Lawrence J. Prelli

Pentadic cartography: Mapping the universe of discourse

Does contemporary discourse operate within an open universe that enables discussion of public issues from a broad variety of perspectives? Or, as many social commentators maintain, is the influence of technological rationality so pervasive that it subsumes all points of view to its own terms, thus closing the universe of discourse? In this paper, pentadic cartography is presented as a method for charting the ways terminologies open and close discourse. First, Herbert Marcuses notion of a closed “one‐dimensional” universe of discourse and his proposed Hegelian dialectical method for opening it are examined. Next, Kenneth Burkes interpretation of the closed universe of discourse and how the dramatistic pentad is used to chart it are described. Pentadic cartography, an application of the pentad for mapping verbal and visual symbolic terrain, is then developed and discussed. It is then used to map both a public discourse (a sixty second television commercial) and a critical discourse (Marcuses social criticism). The resulting maps—one a large‐scaled, in‐depth map and the other a small‐scaled, more global map—demonstrate the efficacy of pentadic cartography as an instrument for mapping symbolic terrain as well as a way to determine the degree to which terminologies function to open and close discourse. Finally, we outline three advantages of pentadic cartography over less pluralistic, more monistic critical approaches. The conclusion outlines the implications of our analysis and of pentadic cartography as a critical method, including its probable superiority to postmodernism as a way to open the contemporary universe of discourse.

Kenneth Burke on Recalcitrance

This essay discloses distinctive but overlapping realist, communicative, and critical dimensions of Burkes concept of recalcitrance. Previous scholarly uses of the concept have tended to yield only partial understandings of one or another of these three distinctive dimensions. Moreover, that previous work overlooked some of Burkes pivotal and revealing writings on the term when elaborating its meaning, including his designation of the terms application to factors that substantiate, incite, and correct statements. This essay offers the terms first comprehensive account that integrates overlooked writings and yields its full range of conceptual dimensions and applications as Burke had envisioned them.

Rhetorical perspective and the limits of critique

I argue that Gaonkars diagnosis is flawed due to limits in his method of critique that obscure options available in rhetorical theory and overlook possibilities for application of that theory to practical contexts. Discussed are the limits of method, dialectical fragmentation of rhetorical perspective, and topoi in practice. I posit that the topical perspective for thinking rhetorically about scientific discourse encourages a kind of analysis that includes among its practical implications the prospect of furthering a humanistic form of science literacy.

Kenneth Burke’s Agonistic Theory of Knowledge

Commentators have questioned whether Kenneth Burke’s dramatism is ontological or epistemological and have provided various answers, at the same time overlooking his actual dramatistic epistemology. This essay demonstrates that dramatism is simultaneously both ontological and epistemological. It also describes and discusses Burke’s own epistemology, his “agonistic” theory of knowledge, which is derived from ritual drama and predicated on suffering (“the suffered is the learned”). This essay also outlines the implications of our analysis for understanding Burkeian dialectic and for doing rhetorical criticism.

Getting Down in the Weeds to Get a God’s-Eye View: The Synoptic Topology of Early American Ecology

This chapter employs a case in early American ecology to propose a topological approach to technical graphics. Tracing the topos/position of the scientific observer through Roscoe Pound, Frederick E. Clements, and Henry Cowles’s formative work in botanical geography from reveals a series of shifts starting from situated, human observation and culminating in synoptic or “god’s-eye” observation. These shifts indexed crucial political dynamics in American environmental discourse—namely, the initiation of biopolitics in treating ecosystems as bodies to be governed; and, the privileging of expert observers over lay observers. The chapter concludes by noting particularities of visual shifts to synopticism that may assist rhetoricians who wish to intervene in emergent biopolitical discourses.

After the Genome: A Language for Our Biotechnological Future

commodify not only our pleasures but also our sufferings. Repressive Regimes thus ends as things begin to get messy in important ways. Both historically and conceptually, the analysis fades out as we are made to wonder about the political prospects of aesthetics in the midst of Empire. The analysis could benefit from a deeper examination of the relations between “advanced capitalism” and political subjectivity with an eye toward the rhetorical dynamics of “clinging.” Needed, in particular, is a fuller accounting of the nature of political antagonisms today. This is the great implicit question of Repressive Regimes: how the spark of resistance ignites and takes hold—where, when, with whom, for how long, through what forms of expression, and so on—in the increasingly frictionless spaces of global capital. Bruner briefly discusses Taco Bell in chapter six; what Taco Bell takes away in the form of worker exploitation, animal cruelty, and environmental degradation, Taco Bell gives back in the form of incomprehensively cheap and habit-inducing menu items. Nice and smooth. How, then, might we conceptualize aesthetics and resistance in the absence of discernible contradictions between the real and the fictional? This is not only the great unanswered question of Repressive Regimes, it is the political question of our time. If Bruner were offered a final statement on this issue, he might reply: