Justifications and Realizations: Invention-in-the-Middle and Space

Our schema came about through conversation; in fact, the schema is literally a “map” of our conversation and the connections we drew throughout the conversation. I took notes during our conversation, marking down the ideas, authors and connections we discussed. Then, I transplanted the rough map into a series of boxes and lines in a Word document. Next, I sent the schema to Megan and Kyle so they could make any changes they saw fit. What follows in this critical post is (1) an explanation of conversation, (2) a justification for the decisions I made when visually representing our conversation, and (3) a discussion of how this Exploratory helped me understand Hawhee’s invention-in-the-middle and Vasaly’s use of space.

The Conversation

When Kyle, Megan and I met, we had no idea how we wanted to represent the course’s content. We all agreed that the most important part of this schema (at least for us) was avoiding an origin. This was important to us for several reasons. First, Megan is concerned about the fact that Aristotle is often considered the origin for most Rhetoric courses, if not for rhetoric more generally. Second, Megan and I both experienced annoyance at the fact that we spent almost not time in class discussing the dates and historical chronology of the readings. We acknowledged, though, that working without historical chronology allowed us to arrange the authors, their concepts and the connections between them in ways that were not historical. In other words, working outside of historical chronology allowed us to view rhetoric in different ways. Third, very quickly after we started discussing how to complete the schema, Kyle asked how we would design the course if we were teaching it; we then all struggled with the idea that we had to start somewhere, which would necessarily affect how the students understood the course and understood rhetoric. The starting point would also affect the kinds of connections that could be made. As Megan said, the ideal would be to drop the knowledge of all of the readings into one’s mind simultaneously. This would allow connections to be made more kairotically as opposed to being made between the authors read before a particular point in time and the authors read after a that point in time. Much of our conversation, then, centered around Hawhee’s invention-in-the-middle (with an emphasis on kairos), Mucklebauer’s problem of reading (that previous readings will affect later ones), and Haraway’s situated knowledges and Burke’s terministic screens (as we can only work from the readings we have been given). As we approached new concepts, we made more connections and were able to draw on different course readings.

The Schema

Each box in the schema represents one idea brought up during our conversation. Originally, I wanted to design the schema without boxes; I felt that boxes created separation between ideas, as opposed to the connections we wanted to emphasize. The boxes created boundary lines rather than fluidity between ideas and authors. However, without boxes, it was much more difficult to see where lines were connecting and more difficult to read each idea. In the end, I decided that clarity was more important than a lack of boundary lines.

The only overarching chronology represented in our schema is the chronology of our conversation. The chronology can be more or less understood if one looks at boxes in the schema as a circle. I decided the conversation should be represented in a circle for two reasons: First, the continuous line of a circle enabled the viewer to understand the development of our conversation. I wanted the viewer to be able to follow our conversation because we had chosen to allow the schema to develop organically from our conversation; thereby, showing the chronology of our conversation seemed important. Second, a circle has no beginning or ending point, which goes back to our concern about not showing an origin. I did struggle with where to put the box that represents where our conversation started, namely the box that reads, “Biesecker: There is no ordinary point.” I chose to put this toward the top left because that is my readers would likely to start reading. Again, if they started at the beginning of the conversation, they would be able to follow the conversation’s development. At the same time, I wanted complicate the notion of origin point, so I moved the first box down and put another in the very top left. While this other box was still toward the beginning of our conversation, it was not the very beginning of it; therefore, most readers would likely enter the schema at a point that did not represent the start of our ideas.

Finally, I had to decide what to do with the lines. At first, I had thought about moving the boxes around so the lines could all be straight. Once I reflected on our schema, though, I choose to let the boxes stay where they were and draw lines around them. This decision represents the fact that we might read and/or discuss concepts and authors in a particular order, but our connections between things might not be clean, obvious or direct.

Hawhee

This Exploratory helped me understand Hawhee’s invention-in-the-middle. Last week, I asked if invention-in-the-middle was a both/and (both a process of discovery and a process of creation) or a point that was both of them but also not both of them. Dr. Graban answered in way that suggested that invention-in-the-middle was both of the two definitions I gave, which confused me even more. I left class feeling as if I still did not know the answer. This schema, though, was truly invention-in-the-middle in that we created and discovered connections and neither created nor discovered connections. At many points, we created connections as one idea seemed to generate others. At other times, we discovered connections as we looked through the syllabus and decided where certain authors could connect with others we had already discussed.

Meanwhile, I view the idea of creating a schema from our conversation as neither discovery nor creation. It wasn’t until I had already written down a few ideas and lines that I realized I was starting to map the conversation. Both discovery and creative invention feel originary to me; one makes the decision or finds an idea and proceeds in that direction. I don’t feel like the idea of our schema was discovery or creation because we did not realize the development of the schema until after it had already started.

Vasaly

This Exploratory also helped me think more about Vasaly and how rhetors use space and ambience as part of their arguments. Because schemes are visual, they inevitably occupy space (on a page) in particular ways and, as Dr. Graban emphasized in class, point to particular ideas while ignoring and closing off others. Vasaly makes the same points about the space of speeches. In her first example, she explains how Manlius was not convicted when his listeners were able to see the Capitol (and were, thereby, reminded of his valiant deeds), but was found guilty when the trial was later held in a location that hid the Capitol (section 16). The location of the second trial called forth associations specific to that spot but closed off the associations of Manlius saving Jupiter. Vasaly is suggesting, then, that when physical spaces can call forth particular associations, they also close off others, just like our schemas. Furthermore, the specific placement of the boxes in our schema affects how one understands each individual box (as the previous boxes affect the reading of the next box) and how one understands the schema as a whole. This suggests that the objects and organization of a space (in addition to the space itself) can have an affect on one’s argument and audience. When I had first read Vasaly, I had applied her arguments to only the outside of buildings and monuments. This Exploratory helped me extend Vasaly’s ideas beyond the outside of spaces to the inside of the spaces, which also allowed me to consider more spaces than only buildings and monuments.

Two Random Musings

As I have been writing this post, I have been realizing an assumption under which we worked while designing this schema. Namely, we assumed that origins should be avoided. We saw that once we have an origin, a path develops and one cannot (we assumed) remove the knowledge of this path to experience a different path anew. We were treating this idea as objectively bad. Granted, most of this aversion probably sprang from the assignment. We were trying to see anew a series of readings we had already experienced in particular ways.

I wonder to what extend an origin depicts a path. Because previous readings affect later ones, the origin obviously closes other entry points and the connections that may develop from those other entry points. Is this closing off the reason we are so concerned about origin?