In trying to start a conversation between Public Secrets and Miller, I began applying the traits of Public Secrets to a list in my notes titled "Miller's Properties of Rhetorical Conceptions of Genre".
1. Rhetorical genre does not lend itself well to taxonomy (or stable organization).
The project had me thinking a lot about taxonomy. Her binary categories (Inside/Outside, Bare Life/Human Life, The Public Secrets/Utopia) are obviousness at first but make sense in a prison context. I would assumed a sorting of Daniels' research, other researchers' comments, and prisoner comments. Those are categories for sorting data but that isn't the goal of this division. These categories almost carry emotional triggers. This division is designed not only to sort data but to also contribute to the Daniels' overall message via awareness of these dichotomies. They paint a negative picture of the prison system before they are even explored.
2. Rhetorical genre refers to a conventional category of discourse that acquires meaning from situation and social contexts.
I would love to see someone argue this as not situated in social contexts. This project was completed in 2008 which I would put in the category of recent considering the information is still extremely relevant. This project gains power from where it's situated in social contexts. The Prison Industrial Complex is a current issue that needs to be addressed and, in fact, is one area of concern for the in current political debate.
3. Rhetorical genre is interpretable by means of rules that occur at a high level of symbolic action
This takes me back to my initial observation of perceiving the Public Secret menu binaries as unobvious. Maybe the symbolic action being referred to here is like the emotional triggers I was attempting to explain earlier.
4. Rhetorical genre is NOT the same as form (it serves as the substance of forms).
I'm still wrapping my head around this statement. I can't tell if the aspects of Public Secrets that I've been discussing pertain to this or not. I guess I've been mentioning the structure of the division of information. Is that form? But, I decided it had extra qualities. Could those qualities be seen as substance of form? I attribute substance as less abstract than form and the qualities I pointed out as more abstract than form and that's where I get stuck.
5. Rhetorical genre offers keys to understanding how to participate in given communities.
I could say the different perspectives offered throughout the project, the specific division of information, and the supplement of audio with transcript would allow someone to better communicate in a radical 'community'. Is that the genre or just the discourse leading me to believe that?
Is this a 'situated action' as Prof. Graban asked?I don't know the structural rules that apply to talking about genres, and that's really preventing me from articulating my thought on the relationship I've outlined. I don't know what I've just written about knowing.
1 comment:
You know, I had a pretty difficult time trying to compare this to Miller, but I think you did a fantastic job of outlining the case and Miller. One point one, I agree that the binaries paint a negative picture before they are explored, and I think that this painting happens very literally on this case. The thing I noticed most is the use of binary color as well as binary words--black and white; black with inside the prison (etc) and white with outside. When I first saw this, I expected all the stories under the white to be happier, but they weren't. The binary colors threw me off, but only upon looking did I see that the white was just as dismal as the black. I think this is a way of displaying (literally) number 2 in order to better shed light on the situation.
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