Rhetoric Notes

A brief paper and presentation from a rhetoric course from spring 2008 has developed into a provocative collaborative project between Grant Gussman ’09, Daniel King ’10, and Professor David Timmerman.  Seeing potential in the text, the provocative adult swim cartoon The Boondocks (based on the comic strip of the same name), and the initial work of the students, David Timmerman offered to mentor Grant and Daniel in a four week internship last summer. During the course of their research, which was supported by the Undergraduate Research Celebration Committee (which is funded by the Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts), the scholars spent many hours watching every episode from the first two seasons of the program and analyzing themes, characters, and visual elements from the show. They sought to find entry points into the way in which the show uses humor and race to address important societal issues and were guided by a difficult question: does The Boondocks provide a new space for dialogue about race?

While the four week summer internship was productive, it was not enough to complete a project of this scope and complexity.  And after the four weeks they each initially went their own way—Grant visiting Spain at the generosity of the Rudolph Fund, Daniel engaging in an off campus psychology internship before spending his fall semester abroad, and David Timmerman engaging two other students in collaborative research projects that were supported by Know Indiana.  Despite these seeming obstacles—and without the incentive of additional grades or additional internship monies—the project has continued to develop this semester.  The students continued working on the project while David Timmerman worked with them to assemble the ideas into a form fitting for publication in a rhetoric journal.  Grant and Daniel presented a revised version of their project at the Student Research Celebration in January and on March 2 the three of them combined to present the next iteration, an essay that is now approaching 12,000 words, to a room full of Wabash students and professors in the context of a Humanities Colloquium. On the one hand this is a non-traditional project: a collaborative humanities project, a rhetorical analysis authored by a Wabash professor and two students, outside of class. On the other hand, the project represents the best of Wabash and the most valuable aspects of our tradition: direct student-faculty engagement over a complex text; three engaged researchers collaboratively considering the social implications of contemporary depictions of race and humor.  What could be more influential on students’ educational experiences than that?

The presentation itself was a great success.  After an introduction by Timmerman, each participant presented a segment of analysis that showed how The Boondocks makes meaning.  Gussman discussed how the visual characteristics in the show, including the use of anime, lead an audience to either accept or reject characters. For instance, the scholars argue that the visual elements used to portray the character Huey encourage the acceptance of his views while visual elements used to portray the character Uncle Ruckus lead the audience to reject what he represents.  In a similar fashion, King illustrated how music is also used to signal the desire for comedic acceptance or rejection.  Uncle Ruckus is rejected through the application of a harsh trombone that undermines the most objectionable of his verbal messages while the philosophical reflections from Huey that are designed to explain the meaning of the message are positively accentuated with an elegant, graceful jazz piano.  Finally, in the last section, which is still in development, Timmerman examined the meaning of the dialogue delivered by Ruckus, reflecting on the use of satire and the grotesque as a transitional device that leads the audience between the possibilities of acceptance and rejection. Following the presentation the authors welcomed enthusiastic questions and discussion. Audience members at once corroborated and challenged the reading while suggesting additional avenues of development for the authors to consider as they finalize their essay for submission to a journal. 

Posted by Todd McDorman at 04:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By Bryan habad Burzon

How do you start a summer vacation after surviving your freshman year? You start it by completing an eight-week-long summer internship. As if my freshman year wasn’t enough to fulfill my never-ending desire to be busy, I very happily signed up with the Rhetoric, English, and Music Departments as an intern to update websites and assist as needed. Throughout the summer, my day consisted of being at work at 8:30 in the morning, either in the library or the Fine Arts office, and working till 10:00 am. Then I would take a break and get the mail and return to the exciting world of website updating until noon which is when my lunch time starts. I would return at 1:00 in the afternoon and update the website or send out correspondence until it was time to leave, around 5:30 in the afternoon.

            As structured as it may sound, working with the Rhetoric Department was far more interesting than I would have ever imagined. I spent time working on albums to put on the website. I got to see a glimpse of the past and the previous Rhetoric majors through the pictures I edited and posted. In addition to posting and editing pictures, I got to help Professor McDorman with a study that he was conducting. Some of his research required a lot of background material from the Sports Illustrated website, so I printed all of the photos that were posted on their website within a specific time frame. It took a little while, but it was pretty fun looking at the albums. I mean, you can’t really complain when many of the pictures that you printed were pictures of cheerleaders cheering at some kind of sport venue. Although, as soon as I get home, I know I’ll be planting baby trees;  if you do the math of 100 albums times an average of 15 pictures in each album, not even compensating for the ones that had more than 15 pictures, you get 1500 pages of pictures. Talk about killing trees! I knew it was for a good cause so I don’t feel bad, but just in case though, I will plant some trees in my back yard to compensate for the few albums that had more than 15 pictures.

            Working with Rhetoric was an experience that not only taught me how the world of website updating is both frustrating and lonesome at times, but it showed me that the professors here at Wabash College who might seem intimidating at first sight are “actual people.” Ever since I came here, I’ve been intimidated by the professors, but this internship really showed me that they are normal people, too, and that is a lesson to be learned. As they say, “don’t judge a book by its cover.”

Posted by Todd McDorman at 10:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tomorrow, Friday January 25, marks Wabash’s 8^th annual Celebration of Student Research, Scholarship, and Creative Work.  There will be a record 86 presentations of student work at the Celebration, covering every academic area of study at the college.  Included among those oral and poster presentations will be five presentations of research developed in Rhetoric courses. 

At 1:30 in Detchon Hall 209, junior Rhetoric major Grant Gussman will present “What's Wrong with History? An Ideological Analysis of Miracle.”  Grant’s project, developed in Professor Todd McDorman’s Rhetoric of Sport course, raises questions of ideology and collective memory in an examination of rhetorical strategies employed in the 2004 Disney film, which chronicles the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey team’s Gold Medal performance (“The Miracle on Ice”). Grant contends that in the film history was re-envisioned in order to advance an ideology of American superiority and to make the film more appealing to contemporary audiences.

At 2:40 in Detchon 220, senior Rhetoric major Jared Conaway will present his Senior Project, “The Ideology of Roger Goodell: Ensuring Great Football Players are Great Men.”  Jared’s project examines the rhetoric of National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell in reference to player conduct issues. Jared contends that in reaction to a well publicized rash of incidents involving player misconduct, Goodell has adopted a “law and order” ideology that stresses personal responsibility and citizenship, using this ideology as part of a corrective action strategy to reassure football fans of the moral value of the NFL as a source of family entertainment.

Three Rhetoric-themed presentations will be presented in Detchon 211 from 2:40 to 3:40. At 2:40, senior History major Richard Roomes will present “Ballot or the Bullet,” a rhetorical analysis of the famous Malcolm X speech.  In the project, which Richard developed in Public Speaking with Professor Jennifer Abbott, a contemporary perspective on the continued meaning of the speech for society, race, and politics is offered.

Following Roomes, English major Shayne Dube will present “Hip Hop: A Survival of the Secrecy Tradition in African American Expressive Culture,” a project he developed last spring in the African American Rhetoric and Expressive Culture course taught by Professors David Timmerman and Tim Lake.  In the project Shayne examines coded methods of communicating via music developed by African Americans in Antebellum America and considers how Hip Hop represents the survival of this tradition.  Then, at 3:20, Mathematics major Marquise Triplett will present “African American Social Dancing,” a project also developed in the Timmerman and Lake immersion course last spring. Marquise examines the role of dance in displays of personality and identity and in terms of its significance in African American social history.

The Celebration of Student Research, Scholarship, and Creative work is scheduled from 1:00 to 4:20 in Detchon Hall.  All presentations are free and open to the public.

Posted by Todd McDorman at 10:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)