Ramage Response

Hi Chris,

Thanks--I think--for sending along the note and the blog. I really did enjoyit--even those posts titled things like "This book still blows." Gotta like the humor if nothing else. Reading through the various entries was sort of like reading your obituary over and over. (A metaphor - but succinct+). It's weird reading people talking about your book--or their experience of reading your book--as if it were you. The different things that interest and annoy them. Not at all like reading reviewers who largely depersonalize the process by translating their moments of annoyance and engagement into the language of disciplinary praise and blame. I guess that's the double-edged sword of blogs if you happen to be the subject of same: you get it straight from the heart and to the point--but from a dozen different angles. Which makes it tough to synthesie and even harder to compose a coherent response.

The temptation is to respond by congratulating everyone who "got it right,"recognized your points and/or agreed with your arguments and then to go to work setting your critics straight. But whenever I've watched people try to do that sort of thing on listservs, it hasn't turned out well. And as a Washington Post editor recently discovered when she atttempted to make a fairly innocuous clarification on the paper's blog, things can go terribly wrong. Not that I would foresee a catastrophe of similar proportions unfolding on your blog site. I was impressed by the civility and the clarity of thought you all demonstrate--even those whose civility and lucidity was spent critiquing my book. I was in fact initially emboldened by the spirit of the site to attempt a full on reply. After spending a couple hours yesterday composing a response I got up this morning, took one look at what I'd written and said to myself, "This ain't gonna fly." It jsut didn't fit the rhetorical situation of the blog--it was too long, too defensive, too preachy. I was coming in from the outside and interrupting an ongoing conversation that was doing fine without me. In answering one set of questions and concerns, my response seemed likely to exacerbate other concerns. And in cases where the writer's feelings about the book figured prominently in the entry, I'd be in the position of telling people how they really ought to feel. That's the sort of rhetorical move best left tothe Ricky Gervais/Steve Carrell charachter from"The Office," setting the crew at Dunder Mifflin straight about how they ought to be taking him.

That said, I'll briefly touch on one item from my lengthy response that seems fairly straightforward. At least one person wondered about the function of chapter two. That's a topic my reviewers and I spent a lot of time on. The relationship between rhetoric and identity is seldom discussed explicitly in intro to rhetoric books and never in writing textbooks--it doesn't get a lot of play in rhetorical theory discussions for that matter. The origins of the chapter go back to my time teaching the TA seminar for first year teachers. The book we were using for the course they taught was a cultural studies reader.While most students found the topics intersting, the book offered little guidance about how to actually "do" culutral studies and many of the TAs were floundering. So I spent a lot of time adapting rhetorical criticism for use with material in the course. I was struck at the time how often the subjects of cultural analysis--fashion, advertising, celebrity culture, and so forth--ultimately came back to the effects of consumption on identity construction. We came to see rhetorical criticismas a useful tool for helping writers consciuosly situate themselves in relation to their culture. At the same time I was teaching that course, I was finishing a book on what I call "success rhetoric," specifially popular management books (Twentieth CenturyAmerican Success Rhetoric: How to Construct a Suitable Self, SIU 2005). The early part of that book traces the development of consumer culture out of the "professional managerial class" that emerged at the turn of the century. The categories of identity inchapter two, particularly the discussion of ready made identity, grew out of the confluence of my teaching and research at the time.

I'll leave it at that. Please share my response with others in the class and let folks know I'm happy to respond to any questions they might want to ask directlyv ia e-mail. I'll continue to follow your blogging, but for the reasons noted above, I'll not barge into the middle of your lively and fascinating conversation. Again, thanks for your interest in my views.

cheers,
j