Rhetoric & Technical Communication
Rhetoric & Technical Communication
Aaron A. Toscano, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Dept. of English

Resources and Daily Activities

  • Charlotte Debate
  • Conference Presentations
    • Critical Theory/MRG 2023 Presentation
    • PCA/ACA Conference Presentation 2022
    • PCAS/ACAS 2024 Presentation
    • PCAS/ACAS Presentation 2021
    • SAMLA 2024 Presentation
    • SEACS 2021 Presentation
    • SEACS 2022 Presentation
    • SEACS 2023 Presentation
    • SEACS 2024 Presentation
    • SEACS 2025 Presentation
    • SEWSA 2021 Presentation
    • South Atlantic MLA Conference 2022
  • Dr. Toscano’s Homepage
  • ENGL 2116-014: Introduction to Technical Communication
    • April 10th: Analyzing Ethics
      • Ethical Dilemmas for Homework
      • Ethical Dilemmas to Ponder
      • Mapping Our Personal Ethics
    • April 12th: Writing Ethically
    • April 17th: Ethics Continued
    • April 19th: More on Ethics in Writing and Professional Contexts
    • April 24th: Mastering Oral Presentations
    • April 3rd: Research Fun
    • April 5th: More Research Fun
      • Epistemology and Other Fun Research Ideas
      • Research
    • February 13th: Introduction to User Design
    • February 15th: Instructions for Users
      • Making Résumés and Cover Letters More Effective
    • February 1st: Reflection on Workplace Messages
    • February 20th: The Rhetoric of Technology
    • February 22nd: Social Constructions of Technology
    • February 6th: Plain Language
    • January 11th: More Introduction to Class
    • January 18th: Audience & Purpose
    • January 23rd: Résumés and Cover Letters
      • Duty Format for Résumés
      • Peter Profit’s Cover Letter
    • January 25th: More on Résumés and Cover Letters
    • January 30th: Achieving a Readable Style
      • Euphemisms
      • Prose Practice for Next Class
      • Prose Revision Assignment
      • Revising Prose: Efficiency, Accuracy, and Good
      • Sentence Clarity
    • January 9th: Introduction to the Class
    • Major Assignments
    • March 13th: Introduction to Information Design
    • March 15th: More on Information Design
    • March 20th: Reporting Technical Information
    • March 27th: The Great I, Robot Analysis
    • May 1st: Final Portfolio Requirements
  • ENGL 4182/5182: Information Design & Digital Publishing
    • August 21st: Introduction to the Course
      • Rhetorical Principles of Information Design
    • August 28th: Introduction to Information Design
      • Prejudice and Rhetoric
      • Robin Williams’s Principles of Design
    • Classmates Webpages (Fall 2017)
    • December 4th: Presentations
    • Major Assignments for ENGL 4182/5182 (Fall 2017)
    • November 13th: More on Color
      • Designing with Color
      • Important Images
    • November 20th: Extra-Textual Elements
    • November 27th: Presentation/Portfolio Workshop
    • November 6th: In Living Color
    • October 16th: Type Fever
      • Typography
    • October 23rd: More on Type
    • October 2nd: MIDTERM FUN!!!
    • October 30th: Working with Graphics
      • Beerknurd Calendar 2018
    • September 11th: Talking about Design without Using “Thingy”
      • Theory, theory, practice
    • September 18th: The Whole Document
    • September 25th: Page Design
  • ENGL 4183/5183: Editing with Digital Technologies
    • August 23rd: Introduction to the Class
    • August 30th: Rhetoric, Words, and Composing
    • December 6th: Words and Word Classes
    • Major Assignments for ENGL 4183/5183 (Fall 2023)
    • November 15th: Cohesive Rhythm
    • November 1st: Stylistic Variations
    • November 29th: Voice and Other Nebulous Writing Terms
      • Rhetoric of Fear (prose example)
    • November 8th: Rhetorical Effects of Punctuation
    • October 11th: Choosing Adjectivals
    • October 18th: Choosing Nominals
    • October 4th: Form and Function
    • September 13th: Verb is the Word!
    • September 27th: Coordination and Subordination
      • Parallelism
    • September 6th: Sentence Patterns
  • ENGL 4275/WRDS 4011: “Rhetoric of Technology”
    • April 23rd: Presentation Discussion
    • April 2nd: Artificial Intelligence Discussion, machine (super)learning
    • April 4th: Writing and Reflecting Discussion
    • April 9th: Tom Wheeler’s The History of Our Future (Part I)
    • February 13th: Religion of Technology Part 3 of 3
    • February 15th: Is Love a Technology?
    • February 1st: Technology and Postmodernism
    • February 20th: Technology and Gender
    • February 22nd: Technology, Expediency, Racism
    • February 27th: Writing Workshop, etc.
    • February 6th: The Religion of Technology (Part 1 of 3)
    • February 8th: Religion of Technology (Part 2 of 3)
    • January 11th: Introduction to the Course
    • January 16th: Isaac Asimov’s “Cult of Ignorance”
    • January 18th: Technology and Meaning, a Humanist perspective
    • January 23rd: Technology and Democracy
    • January 25th: The Politics of Technology
    • January 30th: Discussion on Writing as Thinking
    • Major Assignments for Rhetoric of Technology
    • March 12th: Neuromancer (1984) Day 1 of 3
    • March 14th: Neuromancer (1984) Day 2 of 3
    • March 19th: Neuromancer (1984) Day 3 of 3
    • March 21st: Writing and Reflecting: Research and Synthesizing
    • March 26th: Artificial Intelligence and Risk
    • March 28th: Artificial Intelligence Book Reviews
  • ENGL 6166: Rhetorical Theory
    • April 11th: Knoblauch. Ch. 4 and Ch. 5
    • April 18th: Feminisms, Rhetorics, Herstories
    • April 25th:  Knoblauch. Ch. 6, 7, and “Afterword”
    • April 4th: Jacques Derrida’s Positions
    • February 15th: St. Augustine’s On Christian Doctrine [Rhetoric]
    • February 1st: Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 2 & 3
      • Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 2
      • Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 3
    • February 22nd: Knoblauch. Ch. 1 and 2
    • February 29th: Descartes, Rene, Discourse on Method
    • February 8th: Isocrates
    • January 11th: Introduction to Class
    • January 18th: Plato’s Phaedrus
    • January 25th: Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 1
    • March 14th: Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women
    • March 21st: Feminist Rhetoric(s)
    • March 28th: Knoblauch’s Ch. 3 and More Constitutive Rhetoric
    • Rhetorical Theory Assignments
  • ENGL/COMM/WRDS: The Rhetoric of Fear
    • April 11th: McCarthyism Part 1
    • April 18th: McCarthyism Part 2
    • April 25th: The Satanic Panic
    • April 4th: Suspense/Horror/Fear in Film
    • February 14th: Fascism and Other Valentine’s Day Atrocities
    • February 21st: Fascism Part 2
    • February 7th: Fallacies Part 3 and American Politics Part 2
    • January 10th: Introduction to the Class
    • January 17th: Scapegoats & Conspiracies
    • January 24th: The Rhetoric of Fear and Fallacies Part 1
    • January 31st: Fallacies Part 2 and American Politics Part 1
    • Major Assignments
    • March 28th: Nineteen Eighty-Four
    • March 7th: Fascism Part 3
    • May 2nd: The Satanic Panic Part II
      • Rhetoric of Fear and Job Losses
  • Intercultural Communication on the Amalfi Coast
    • Pedagogical Theory for Study Abroad
  • LBST 2213-110: Science, Technology, and Society
    • August 22nd: Science and Technology from a Humanistic Perspective
    • August 24th: Science and Technology, a Humanistic Approach
    • August 29th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 2
    • August 31st: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 3 and 4
    • December 5th: Video Games and Violence, a more nuanced view
    • November 14th: Boulle, Pierre. Planet of the Apes. (1964) Ch. 27-end
    • November 16th: Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. 1818. Preface-Ch. 8
    • November 21st: Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. 1818. Ch. 9-Ch. 16
    • November 28th: Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Ch. 17-Ch. 24
    • November 30th: Violence in Video Games
    • November 7th: Boulle, Pierre. Planet of the Apes Ch. 1-17
    • November 9th: Boulle, Pierre. Planet of the Apes, Ch. 18-26
    • October 12th: Lies Economics Tells
    • October 17th: Brief Histories of Medicine, Salerno, and Galen
    • October 19th: Politicizing Science and Medicine
    • October 24th: COVID-19 Facial Covering Rhetoric
    • October 26th: Wells, H. G. Time Machine. Ch. 1-5
    • October 31st: Wells, H. G. The Time Machine Ch. 6-The End
    • October 3rd: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 7 and Conclusion
    • September 12th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 7 and Conclusion
    • September 19th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Prefaces and Ch. 1
    • September 26th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 2
    • September 28th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 5 and 6
    • September 7th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 5 and 6
  • New Media: Gender, Culture, Technology
    • August 19: Introduction to the Course
    • August 21: More Introduction
    • August 26th: Consider Media-ted Arguments
    • August 28th: Media & American Culture
    • November 13th: Hank Green’s An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, Part 3
    • November 18th: Feminism’s Non-Monolithic Nature
    • November 20th: Compulsory Heterosexuality
    • November 25th: Presentation Discussion
    • November 4: Hank Green’s An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, Part 1
    • November 6: Hank Green’s An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, Part 2
    • October 16th: No Class Meeting
    • October 21: Misunderstanding the Internet, Part 1
    • October 23: Misunderstanding the Internet, Part 2
    • October 28: The Internet, Part 3
    • October 2nd: Hauntology
    • October 30th: Social Construction of Sexuality
    • October 7:  Myth in American Culture
    • September 11: Critical Theory
    • September 16th: Social Construction of Gender and Sexuality
    • September 18th: Postmodernism, Part 1
    • September 23rd: Postmodernism, Part 2
    • September 25th: Postmodernism, Part 3
    • September 30th: Capitalist Realism
    • September 4th: The Medium is the Message!
    • September 9: The Public Sphere
  • Science Fiction and American Culture
    • April 10th: Octavia Butler’s Dawn (Parts III and IV)
    • April 15th: The Dispossessed (Part I)
    • April 17th: The Dispossessed (Part II)
    • April 1st: Interstellar (2014)
    • April 22nd: In/Human Beauty
    • April 24: Witch Hunt Politics (Part I)
    • April 29th: Witch Hunt Politics (Part II)
    • April 3rd: Catch Up and Start Octavia Butler
    • April 8th: Octavia Butler’s Dawn (Parts I and II)
    • February 11: William Gibson, Part II
    • February 18: Use Your Illusion I
    • February 20: Use Your Illusion II
    • February 25th: Firefly and Black Mirror
    • February 4th: Writing Discussion: Ideas & Arguments
    • February 6th: William Gibson, Part I
    • January 14th: Introduction to to “Science Fiction and American Culture”
    • January 16th: More Introduction
    • January 21st: Robots and Zombies
    • January 23rd: Gender Studies and Science Fiction
    • January 28th: American Studies Introduction
    • January 30th: World’s Beyond
    • March 11th: All Systems Red
    • March 13th: Zone One (Part 1)
      • Zone One “Friday”
    • March 18th: Zone One, “Saturday”
    • March 20th: Zone One, “Sunday”
    • March 25th: Synthesizing Sources; Writing Gooder
      • Writing Discussion–Outlines
    • March 27th: Inception (2010)
  • Teaching Portfolio
  • Topics for Analysis
    • A Practical Editing Situation
    • American Culture, an Introduction
    • Cultural Studies and Science Fiction Films
    • Efficiency in Writing Reviews
    • Feminism, An Introduction
    • Fordism/Taylorism
    • Frankenstein Part I
    • Frankenstein Part II
    • Futurism Introduction
    • How to Lie with Statistics
    • How to Make an Argument with Sources
    • Isaac Asimov’s “A Cult of Ignorance”
    • Judith Butler, an Introduction to Gender/Sexuality Studies
    • Langdon Winner Summary: The Politics of Technology
    • Oral Presentations
    • Oratory and Argument Analysis
    • Our Public Sphere
    • Postmodernism Introduction
    • Protesting Confederate Place
    • Punctuation Refresher
    • QT, the Existential Robot
    • Religion of Technology Discussion
    • Rhetoric, an Introduction
      • Analyzing the Culture of Technical Writer Ads
      • Rhetoric of Technology
      • Visual Culture
      • Visual Perception
      • Visual Perception, Culture, and Rhetoric
      • Visual Rhetoric
      • Visuals for Technical Communication
      • World War I Propaganda
    • The Great I, Robot Discussion
      • I, Robot Short Essay Topics
    • The Rhetoric of Video Games: A Cultural Perspective
      • Civilization, an Analysis
    • The Sopranos
    • Why Science Fiction?
    • Zombies and Consumption Satire
  • Video Games & American Culture
    • April 14th: Phallocentrism
    • April 21st: Video Games and Neoliberalism
    • April 7th: Video Games and Conquest
    • Assignments for Video Games & American Culture
    • February 10th: Aesthetics and Culture
    • February 17th: Narrative and Catharsis
    • February 24th: Serious Games
    • February 3rd: More History of Video Games
    • January 13th: Introduction to the course
    • January 20th: Introduction to Video Game Studies
    • January 27th: Games & Culture
      • Marxism for Video Game Analysis
      • Postmodernism for Video Game Analysis
    • March 24th: Realism, Interpretation(s), and Meaning Making
    • March 31st: Feminist Perspectives and Politics
    • March 3rd: Risky Business?

Contact Me

Office: Fretwell 255F
Email: atoscano@uncc.edu
New Media: Gender, Culture, Technology » September 23rd: Postmodernism, Part 2

September 23rd: Postmodernism, Part 2

Overview

  • Fredric Jameson passed away on Sunday, 9/22, at 90 years old
  • Parody and Pastiche from last class (9/18)
  • Modernism and Postmodernism

Parody and Pastiche

I have a page Postmodernism, an Introduction where I have more definitions, but let’s focus on these:

  • Parody: “A literary composition modelled on and imitating another work, esp. a composition in which the characteristic style and themes of a particular author or genre are satirized by being applied to inappropriate or unlikely subjects, or are otherwise exaggerated for comic effect” (From the online OED, which you should have access to on campus).
    • “Parody, according to Jameson, has a critical edge: it challenges and subverts that which it mimics” (Malpas, p. 25)
  • Pastiche: “concerned only with the superficial appropriation of different modes and genres for the generation of its own performative style” (Malpas, p. 25).

The Simpsons and Family Guy

Although both of these shows are parodic and have pastiche elements, I’m arguing that The Simpsons is prevailingly parody while Family Guy is prevailingly pastiche.

  • The Godfather (1972) – Sonny beats up Carlo
    • The Simpsons (1989-present) – Getting Marge-inalized…
      “The Strong Arms of the Ma” (2003) [S14E09]
  • Classic Kool-Aid Man Commercial Compilation – Oh Yeah!
    • Family Guy (1999-present) – Family Guy kool Aid Man
      ”Pilot Pitch” or in ”Death Has A Shadow” [S1E01]
    • The Ottoman Empire
      “April in Quahog” (2010) [S08E16]
    • What’s this a parody of? Don’t worry, the pastiche element is there…
      “Stewie, Chris, & Brian’s Excellent Adventure” (2015) [S13E07]

Before you ask, South Park seems to be a unique parodic satire text, and, true to the creators’ vision, it’s difficult to identify in a particular category. The only other text I know of that does this is Fear of a Black Hat (1993). What unifies these texts is that most would identify them as “postmodern.”

Modernism and Postmodernism

These terms have long histories, and many scholars have weighed in on defining, re-redefining, and refusing to define their boundaries and exact meaning(s). I think it’s best to worry less about who says/claims what about either (or both) terms but to focus on understanding the theories as products of the 20th century. Sure, Malpas points to earlier periods–and I have a debate resolution on the Declaration of Independence (1776) as a postmodern text–but our class’s focus is better served by considering these as prevailing ideas of how intellectuals grappled with the 20th century. Therefore, I’ll somewhat arbitarily divide modernism (1900-1945) and postmodernism (1946-present). I can make a case for both modernism and postmodernism extending to the present, but that’s for a different class.

  • Modernism focuses on the conditions of modernity, roughly 1900-1945 (these are academic boundaries)
    • “Modernity” isn’t synonymous with “modern,” which is often referred to as history since the Rennaissance (circa 1500), including the Enlightenment, through today.
    • Might 1492 be a good year to propose as a beginning?
  • Futurism, the first European avant-garde
  • Fodism/Taylorism
    • Industrialization is in full swing
    • Colonial power grabs and conflicts
    • Militarization
    • Mass propaganda
    • Communism
    • Fascism
    • WW1
    • WW2

A note on “modern” vs “contemporary.” In everyday conversation, using “modern” to mean the current epoch is perfectly fine; however, when writing for academic audiences, especially in the arts & humanities, consider using “contemporary” to refer to current trends, ideas, and conditions. “Modern” evokes a variety of connotations depending on the reader’s disciplinary focus.

Simon Malpas, The Postmodern (2005)

Let’s separate the last two chapters: Ch. 2 “Modernity and Postmodernity” and Ch. 3 “Subjectivity”

Ch. 2 “Modernity and Postmodernity”

  • p. 33: “[The modern] is the epoch of gradual emancipation from superstition and mysticism as the Enlightenment, which became central to philosophical thought during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, sought to provide a rational and scientific basis for human experience.”
  • Third Millennium
    • p. 35: From Steven Best and Douglas Kellner–“we are thus witnessing the advent of a digitised and networked global economy and society, fraught with promise and danger’ (2001: 1).”
    • p. 35: “The distinctions between high art and popular culture as well as ruling ideas of critical orthodoxy and aesthetic value have fallen into disrepute.”
  • Jean-Francois Lyotard
    • p. 38: “The loss of overarching grand narratives and their ideas of progress means that the structures that legitimate knowledge, the metanarratives, also begin to lose their power and stability.”
    • p. 39: “…capitalism is more than happy with fragmentation, so long as those fragments of knowledge continue to develop, grow and make a profit.”
    • p. 39: “…Lyotard sees the main threat facing members of a postmodern society as the reduction of all knowledge to a system whose only criterion is efficiency. He argues that in the contemporary world the markets for science and technology, having lost touch with the emancipatory goals of the modern grand narratives…”
  • p. 44: “Postmodernity is not a new age, but rather the name for a collection of critiques that seek to challenge the premises of those discourses that have shaped modern experience.”
  • p. 48: “To be modern, [Marshal Berman] argues, is to be caught up in the inevitable progress of history: to have one’s roots swept away into the past as one journeys into a future that promises to be radically different.”
  • p. 51: “…Habermas’s critique brings to the fore: the emancipation of subjectivity from mystical and religious world-views, the idea of history as the story of the rational progress of humanity, and the possibilities of resistance to the commodification of daily life.”
  • Rejection of Mysticism in Modernity via Hegel
    • p. 53: “The idea that there are eternal truths and transcendent structures that organise reality was gradually replaced by analyses based on notions of historical development and progress towards enlightenment and justice.”
    • p. 54: “Hegel’s work develops is the idea that reality and rationality are historically determined, and that humankind is capable of transforming itself as it progresses towards freedom, truth and communal understanding.”

Ch. 3 “Subjectivity”

  • The Postmodern Subject
    • p. 57: Via Stuart Sim–“the subject is a fragmented being who has no essential core of identity, and is to be regarded as a process in a continual state of dissolution rather than a fixed identity or self that endures unchanged over time.”
    • p. 58: “Prior to Descartes, the human subject tended to be conceived as the product of external forces and plans – usually those of a divine being – subjected to the tides of providence or fate.”
  • Psychoanalysis: link is to the Video Games class discussion
    • p. 66: “This unconscious, although we cannot experience it directly, has a significant influence on the desires, motivations and interactions that shape the course of our everyday existence.”
    • p. 67: “The unconscious, Freud argues, is necessary for human life: it acts as a repository for all of those thoughts and impulses that are too disturbing for conscious reflection and are thus repressed by the mind.”
    • p. 68: “What we find desirable is generated by the norms and values of the culture in which we live, even if it can focus on what that culture presents as perverse or unhealthy.”
    • pp. 68-69: “We are driven by forces over which we have no conscious control, our identity is shaped by the recognition we receive from others, and the possibility of ever fully knowing ourselves is forever denied.”
    • Postcolonialism

Next Class

Well, we’ll be discussing a different definition of class on Wednesday–ha! Finish Malpas and move onto Marx & Engels “The Ruling Class and the Ruling Ideas.” You might want to look over the notes for next class (9/25). Don’t forget to look over Weekly Discussion Post #6.


Works Cited

Jameson, Fredric. Postmodernism: Or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Duke UP, 1991.

Malpas, Simon. The Postmodern. London: Routledge, 2005.

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