One of the Best Theses I Have Ever Read

...or how I spent a morning of fortuitous, eagerly engaged, academic stimulation

I began a search on ProQuest today; I have spent innumerable hours reading articles on Bakhtin that have been written in the past ten years, so I wondered what new scholarship, most particularly what dissertations (if any) had been written on Bakhtin and his contribution/dialogue/debate with Rhetorical theory.

Naturally, I was aware that his theories of dialogism were useful as a means to construct a less-dialectic, though still structured, student-centered composition classroom - at least in a broad, less theoretically-based manner. But, I was curious what work had been done in terms of juxtaposing Bakhtin with the classical rhetors... specifically Aristotle, as Holquist and Emerson both profess Bakhtin as clearly anti-Aristotelian. Obviously he is anti-Aristotelian, but, as my previous blog postings have, hopefully, proven, Bakhtin is not so decidedly anti-classical rhetorical theories. In fact, because Bakhtin's own essays are concerned with the concepts of ethos and the role of the author, it seems to me that Bakhtin was, in some ways, still embracing the coming of the second Sophistic.

Anyway -- this is the Thesis (yes, THESIS) by Lee Honeycutt I found today. Ironically, I have a text AND two journals with articles by the adult, PhD'd, full-professor version of Lee Honeycutt. He is a compositionist at heart, but as a tech-guy, he has found a home in technical communications and new media studies. Read his thesis (or glance at his CV) and you'll see he is REALLY a critical theorist hiding in the body of a techy-communications professor. Weird how all this works, hum?

What Hath Bakhtin Wrought?Toward a Unified Theory ofLiterature and Composition by Lee Honeycutt, A thesis submitted to the faculty of The University of North Carolina at Charlotte in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Department of English. Copyright © 1994

DISCLAIMER: I reprint an especially relevant passage here, from his Chapter 4, not as a means of personal gain or as an attempt at plagiarism, but only as a homage of sorts... I have double-quoted Honeycutt's own text and put it in a differently colored font, in order to differentiate it from my words. Subsequent quotes within his text have been single-quoted; longer quotes (those originally in block form) have been placed in italics for clarity.

Honeycutt writes in Chapter 4 "The Bridge to Rhetoric,"

"According to William McClellan, Bakhtin's appropriation into rhetorical theory during the late 1980s was a natural process, since Bakhtin's theory of dialogics, though it first took hold in literary criticism, shares many common attributes with the rhetorical tradition:

He employs the same communication model of speaker/utterance/listener, and he preserves, or rather, reinvents the conflation of speech and writing which occurred in the theory of the Middle Ages when rhetoric, a theory of oratory, was adapted to the study of texts. Both modeling schemes stress the persuasive aspect of discourse and emphasize the importance of the other, the listener, in its generation. Both frameworks are oriented toward contextuality: the practical, ideological environment in which discourse is conducted. Finally, rhetorical and dialogic theory have a materialist view of language. For both, the utterance is the ideological body of language. (235)

McClellan believes that in developing his theory of dialogics, Bakhtin employs two basic concepts from traditional rhetoric: 1) personification, or the 'ascription of agency to inanimate ideas and objects,' such as in his concept of the 'hero,' and 2) polemic, or the 'aggressive focusing upon another's word or utterance' (236).

Yet McClellan believes Bakhtin differs from the classical tradition of rhetoric in that he assigns much more active roles in shaping discourse to the listener and subject (243). Additionally, unlike earlier classical theories, which ultimately assume a system of absolute values, Bakhtin grounds his theory of rhetoric in the 'concrete socio-historical context' of heteroglossia, which in turn lends itself to the analysis of a variety of texts, from novels to ethnographies (246). This flexibility that Bakhtin's ideas provide rhetorical theory allows for, 'specificity and thickness of the social in the analysis of an artistic work and the precision and sophistication of literary analysis in the reading of scientific ones. In the terrain of Bakhtin's work, these and other, heterogeneous discursive practices interact, form dialogic relationships and promise profound new insights' (McClellan 246).

In addition to his recent incorporation into rhetorical theory, Bakhtin's deep and profound understanding of history throws the distant and recent past into confrontation, bringing us full circle back to the roots of all philosophical language in the West -- the Socratic sense of dialogue as a prime force in theoretical inquiry. The Platonic concept of absolute truth unveiled through logical contemplation may be dead, as Derrida and other poststructuralists have noted, but the sense of dialogue as a necessary first step in any philosophical quest lives through the influence of Bakhtin's emphasis on the dialogic principles first espoused by Socrates. Therefore, before discussing Bakhtin's influence in modern rhetorical theory, it is important to understand his relationship to the classical tradition of rhetoric.

In notes for his 1963 revision of the Dostoevsky book, Bakhtin wrote that the rudiments for 'overcoming the monologic model of the world' could be found in the Socratic dialogues, which represented 'the first step in the history of the new genre of the novel' (Problems 291-92). In fact, in several passages of the revised book, Bakhtin writes that the dialogic tradition which reached its pinnacle in Dostoevsky sprang directly from the Socratic dialogues, which he felt had begun 'almost as a memoir genre' or a recollection of conversations with Socrates. However, the dialogues soon moved beyond the 'limitations of history and memoir' (109), retaining only trace elements of the Socratic method of inquiry:

At the base of the genre lies the Socratic notion of the dialogic nature of truth, and the dialogic nature of human thinking about truth. The dialogic means of seeking truth is counterposed to official monologism, which pretends to possess a ready-made truth, and it is also counterposed to the naive self-confidence of those people who think that they know something, that is, who think that they possess certain truths. Truth is not born nor is it to be found inside the head of an individual person; it is born between people collectively searching for truth, in the process of their dialogic interaction. Socrates called himself a "pander": he brought people together and made them collide in quarrel, and as a result truth was born; with respect to this emerging truth Socrates called himself a 'midwife,' since he assisted at the birth . . . . (110)

This Socratic emphasis on the dialogic nature of inquiry eventually weakened under Plato's influence, when it 'degenerated completely into a question-and-answer form for training neophytes (catechism)' (110)."

Good stuff, right?

[sigh]... I love it when a plan comes together, dear WWW...

DONNA