-05: Composition.
We have come to the end of our journey. In my previous states of being, we explored the possibilities of hybridity in a variety of aspects, such as politics and sexuality, in which the initial, organic draft simply is not enough, nor is it completely on its own in this heavily industrialized era. While Donna Haraway’s “A Cyborg Manifesto” certainly is not the first (or the last, for that matter) to introduce the posthumanist ways of becoming and thinking, the particular ideology she expresses through the image of the cyborg leads us to this conclusion. Put another way, posthumanism encourages us to reconnect the disparate parts and components poststructuralist analyses and deconstruction have nuanced and nitpicked apart, and to consider how everything works in conjunction (seamlessly or even with some discord).
As humans, one of our broader cultural concerns involves the idea of legacy: how can we influence the world and the future in a significant way?
Legacy sometimes, then, takes the form of writing. The question now becomes: how can the cyborg “jam” our notion of composition as a process?
In a very recent article published in College English, Casey Boyle tackles the intersection of posthumanist concepts with the core tenets of composition. She begins her essay citing eight “habits of mind” that, according to the Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing, will foster not just ways of being, but ways of becoming. These habits are curiosity, engagement, openness, creativity, persistence, responsibility, flexibility, and metacognition (532). Generally, practitioners of composition and rhetoric see both of these as means for developing agency. Rhetoric - the art of persuasion - draws on elements and abilities in which the rhetorician must develop credibility with an audience - may that be through pathos (emotion), ethos (ethics), or logos (logic). Rhetoric, then, is about developing a being with agency that can participate “in free exchange of discourse” (536).
Disproportionately, metacognition receives the most attention above other habits listed by the Framework. Metacognition, broken down, means an active “awareness and understanding of one’s own thought processes” (OED). What metacognition tends to do is develop a sense of separation of the self from something else, may that be the reader, the writing artefact, or the writer’s previous self being retroactively pondered upon. Boyle cites Joseph Harris’s shift towards “cultural consciousness” from “critical reflection” as a starting point for posthumanist practice (536). She pauses, however, by stating,
Harris’s attempt to uncouple critical consciousness from critical practice relies on rethinking practice itself, but those efforts to re-entrench practice in a humanist orientation to rhetoric and writing. Put differently, just as critical consciousness seeks to practice one’s subject position so does critical reflection hone a knower-known relationship to a variety of objects. (536)
She concludes, finally, that “whatever that subject or object might be, rhetoric as a reflective practice retrenches itself as a practice for dividing subjects and objects” (537, emphasis in original). Posthuman practice, then, seeks to end the “othering” effect that is a by-product of rhetorical practice and consciousness. A posthuman rhetoric, as summarized by Boyle, “is an acknowledgement of a kind of betweenness among what was previously considered the human and the nonhuman. Such a betweenness, it is important to note, is irreducible to supplement or prosthesis that had be emphasized in early cyborg-inflected critical theory. For rhetoric, a posthumanist orientation helps lead to an ecological or an ‘ambient rhetoric’” (540, emphasis in original).
There are several important terms at work here, with “ecology” and “betweenness” being most prevalent here. What these terms, and more broadly posthuman practice, seek to stress is the connection of subjects with subjects, objects with other objects, and even subjects with objects. The writing artefact, or body, becomes a being through posthumanist ecology (or a set of circumstances and conditions surrounding the event of composition). All of these things - the body, the process, the circumstances and conditions - have both an individual identity but cannot be totally known until the entire ecosystem is revealed. Similarly, when we become more familiar with another person - what they do, what their interests are ,what their upbringing was like and so forth - they become less of a stranger, or an Other; we develop a betweenness of affinity through similarity.
Composition, then, is the avatar of betweenness and affinity. It makes present what at once seems invisible, and it is cyborgean in the sense that it invokes many minds as well as many media to embody it physically and ideologically.
As humans, one of our broader cultural concerns involves the idea of legacy: how can we influence the world and the future in a significant way?
Legacy sometimes, then, takes the form of writing. The question now becomes: how can the cyborg “jam” our notion of composition as a process?
In a very recent article published in College English, Casey Boyle tackles the intersection of posthumanist concepts with the core tenets of composition. She begins her essay citing eight “habits of mind” that, according to the Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing, will foster not just ways of being, but ways of becoming. These habits are curiosity, engagement, openness, creativity, persistence, responsibility, flexibility, and metacognition (532). Generally, practitioners of composition and rhetoric see both of these as means for developing agency. Rhetoric - the art of persuasion - draws on elements and abilities in which the rhetorician must develop credibility with an audience - may that be through pathos (emotion), ethos (ethics), or logos (logic). Rhetoric, then, is about developing a being with agency that can participate “in free exchange of discourse” (536).
Disproportionately, metacognition receives the most attention above other habits listed by the Framework. Metacognition, broken down, means an active “awareness and understanding of one’s own thought processes” (OED). What metacognition tends to do is develop a sense of separation of the self from something else, may that be the reader, the writing artefact, or the writer’s previous self being retroactively pondered upon. Boyle cites Joseph Harris’s shift towards “cultural consciousness” from “critical reflection” as a starting point for posthumanist practice (536). She pauses, however, by stating,
Harris’s attempt to uncouple critical consciousness from critical practice relies on rethinking practice itself, but those efforts to re-entrench practice in a humanist orientation to rhetoric and writing. Put differently, just as critical consciousness seeks to practice one’s subject position so does critical reflection hone a knower-known relationship to a variety of objects. (536)
She concludes, finally, that “whatever that subject or object might be, rhetoric as a reflective practice retrenches itself as a practice for dividing subjects and objects” (537, emphasis in original). Posthuman practice, then, seeks to end the “othering” effect that is a by-product of rhetorical practice and consciousness. A posthuman rhetoric, as summarized by Boyle, “is an acknowledgement of a kind of betweenness among what was previously considered the human and the nonhuman. Such a betweenness, it is important to note, is irreducible to supplement or prosthesis that had be emphasized in early cyborg-inflected critical theory. For rhetoric, a posthumanist orientation helps lead to an ecological or an ‘ambient rhetoric’” (540, emphasis in original).
There are several important terms at work here, with “ecology” and “betweenness” being most prevalent here. What these terms, and more broadly posthuman practice, seek to stress is the connection of subjects with subjects, objects with other objects, and even subjects with objects. The writing artefact, or body, becomes a being through posthumanist ecology (or a set of circumstances and conditions surrounding the event of composition). All of these things - the body, the process, the circumstances and conditions - have both an individual identity but cannot be totally known until the entire ecosystem is revealed. Similarly, when we become more familiar with another person - what they do, what their interests are ,what their upbringing was like and so forth - they become less of a stranger, or an Other; we develop a betweenness of affinity through similarity.
Composition, then, is the avatar of betweenness and affinity. It makes present what at once seems invisible, and it is cyborgean in the sense that it invokes many minds as well as many media to embody it physically and ideologically.