer course on contemporary rhetorical theory was Raka Shome's "Postcolonial Interventions in the Rhetorical Canon: An 'Other' View" which argues that rhetorical studies can undergo a paradigm shift as a discipline only until it considers a postcolonial framework. The essay was first published in Communication Theory (1), 40-59, and later published in Contemporary Rhetorical Theory: A Reader (1998), Guilford Press.

I conducted an online research on Dr. Shome and found the following bibliography, plus a brief biography . Shome has joined Bhabha, Said and Spivak as a seminal postcolonial theorist.

Shome is a critical scholar in my work on examining the intersection of postmodern theory and postcolonial theory.

Check out Shome's other published works:

Shome, R. (2006). "Transnational Feminism and Communication Studies" Communication Review.

Shome, R (2006). "Rethinking the diaspora: Call centers, India, and new technologies of hybridity." International Journal of Cultural Studies, 9(1), 105-124

Shome, R (2006) "Interdisciplinary research and globalization." Communication Review, 9, 1-36.

Shome, R. (2006). "Challenges of international women of color in higher education in the US: The complicated "rights" of belonging in globalization". In Omar Swartz (Eds.) Communication and Social Justice, Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbraum Inc.

Shome, R (2003). "Space matters: The power and practice of space". Communication Theory, 13(1), 39-56.

Shome, R. & Hegde, R. (2002). "Culture, communication, and the challenge of globalization". Critical Studies in Media Communication, 17(2), 172-189.

Shome, R. & Hegde, R (2002). "Postcolonial Approaches to Communication: Charting the terrain, engaging the intersections". Communication Theory, 12(3), 249-270.

Hegde R & Shome, R. (2002). "Postcolonial scholarship: Of productions and directions. An interview with Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak". Communication Theory, 12(3), 271-286.

Shome, R. (2001). "White femininity and the discourse of the nation. Re/membering Princess Diana". Feminist Media Studies, 1(3), 323-342.

Shome, R. (2000). "Outing whiteness". Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 17(3), 366-371.

Shome, R. (2000). "Media and colonialism: Race, rape, and "Englishness" in The Jewel in the Crown". International and Intercultural Communication Annual, 23, 135-157.

Shome, R (1999). "Whiteness and the politics of location: Postcolonial reflections". in T. K. Nakayama & J. Martin (Eds.) (pp. 107-128) Whiteness and the Communication of Social Identity Oakland, CA: Sage Publications.

Shome, R (1999). "A response to Bill Starsota’s 'On the intersection of rhetoric and intercultural communication'". Intercultural and International Communication Annual, 22, 157-162.

Shome, R (1998). “Caught in the term ‘postcolonial: Why the “postcolonial” still matters". Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 15(2), 203-212.

Shome, R (1996). "Race and popular cinema: The rhetorical strategies of whiteness in 'City of Joy'". Communication Quarterly, 44(4), 502-518.

Shome, R (1996). "Postcolonial interventions in the rhetorical canon: An 'other' view". Communication Theory (1), 40-59. [Reprinted in C. Condit & J. Lucaites (Eds.) Contemporary Rhetorical Theory: A Reader (1998), NY, Guilford Press].

Co-Guest Editorship (with Hegde, R. & Grossberg, L.) Special Journal Issue "Postcolonial Approaches to communication." Communication Theory, August 2002.

Food and Memory

"All my life I have been trying to write my family's story. It hasn't been easy, not because I can't remember, but because I can't forget."

Denise Chavez, from Taco Testimony: Meditations on Family, Food and Culture

I'll Miss You, Anita

Anita, a fierce writer and fellow doctoral student, is leaving El Paso with her family tomorrow to venture into a new chapter in their lives. Thanks for all your warmth, kindness and hospitality! Much love, luck and hugs! Hope to see you all again!

Anita, you've inspired me so much! I'll miss you tremendously sistah!

Your Lovin' "X" 4 Life

Writing as Collaborative

“I believe that all writing is collaborative. No matter what you’re doing, even if you’re sitting by yourself at your computer you’re collaborating with somebody, something you’ve read, or some voices you’ve got in your head, or your friends, or something, there’s some kind of collaboration going on.”

Andrea Lunsford, in "How I Write" Interview

I wanted to share the following link to Andrea Lunsford's course titled "Gender and the History of Rhetoric" at Stanford. You can download the syllabus and check out some very interesting reading assignments. For example, students are asked to read combinations such as Frederick Douglass' "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and My Bondage and My Freedom" with Nietzsche's "On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense”.

Interesting, verdad? My most radical move was writing a short paper comparing Nietzsche's "On Truth" and Sarah Grimke's "Letters on the Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of Woman". That was beyond radical!

In Memory of Robert Connors

I've been perusing Wikipedia lately and read entries for noted rhet/comp scholars such as Patricia Bizzell, Victor Vitanza, and James A. Berlin (the Berlin entry needs lots of work). However, I couldn't find one on Robert Connors who, of course, remains a seminal scholar in the field. In addition to his work, I've been drawn to the ways in which Connors has been remembered by his fellow peers after his passing. These tributes would make an excellent starting point for creating a Wikipedia entry, right?

Now, it would be great if I had a co-writer/co-contributor during the fall semester so we could put together an entry for Connors. Any volunteers?

In the meantime, check out Ede and Lunsford's collection of Connors' essays.

Hasta la proxima!

Language and the Radical Space of the Margin

In the contemporary rhetorical theory course I'm currently taking, we are studying the work of bell hooks, whose essay "Choosing the Margin as a Space of Radical Openness" features the following passage that illuminates Burke's idea of language as symbolic action.

"Language is also a place of struggle. We are wedded in language, have our being in words. Language is also a place of struggle. Dare I speak to oppressed and oppressor in the same voice? Dare I speak to you in a language that will move beyond the boundaries of domination--a language that will not bind you, fence you in, or hold you? Language is also a place of struggle. The oppressed struggle in language to recover ourselves, to reconcile, to reunite, to renew. Our words are not without meaning, they are an action, a resistance. Language is also a place of struggle."

bell hooks, from "Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics" (1990)

Quote of the Day

Last week, I stumbled upon the following quote, which was posted outside a history professor's door. I think it is noteworthy because of its unique use of the word "must".

Check it out:

"Students of history must never forget that human memory is inevitably imprecise, and it is not uncommon for the past to be retrieved in ways that serve present purposes."

James Carroll (2002)

Quote of the Day

"Intellectuals are now biding their time because there is no more real dialogue, nor any real discussion. Each person is doing his or her own thing, attached to his or her research or to a group."

~ Jean Baudrillard (1929-2007)

Remembering Frida Kahlo (1907-54)

On Friday, a museum in Mexico City will feature a collection of photographs, letters and personal items belonging to Mexicana painter & icon Frida Kahlo, which is part of a 100th anniversary celebration of Kahlo's birth. These items, along with those belonging to her husband Diego Rivera, Mexicano muralist, will be on public display after 50 years of being kept private.

No doubt that Frida will always be remembered.

For those of you intersted in Frida's writings, check out:



"Escrituras de Frida Kahlo" Raquel Tibol, ed.

A Tribute to Nina Simone (1933-2003)

A YouTube suscriber by the name of "julieoliverio" created this beautiful and loving tribute to the great Nina Simone, whose cover of "Here Comes the Sun" is 10x better than the original. I love listening to the song when I'm feeling down.



"Here Comes the Sun" is featured in "The Essential Nina Simone, Vol. 2"

Derrida's Fear in/of Writing

Check out a clip from the 2002 film about Derrida, who talks about the act that keeps most of us alive.

(Who knew the degree of anxiety, fear and caution that possesses Derrida when writing?)

Memory and Horror (Worth Watching?)

This clip of "Memory"--starring Billy Zane (yeah, that guy from "Titanic")--makes the movie look frightening at the beginning but then descends into looking like a "TV Movie of the Week".

But I guess I'll watch it when I'm really, really bored. He he.

Anyways, check it out.

Viewer Discretion is Advised. Entendido?

"Memorias del Silencio" Proyecto

I commend the following project for their outstanding and brilliant effort for our local communidad. Check it out.

"Memorias del Silencio: Footprints of the Borderland"

"The project Memorias del Silencio is the result of a collaboration between El Paso Community College, Community Education Program and BorderSenses. The objective of the project has been to offer creative writing workshops to GED courses for migrant farm workers and their families, with the idea of improving their writing and written skills. The writings that have emerged from these workshops, have been published in two volumes of the book Memorias del Silencio: Footprints of the Borderland. Besides generating new opportunities and a space for the voices of this sector of society, the project Memorias del Silencio wants to show the condition of immigrants who arrive to the United States to work in the fields."

Gloria E. Anzaldua on Writing Teoria

"What is considered theory in the dominant academic community is not necessarily what counts as theory for women-of-color. Theory produces effects that change people and the way they perceive the world. Thus we need teorías that will enable us to interpret what happens in the world, that will explain how and why we relate to certain people in specific ways, that will reflect what goes on between inner, outer and peripheral 'I's within a person and between the personal 'I's and the collective 'we' of our ethnic communities. Necesitamos teorías that will rewrite history using race, class, gender and ethnicity as categories of analysis, theories that cross borders, that blur boundaries-new kinds of theories with new theorizing methods. We need theories that will points out ways to maneuver between our particular experiences and the necessity of forming our own categories and theoretical models for the patterns we uncover. We need theories that examine the implications of situations and look at what's behind them. And we need to find practical application for those theories. We need to de-academize theory and to connect the community to the academy. 'High' theory does not translate well when one's intention is to communicate to masses of people made up of different audiences. We need to give up the notion that there is a 'correct' way to write theory."

Gloria E. Anzaldua, from Making Face, Making Soul: Haciendo Caras

Memory, Copia and Literacy: Remembering Malcolm X

As I've stated in a previous post, I've always been interested in how certain rhetors remember how they came to literacy. The following is an excerpt from Malcolm X's autobiografia, which is the basis of a web page I'm currently working on that combines rhetoric, memory and tecnologia. Also, this excerpt is part of a project on "Copia" which, of course, will feature Erasmus. Enjoy.

I saw that the best thing I could do was get hold of a dictionary—to study, to learn some words. I was lucky enough to reason also that I should try to improve my penmanship. It was sad. I couldn’t event write in a straight line. It was both ideas together that moved me to request a dictionary along with some tablets and pencils from the Norfolk Prison Colony school.

I spent two days just riffling uncertainly through the dictionary’s pages. I’d never realized so many words existed! I didn’t know which words I needed to learn. Finally, just to start some kind of action, I began copying.

In my slow, painstaking, ragged handwriting, I copied into my tablet everything printed on that first page, down to the punctuation marks.

I believe it took me a day. Then, aloud, I read back, to myself, everything I’d written on the tablet. Over and over, aloud, to myself, I read my own handwriting.

I woke up the next morning, thinking about those words—immensely proud to realize that not only had I written so much at one time, but I’d written words that I never knew were in the world. Moreover, with a little effort, I also could remember what many of these words meant. I reviewed the words whose meanings I didn’t remember. Funny thing, from the dictionary first page right now, that “aardvark” springs to my mind. The dictionary had a picture of it, a long-tailed, long-eared, burrowing African mammal, which lives off termites caught by sticking out its tongue as an anteater does for ants.

I was so fascinated that I went on—I copied that dictionary’s next page. And the same experience came when I studied that. With every succeeding page, I also learned of people and places and events from history. Actually the dictionary is like a miniature encyclopedia. Finally the dictionary’s A section had filled a whole tablet—and I went on to the B’s. That was the way I started copying what eventually became the entire dictionary. It went a lot faster after so much practice helped me to pick up handwriting speed. Between what I wrote in my tablet, and writing letters, during the rest of my time in prison I would guess I wrote a million words.

from The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley. New York: Ballentine, 1964.

R.I.P.-- Nazik al-Malaika, exiled Iraqi poet

Nazik al-Malaika, an exiled Iraqi poet, died in Cairo on June 27. Read the article by The New York Times and some of her poems in translation.

Que en paz descanse.

Chaim Perelman and Memoria

I’ve always been interested in how theorists use memory as a rhetorical tool from which to generate thought in their works.

The following is an example from Chaim Perelman’s “The New Rhetoric: A Theory of Practical Reasoning”:

“The last two years of secondary education in Belgium used to be called traditionally ‘Poetry’ and ‘Rhetoric.’ I still remember that, over forty years ago, I had to study the ‘Elements of Rhetoric’ for a final high-school examination, and I learned more or less by the contents of a small manual, the first part of which concerned the syllogism and the second the figures of style. Later, in the university, I took a course of logic which covered, among other things, the analysis of the syllogism. I then learned that logic is a formal discipline that studies the structure of hypothetico-deductive reasoning. Since then I have often wondered what a link a professor of rhetoric could possibly discover between the syllogism and the figures of style with their exotic names that are so difficult to remember”( 57).

Perelman uses memory as means to generate a discussion about our favorite topic: the good ‘ol tension between rhetoric and philosophy. Actually, this is the first paragraph from the excerpt of “The New Rhetoric,” which remains seminal in its aim to redefine rhetoric as a theory of argumentation that aims to center the role and function of audience.

I keep wondering why Perelman believes that the “exotic names” of the figures of style are “so difficult to remember” considering that their strangeness would make them even more memorable, right? I’m also intrigued by how this remembrance is linked to other excerpts by other theorists who recall their formal education and the methods by which they learned something, whether it be writing, language, logic, poetry or rhetoric.

What exactly about our formal education stays with us through the act of remembrance? How do we articulate this educational training and how is it relative to our training in theory and our work in theorizing?

Hmm….I like these questions. More later…

Hasta la proxima.

Currently listening to...

Coldplay, "XY" ("Talk" is the best song in the world! Eat your heart out U2!)

En Memoria -- Joel E. Siegel, Film Critic

R.I.P. -- (1943-2007)