Argument In Black and White

Classes this week are occupied with legal arguments - both those used in law and those employed in everyday discourse. I'm trying (with hestitating progress) to get my students to see how commonly legal arguments are used to make broader cultural arguments and how I, myself use legal arguments to debunk those broad cultural arguments. So today we talked about the trials of Kobe Bryant, Mike Tyson, and O.J. Simpson, and the murders of Jon Bennet Ramsey, Natalee Holloway, and Chandra Levy. Anybody see a difference between the first group and the second? But of course, those dumb enough to spend hours watching CNN or Fox News are those most likely to get exploited by advertisements and who are most likely to want to hear their favorite bedtime stories repeated over and over. Stories like that of the innocent, pretty, white girl and of the menacing, big, black man. I encourage (and even seek out) conservative reactions to my "wild" theories. Today, all I got was "we'll that's a generalization." I guess that means there must be a kernal of truth to it.

The Color Brown

This is a response to the most recent posting at Blogos. It appears from a list posted on this blog that rhetorical scholars study (among many things), “the color brown.” In order to catch up, I propose the following reports, articles, essays, papers & etc.:

1) The Color Brown as the New Power Suit: A Study in Visual Rhetoric and the Influence of Fashion on Political Debate.

2) Brown-out or Black-out? How Color is Rhetorically Deployed to Describe Electrical Conditions

3) Brown v. Board: Implications for the Rhetoric of Race in America

4) Brownfields: Environmental Discourse in the Rhetorics of Science and Pollution

5) Brownies: Feminist Rhetoric, Citizenship, and Food, 1914-1941

I've got dibs on Brown v. Board. Given that the Supreme Court drew four related cases together in the famous ruling Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Shawnee County, Kansas (the other cases were: Briggs v. Elliot, Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, Virginia, and Gebhart v. Belton), I wonder why "Brown" was chosen over the others. Briggs v. Elliot, for example, sounds more formal and is more accurate in its succinctness than Brown v. Board. And Gebhart v. Belton has a more poetic ring to it. One might argue that the Supreme Court elevated “Brown” because of the word's race implications. In fact, the decision is named after the Brown case because it had the lower docket number.

Dear Fill-in-the-blank:

As Grace at Snarky Girls has been kind enough to provide those of us at Polyvalence with a target, we return the favor. The following is my sample cover letter:

Addressee: Part of a bill wherein is given the appropriate and technical description of the court in which the bill is filed. Ex. I throw myself upon the mercy of the court of the hiring committee.

Template: Something that serves as a master or pattern from which other similar things can be made. Ex. Enclosed, please find materials that I hope you will find lovely because I find myself in poverty.

Productive Ambiguity: Intentional vagueness. Ex. I am interested in the position you have announced. Simplificatio: The art of simplifying the complex, making an incomprehensible argument comprehensible, explaining the inexplicable. Ex. I hereby sum up my 300 page Ph.d. dissertation in a few sentences. Skotison: Intentional obscurity. Ex. I believe you will find I have the verbiage appropriate to the discursive obfuscation necessary to the privileged nature of a disciplinary field in which semiotic practices require epistemic rigor and thus prevent the subaltern from resisting the paradigmatic qualities of hegemonic capital.

Insecure: unconfident, unsure of yourself, anxious, self-doubting, shaky, unsettled, unfixed, unsustained, unconfirmed, unconvinced, experimental, irresolute, fallible, errable, undemonstrable, untrustworthy, unreliable, slippery, ticklish, precarious, unstable, hesitant, fidgety, tremulous, wavering, vacillating, wobbly, halfhearted, unsubstantial, chancy, speculative. Ex. I am a candidate for the position.

Pleading: To make, deliver, or file any pleading; to conduct the pleadings in a cause. To interpose any pleading in a civil action. More particularly, to deliver in a formal manner the defendant’s answer to the plaintiff’s declaration, complaint or to the indictment, as the case may be. Ex. I’m not that bad.

Closing: Bankruptcy, occlusion, stoppage, blockage, infarction, ebolism, infaret, dead end, caecum, obstruction, constipation. Ex. PLEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAASE!

Definer

Dear Grace

Thank you for your recent post at Snarky Girls. This hardly qualifies as an application for the position that we so thoroughly adverstised, however, I feel that it merits at least a brief response.

We appreciate your interest in the position of Assistant Professor of Stuff, however, we regret to inform you that you are not the candidate that we had in mind. For starters, we see that you have attended the University of Blah. We never accept candidates from that institution as we have found that they learn stuff that is antithetical to the stuff that we teach and research here at the University of BlahBlah. In other words, you have learned anti-stuff. Thus we fear that you would produce lots of stuff about anti-stuff and teach our students stuff about anti-stuff. We cannot have that as (we are told by our university’s scientists), this would result in a cosmic implosion.

Additionally, I see that your dissertation is about P,Q,R and S. As you know from our seven-line position announcement we are indeed looking for a candidate who works in these areas. However, you appear to have failed to read between the lines. I’m sure if you read the announcement again, you will find that we are looking for someone whose future research program will involve T,U,V and W and whose teaching will concentrate on K,L,M and N (of course we don’t do O here). Perhaps if you had been honest and told us what your real research interests were?

I also note that we are suspicious of your claim that you have received lots of “positive” reviews of your teaching of anti-stuff. As anti-stuff is inherently negative, this must mean that your “positive” evaluations mark you as a bad teacher. After all, teaching anti-stuff should produce negative results and thus negative feedback. We at the University of BlahBlah only want professors who get the right results.

Lastly, you have failed to address the issue of departmental service. No doubt you have been reading the headlines and have noted that our fine institution refuses to bend to the communistic forces of the so-called “working wage” movement. Our intrepid leadership has thus decided that we do not need people who work for minimum wage. Hence the lowest ranked professors in our department are now responsible for a variety of academic services including but not limited to sweeping, mopping, and taking out the garbage.

Thank you for your love, hugs and kisses, but these too I must reject. Additionally, I cannot meet with you as bringing stuff and anti-stuff together may produce, again, a cosmic explosion.

With anti-love, anti-hugs, and anti-kisses, I am yours,

Dr. Aplomb