Mao, LuMing“Writing the Other into Histories of Rhetoric: Theorizing the Art of Recontextualization.” Re/Theorizing Writing Histories of Rhetorics. Ed. Michelle Ballif. Southern Illinois UP, 2013. 41-57. http://miamioh.edu/cas/academics/departments/english/about/faculty_staff/faculty/permanent-faculty/mao-luming/index.html
Bo Wang http://www.fresnostate.edu/artshum/english/faculty/wang.html
1. Re: comments on class: discussions & presentations.
2. Write: Describe recontextualization (Mao) in your own words.
3. Write: Why does Mao argue that that scholars in rhetoric and composition need to think carefully about the methodologies we use? And why does he want us to value "experience and interdependence" over "provenance and dominance"? How do Mao's values for ethical scholarship coincide with yours?
4. Work with discussion questions
1. Xing Lu states, in accordance to many of the perspectives we have seen so far, that "It is important to be sensitive to the implicit, multifaceted, and sometimes paradoxical nature of rhetoric embedded in Chinese philosophical, literary, and religious texts. An effort to search for a single definition of Chinese rhetoric or to try to find an equivalence from the Western terminology may fail to uncover the richness of Chinese rhetorical tradition... and run the risk of imposing meaning of Western rhetoric onto the Chinese context" (174-5). Early on in the survey, Wang calls out a need for more comparative works between Eastern and Western rhetorics, which seems to be an uncommon perspective among the ones we have studied so far. I was under the impression the goal was to begin a move away from comparative works such as Wang suggests and study rhetorical traditions in the light of their own cultures. Why would Wang call out the need for more comparative works, despite the obvious shortcomings of that particular strategy?
2. “Having realized the past failures to represent others on their own terms, scholars can become so anxious to see others in their otherness that they may end up representing others beyond their otherness either by overemphasizing their differences to the exclusion of commonalities with Western rhetorics or projecting them as an idealized other to past and present problems in Western Rhetorics.” (3) Many times there is an othering when viewing other cultures from a Western perspective. In what ways might this othering be both a hindrance and a benefit to our own cultural biases?
3. The art of recontextualization, according to Mao, allows us to critically interrogate the areas of representation we choose, the kinds of methodologies we deploy, and the strategic and ideological positions we take. Could this be important in increasing our understandings of ancient rhetorics as a whole? Why? Also, how could this art of recontextualization be applied to rhetoric in today’s society?
4. We might think of Dao as the Chinese version of Western rhetoric or Egyptian Ma’at. What are the problems or limitations of thinking about Dao in this way? What about the other terms that Mao uses to describe Chinese rhetorical practices?