Introduction + Navigation

Re-situating and re-mediating the canons: A cultural-historical remapping of rhetorical activity is a collaborative webtext. The mapping page presents an overall image of the webtext.

At its center is a co-authored Core Text. The Core Text presents the basic argument we are making for remapping the rhetorical canons. It is available in three formats: pdf, audio, and html. Each format involves slight variations, but the formatting changes are intended to maintain the integrity of the argument rather than to repurpose it. We would suggest beginning with some version of the Core Text.

Radiating from and arrayed around the Core Text are 11 data nodes that represent individual or joint analyses and enactments. The data nodes present images of rhetorical activity, a collage of the particular kind of work and issues that have led each of us to seek an expanded notion of the canons in our research, teaching, and writing lives. These data nodes do not follow a common design. We did not divide up either the classical or cultural-historical canons and each take one to work on. With roots in dialogic approaches to discourse, we see the value in heterogeneity and in holistic analysis.

The mapping page is the main navigation page of the webtext. It leads to the Core Text and the Data Nodes. A second system is available through the Authors link to the data nodes, which provides an index of the 11 individual webtexts. Each image and title on that page links to the entry page for a particular data node. The entry pages include a brief introduction to the node and its relationship to the argument of the core text; an abstract, biographical information about the author(s); and technical requirements for the node. (For general technical requirements, see below.) The Authors page for the data nodes also includes a link for a pdf of all abstracts and bios. Whether you go through the mapping page or the Authors page, the gateway to each of the eleven is its entry page.

Technical Requirements:  Heavy use of diverse media, including Flash 8 and QuickTime files, in most of the data nodes makes high bandwidth a necessity for full access to those nodes. Some users have experienced a range of difficulties accessing media when using Internet Explorer and Opera. The following browsers have consistently been able to access all content in the data nodes: Mozilla Firefox (1.5 and above), Netscape 8.1.2, and Safari (2.0 and above).

Acknowledgments and credits

Below is an abstract for the whole webtext. We hope you find this webtext interesting. Individually and collectively, we welcome your feedback.

Abstract

Re-situating and re-mediating the canons: A cultural-historical remapping of rhetorical activity.

Paul Prior, Janine Solberg, Patrick Berry, Hannah Bellwoar, Bill Chewning, Karen J. Lunsford, Liz Rohan, Kevin Roozen, Mary P. Sheridan-Rabideau, Jody Shipka, Derek Van Ittersum, and Joyce Walker.

Re-situating and re-mediating the canons is a collaborative webtext, composed of a co-authored core text and eleven individual or jointly written data nodes. The core text argues that the classical canons have always represented only a partial map of rhetorical activity, that reinterpretations of those canons continue to be shaped by problematic assumptions of ancient rhetorics, and that a remapping of rhetorical activity grounded in cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) better addresses the diversely mediated practices of rhetoric. The analyses and enactments in the data nodes then illustrate the promise of expanded rhetorical canons to tackle the complexity of human rhetorical practice.

Keywords: rhetoric, rhetorical canons, memory, cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT), literacy research, digital literacies, remediation, identity, writing research, multimodality.