The following is a key quote from Angela Mitchell's prospectus titled "Tracing Rhetorical Visions: Technologies of Memory and Delivery", which makes ingenious use of Sharon Crowley's scholarship on memory:
As Sharon Crowley notes in "Modern Rhetoric and Memory": "rhetorical investigation centers on ethics and politics" (43). Hence it is impossible to examine the place of the canons of memory and delivery in the rhetorical tradition without considering the ethical and political questions connected to that study, for as analyses of the status of the canons of memory and delivery from the 5th century illuminate, the variable positions of the canons reveal the intellectual, ethical and political foundations of any given society. For example, the diminution of memory and delivery since the 18th century reveals a complex matrix of forces that have worked to weaken the communal and ethical dimensions of language use. Kathleen Welch argues in "The Contemporary Reception of Classical Rhetoric: Appropriations of Ancient Discourse," that by diminishing rhetoric's range to 3 canons in the 20th century, what has been created "is not an adaptation, but a wholly new structure that denies the central issues of language and power" (99). The return of memory and delivery to forefront of the rhetorical paideia means a return to a more fully rhetorical consciousness, and in short it marks the return of rhetoric as a potent force in our educational system. If, then, a "classical" rhetorical mindset is one which embraces the precepts underlying the canons of memory and delivery (namely the way in which knowledge is produced in any given situation), the resurgence of memory and delivery in the late 20th and early 21st centuries also seems to be a return to earlier notions of education, experience, ownership and community. For example, Sharon Crowley notes that "rhetorical consciousness is fully consonant with memory arts, which were designed to facilitate copious accretion of knowledge . . . a rhetorical attitude towards composition emphasizes copiousness, abundance, plenitude and aggregation" (43). Electronic multimedia technologies such as hypertext and www also emphasize a "copious accretion of knowledge'' and provide writing spaces, to use Jay David Bolter's words, where memory and delivery can flourish. These new writing spaces (which are continuations of Plato's wax tablet and Freud's mystic writing pad) function to create places, whether stored in a computer's memory or delivered on a screen, where writers and readers come together to create knowledge. Significantly, then, the valuation of the canons of memory and delivery are linked to the valuation of rhetoric in any given society. As Mary Carruthers notes in The Book of Memory, the value of memory and delivery depends more on the role which rhetoric has in a culture than whether its texts are presented in oral or written forms (11).
The advent of electronic technologies are not only bringing memory and delivery back to the center of the rhetorical paideia, they are also reconfiguring the ethical implications of the rhetorical situation in the 21st century. Since delivery has always been intimately connected with ethos, the new media are not only bringing ethical concerns back to rhetorical study, but also changing the nature and scope of those concerns. As Sam Dragga notes, the "revival of delivery has given writers new rhetorical power. And with this new power to design information comes new obligations, specifically ethical obligations" (80). Consequently, new technologies not only reconfigure the techniques of rhetorical engagement, but also the reconfigure the ethical implications of that engagement. Indeed, in Marshall McLuhan's words', the medium is the message, with memory and delivery functioning as significant parts of any format, whether oral, written, photographed, or filmed, created in a culture which values a rhetorical mindset, a mindset that is notably one which stresses collaboration and community.
from:
http://virtual.park.uga.edu/~amitchel/ethics1.htm
Check out Dr. Mitchell's CV: http://www.english.uga.edu/~amitchel/index.htm
