"Through angular lenses we catch fragmentary glimpses of the previously unconsidered variations that had been smoothed over by the flat surface of received knowledge." p 289
This is such a good line - it's got nice rhythm, even. Aside from its semi-lyrical quality, the imagery of knowledge as a 'flat surface' that's been purposefully 'smoothed over' is really apt for this situation. Glenn makes it clear that the flatness of the rhetorical surface isn't an accident or a mistake, it's a purposeful exclusion from the narrative. In terms of the "remapping" of rhetorical history, do you think it's worth it to "resurvey the territory in order to locate and position women rhetoricians on the map" or do you think women should just create their own map, independent of the historiographic one which has traditionally excluded them?
Regarding your two ideas of what we should do in response to this smoothing over of the flat surface that is rhetorical history, I do believe it is worth it to resurvey the map of rhetoric in order to include and locate women on it. The second suggestion is unfair to those women who have done the same work as those already given a location on that map because then it would now put the burden of all the additional work of the resurveying on them and allow the ones responsible for the exclusion which created this necessity to resurvey to not put forth the effort to correct the omissions in the rhetorical map. I think it should be a joint effort done in a non-exclusive way. Most aspects of our society have roots in exclusion, but that does not mean we should give up on creating a society where we change those aspects in order to make them inclusive.
ReplyDeleteI don't see why either of the options you have presented in your question have to be mutually exclusive. Why can't women have both? I think it is equally important that women rhetoricians of the past are located and put on the map as it is for women to create their own map. There is no reason that women's contribution to the subject should be any less sought after or less valued than men's contribution, Aristotle or Plato, to name a few male rhetoricians.
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