rsa panel
Here’s the preamble bit for the much-vaunted RSA panel with myself, Jared, Jessica, and Kim. Some of you I’ve sent e-mails to asking for feedback; I obviously don’t expect you to duplicate comments here, but if you know someone who you think might be a good reference to turn to for feedback, please let me or any of the above folks know.
“E!thos, e-Thos, and (eco)thos: New (Media) Varieties of Ethical Argument”
This panel investigates the intersection of the classical rhetorical trope of ethos with contemporary instances of celebrity and mediation. In so doing, the panelists contend that celebrity can be understood as circulating through vastly differing discourses in distinct ways, though always placing demands of responsibility upon those seeking to conflate celebrity with ethical appeals.
In the landmark 1978 essay “Varieties of Ethical Argument,” Jim Corder, in surveying tropes within the theoretical development surrounding the ethical appeal, contends that ethical argument is “contingent upon a presence emerging in discourse, the real voice of a personality” (107). This observation is troubled, though, by the fragmentation of discourses in post-structuralist epistemologies; of particular note, of course, is Derrida’s critique of presence and logocentrism in Of Grammatology. This complication is only exacerbated, though, by questions that arise when scholars begin interrogating the media(ted) presences that fall under the broad category of celebrity; as defined by Chris Rojek, celebrity in its crudest form can be understood as an “impact on public consciousness” (10). This panel attempts to reconcile competing forms of presence and ethos within distinct discursive spheres, in each case asking what responsibilities the “public consciousness” of each discourse puts on those speaking within its discursive codes.
Within the broadest understanding of Rojek’s “public consciousness,” these papers seek to outline the way the rhetorics and discursive practices of varying discourses construct and wield the demands of ethical persuasion, from the conventional understanding of celebrity in mass-mediated popular culture, to the emerging rhetorics of ecological celebrity activism. The first paper considers how a given blogger can achieve celebrity status within the community represented by the interconnected blogs that constitute the subject’s blogroll. Of particular interest to this paper is the responsibility of the blogger to her blogroll, and the demands of participation suggested by an explicitly discursive community. The second paper seeks to understand the value of celebrity to popular environmental movements and associated eco-pedagogies; this paper attempts to negotiate an apparent disparity between celebrity and pedagogical sensibilities within the circuit of environmentalist rhetorics. The third paper raises questions about the efficacy of ethical appeals within the discourses of mass-mediated popular celebrity; here, the realization that ethos is constructed meta-discursively by a convergence of fans, media apparatuses, and celebrities themselves drives an attempt to refigure ethos within the demands of a mass-mediated rhetoric. In the final panel, Jessica does something brilliant that shows us all up.
Here is where the individual panel abstracts go. Since I don’t have permission to do so, I won’t reproduce them here. (Kim’s is available at her blog here.) Mine follows below.
“’Contrived Image and Staged Virtue’: Celebrity, Discursive Presence, and the Mediation of Ethos”
While few accept popular celebrity images as wholly authentic, the use of celebrity as an extension of the classical rhetorical appeal to ethos is made possible only by a willed ignorance of the divide between the celebrity image and the private, non-public celebrity subject. According to Chris Rojek, this split between public and private selves is a constant of celebrity status. While Aristotelian rhetoric situates ethos as an effect of textual discursivity created by a single speaker or author, the demands of celebrity ethos are negotiated in a complex transaction between the celebrity subject, the media-consuming public, and the media apparatuses responsible for constructing, developing, and disseminating the image of the celebrity upon which the assumed ethos is dependent. This paper takes its cue from the field of star studies in attempting to suggest ways to understand the intersection of celebrity and ethos through the intertextual construction of the celebrity image. Of particular interest in this paper is the consequences to celebrity ethos of cognitive dissonances that result from conflicts between the perceived public image of the celebrity subject and the revealed private self. By locating this inquiry within the discourses of mass media and popular culture, this paper hopes to add to the theorization of ethos and, especially, the perennial question of whether ethos is an essentialized attribute of the speaking subject or a mere fillip of rhetorical style.
With the stipulations cited above, any feedback is always welcome.
whither ethos?
One imaginary project of mine is the “Blogging in Unusual Places” gig. Well, not objectively unusual places–mystery spots, haunted houses, or the like. Just places that are unusual for me to blog from.
This just as preamble to note that today I’m blogging from the second floor of the Purdy-Kresge library on WSU’s campus. I miss my MacBook.
The real reason for today’s post: trying to work through conceiving the celebrity-ethos project for the RSA submission. As I see it thus far, there are a few different ways to do this:
- To look at popular (online?) discourses surrounding politically active celebs as a venue for popular/non-academic argumentation about the nature of ethos. Obviously, folks like Sean Penn, the Dixie Chicks, Toby Keith et al. have used their celebrity visibility to share their views. Do they do so persuasively, or is celebrity rhetoric more epideictic? If so, do we still need to consider ethos’ role in epideictic rhetorics?
- On a similar note, I could turn from the star-discourse to the star himself or herself (though we can argue to what degree the two are separable). In this case, I could offer a case study of one particular star/celeb’s use of mediated ethos/media ethos etc. in furthering his or her chosen causes. To me, the most limited direction so far.
- Alternatively, I could look at the way ethos has itself developed in rhetorical theory and ask if the very nature of celebrity itself can be understood within its terms. From this stance, the inquiry is situated in asking about the power of ethos as a rhetorical appeal–and how that power is affected by being delivered (another canon! Yes!) through mass media rather than through personal delivery in the agora or marketplace (Hawhee’s influence from recent reading).
- As a converse of that idea, I could turn my focus to star studies and other, more filmic/media-driven understanding of the nature of the star. Here, the question might be (similar to #3 above) whether/how celebrity (as off-shoot of ethos?) is a viable persuasive appeal–or how–given the sort of obvious answer to that question–how can we begin to theorize why celebrity works persuasively?
- In all of this, of course, I’m alluding to questions of performativity and identification. At present, I wonder if trying to address those concerns in a 15-20 minute talk is feasible. . .but at article length they might be.
Much thanks for all who recommended texts in previous post. Again, as always, feedback is appreciated.
Y’know–not to get ahead of myself or anything–but stretch each of those ideas out to a 30-40 page chapter and I’ve got at least the vaguest outline for a possible direction for a dissertation. . . .
blog blog
So, I recently missed Foolscap’s first blogday, bad blogger that I am. A lifetime of therapy and counseling, I’m sure, awaits.
So, why do we mark blogdays anyway? Or blog birthdays, if you prefer, but my own preference is for “blogday”. We don’t mark the days we first learned to read (ReadDay?) or write (WriteDay?), perhaps because we tend to think of those events as more procedural and evolutionary: I know I couldn’t tell you what day I first knew how to read. (Although an aunt did get me a trophy for being the best reader in my kindergarten class for my birthday one year.) I point to these two “events” rather than one’s first word or first steps because they seem more integral to the way I use my blog–almost said the way blogs are used, but of course not all blogs are used the same way–in fact, we might even recall my own recent deliberations for how to use my blog.
I’ve not been writing here as much as I would like, esp. given the things I’ve been reading of late. I still owe the much promised responses to Rice, Derrida, Lakoff/Turner, and now I can add the Gorgias and the Sophist and Debra Hawhee’s book as well. In part, one reason I’ve avoided doing the page-by-page note posts is because I’m sort of more interested in thinking through these texts as applications, or maybe as rhetorical lessons, than simply as a collection of notes and bon mots. Of course, when I come to use these texts eventually, Ill need that citation mode, but I’m much more interested at present in seeing how I might link together Lakoff/Turner, Derrida, and Kant . . . or Rice and Derrida and Hawhee (which is sort of where my brain is at right now).
So, in other news, I’m coordinating a panel submission for RSA that will involve myself, Jessica Rivait, Kim Lacey, and Jared Grogan–no blogger he. When things are assembled, I’ll put up the preamble to the panel for general assessment–and on that note, anyone have any advice about good texts on celebrity, ethos, and media(tion). This isn’t the Lennon project again, (though it could work) but a new approach (for me at least) to questions of pop rhetoric.
My goal for the ucoming semester: One post a week if time allows; the 1020 course has a pretty rigorous online component so I want to be sure I keep on the ball with that.
Anyone know if I can set my MacBook’s delete key to work like the PC’s delete key with using the “Function” button?