Ecology, writing theory, and new media: writing ecology

229 Pages·2012·1.806 MB·English

by  Dobrin, Sidney I

ROUTLEDGE STUDIES IN RHETORIC AND COMMUNICATION
Ecology, Writing Theory, and
New Media
Writing Ecology
Edited by
Sidney I. Dobrin
Ecology, Writing Theory, and New Media
Routledge Studies in Rhetoric and Communication
1 Rhetorics, Literacies, and
Narratives of Sustainability
Edited by Peter Goggin
2 Queer Temporalities in Gay
Male Representation
Tragedy, Normativity, and Futurity
Dustin Bradley Goltz
3 The Rhetoric of Intellectual
Property
Copyright Law and the Regulation
of Digital Culture
Jessica Reyman
4 Media Representations of
Gender and Torture Post-9/11
Marita Gronnvoll
5 Rhetoric, Remembrance, and
Visual Form
Sighting Memory
Edited by Anne Teresa Demo and
Bradford Vivian
6 Reading, Writing, and the
Rhetorics of Whitenes
Ian Marshall and Wendy Ryden
7 Radical Pedagogies of Socrates
and Freire
Ancient Rhetoric/Radical Praxis
S.G. Brown
8 Ecology, Writing Theory, and
New Media
Writing Ecology
Edited by Sidney I. Dobrin
Ecology, Writing Theory,
and New Media
Writing Ecology
Edited by Sidney I. Dobrin
NEW YORK LONDON
First published 2012
by Routledge
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Simultaneously published in the UK
by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group,
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© 2012 Taylor & Francis
The right of Sidney I. Dobrin to be identified as the author of the
editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been
asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ecology, writing theory, and new media : writing ecology / edited by
Sidney I. Dobrin.
p. cm. — (Routledge Studies in Rhetoric and Communication; 8)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. English language—Rhetoric—Study and teaching. 2. Natural
history—Authorship—Study and teaching. 3. Environmental literature—
Authorship—Study and teaching. 4. Ecology—Authorship—Study
and teaching. 5. Ecology—Authorship—Study and teaching.
6. Interdisciplinary approach in education. 7. Mass media and
language. I. Dobrin, Sidney I., 1967–
PE1404.E28 2011
808.06'6—dc23
2011031246
ISBN13: 978-0-415-89704-4 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-203-13469-6 (ebk)
This one is for
Teresa, Asher, and Shaia.
Always.

Contents
Introduction: Ecology and a Future of Writing Studies 1
SIDNEY I. DOBRIN
1 In Terms of Writing As Such 24
RAÚL SÁNCHEZ
2 Rhetorics of (Non)Symbolic Cultivation 34
NATHANIEL A. RIVERS
3 Writing Ecologies, Rhetorical Epidemics 51
KRISTEN SEAS
4 Agential Matters: Tumbleweed, Women-Pens, Citizens-Hope,
and Rhetorical Actancy 67
LAURIE GRIES
5 Discipline and Publish: Reading and Writing the Scholarly
Network 92
COLLIN GIFFORD BROOKE
6 Digital Ecologies 106
SEAN MOREY
7 Post-Media Occupations for Writing Theory: From Augmentation
to Autopoiesis 122
JOHN TINNELL
8 Quale Morphics: Strategic Wisdom 143
GREGORY L. ULMER
9 Curating Ecologies, Circulating Musics: From the Public Sphere
to Sphere Publics 160
BYRON HAWK
10 The Ecology of the Question: Reading Austin’s Public Housing
Debates, 1937–1938 180
JENNY RICE
viii Contents
11 Ecology, Ecologies, and Institutions: Eco and Composition 195
DONNIE JOHNSON SACKEY AND DÀNIELLE NICOLE DEVOSS
Contributors 213
Index 217
Introduction
Ecology and a Future of
Writing Studies
Sidney I. Dobrin
Ecology must stop being associated with the image of a small nature-
loving minority or with qualifi ed specialists.
—Félix Guattari, The Three Ecologies
The Age of Ecology has arrived.
—Bernard C. Patten, “Why ‘Complex’ Ecology?”
The March/April 2011 issue of Orion Magazine includes an essay by Uni-
versity of Montana Master’s student in environmental studies Alex Johnson
entitled, “How to Queer Ecology: One Goose at a Time, A Lesson Plan,” a
title that evokes memory of Richard Dawkins’s famous 2005 talk, “Queerer
Than We Can Suppose: The Strangeness of Science.” In his deeply personal
and critical essay, Johnson works to mess up the traditional Nature/Human
split. His argument is direct: how can we characterize homosexuality as
“unnatural” when homosexuality occurs in so many species other than
humans? Or as he puts it, “The world itself, it turns out, is so queer” (47,
emphasis in original). There are a number of things I like about Johnson’s
essay, primarily his agenda to mess things up, to disrupt the kinds of tra-
ditional narratives and methodologies that we have become so invested in
and trusting of, like the very idea of “nature.” In this effort, Johnson relates
that in 1899 Henry Chandler Cowles, a doctoral student at the University of
Chicago, published a treatise on the plant life of the Indiana Dunes in which
he identifi es that natural features are not static but dynamic and fl uctuat-
ing. In the introduction to the work, Cowles writes, “Ecology, therefore,
is a study in dynamics” (qtd. in Johnson, 48). From this idea of dynam-
ics and ecologic fl uctuation, Johnson proclaims, “Queer ecology, then, is
the study of dynamics across all phenomena, all behavior, all possibility. It
is the relation between past, present, and future” (48). Queer ecology, he
explains, “is a liberatory ecology” (49). Queer ecology acknowledges the
relation between all things. Such recognitions though, as Johnson explains,
require categorization of things and “categories offer us a way of organizing
our world. They are tools. They are power” (49). Johnson’s ecologic desire
is to “Acknowledge the power. Acknowledge the lie” (49).