Sovereign Performatives
I continue to muse on the differences between rhetoric in English and in Comm; I suspect that by the time I retire there will be nearly complete convergence between the two institutionally, partially for good (it's only logical), and partially for bad (continued marginalization in NCA, and displacement of rhetoric by cultural studies/media studies as locus of humanities research in Comm departments). I am one of the few NCA rhetoricians of my generation to have been educated in a department that offered theater, oral interpretation, speech correction (!), and "speech" (a core of public speaking, argumentation, persuasion, and American public address)--in other words, a department centered almost entirely on performance. The model eventually failed everywhere, partially because of conflicting temperaments between "drama" and "communication" types, partially because of the rise of bad social science in NCA circles in the 1ate 1960's, and partially because of the inherent conflict between scholarship and a heavy emphasis on teaching undergraduate performance through extracurricular activities. Traces of the old model still survive at places like Memphis, where Communication is in a College of Fine Arts.
My department, which does a remarkably good job with undergraduate teaching despite our heavy research productivity and huge classes (e.g. 250 people in history of rhetoric), is charged--like the rest of A&M--to start planning for "enhancement of the undergraduate experience." At worst, this is going to mean some sort of testing/measurement of "outcomes," but it's a good conversation to have. Here's my problem: why is it that we cannot teach undergraduate performance effectively? There are two "skills" courses in speech: public speaking and argumentation. They are, for the most part, taught well, although they are staffed nearly 100% by graduate students, most of whom have very little background in oral performance themselves. From that point on, the most we have are group oral presentations in our 400-level classes, and, of course, oral reports in graduate courses. To put it bluntly: the skills aren't there, across the board, except for students with high school or undergraduate forensics experience (we do not have forensics at A&M). What is to be done?
