"What Wants to be Said (Out Loud)?: Octalogs as Alter/native to Hegemonic Discourse Practices"

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About the Author

Eric Reid Hamilton is earning his PhD in Rhetorics, Communication, and Information Design at Clemson University. His research interests are at the intersection of Rhetoric and Philosophy, ranging from ancient conceptions to digital inventions. When not exploring the endless opportunities afforded by reading, writing, and teaching, he enjoys taking part in anything active and outdoors.

Contents

Introduction

Silenced within the Confines of an Academic Paper

Altering the Narrative or Narrating the Alternative

Walking the Walk by Talking the Talk: Alternative Manifestations within a Weekly Doctoral Colloquia

Works Cited

Introduction

Imagine that you enter a parlor. You come late. When you arrive, others have long preceded you, and they are engaged in a heated discussion, a discussion too heated for them to pause and tell you exactly what it is about. In fact, the discussion had already begun long before any of them got there, so that no one present is qualified to retrace for you all the steps that had gone before. You listen for a while, until you decide that you have caught the tenor of the argument; then you put in your oar. Someone answers; you answer him; another comes to your defense; another aligns himself against you, to either the embarrassment or gratification of your opponent. However, the discussion is interminable. The hour grows late, you must depart. And you do depart, with the discussion still vigorously in progress.

- Kenneth Burke, Philosophy of Literary Form

Written discourses . . . certainly ought not to be called real speeches, but they are as wraiths, semblances, and imitations . . . but the semblances of corporeal bodies, giving pleasure to the eye alone, and are of no practical value . . . The written speech, which employs one hard and fast form and arrangement, if privately read, makes an impression, but in crises, because of its rigidity, confers no aid on its possessor. 

- Alcidamas, On the Sophists

There is no outside-text.

 - Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology

If one were to alter the academic paper in terms of form and content, in what ways might the format and framework be adjusted, modified, and even transformed, altogether, by and through the scholarly community’s very conceptions surrounding such endeavors, all of which would be done in order to adapt (to) the conversations surrounding it? As the famous Burkean Parlor demonstrates, you are never fully beginning an intellectual discussion nor ending one indefinitely but, at best, diving head-first into a booming dialogue in hopes of keeping up, engaging with, and possibly adding a bit to a discursive consideration that extends far beyond an individual or single meeting. With this monumental yet always inviting nature of discussioneven if those currently in the ‘Burkean parlor’ act as though they have been awarded the roles as gatekeepers (in fact, especially if that is the case)—in what ways may we better serve and open up the established parameters currently isolating academic discourse, ones which continue to exist even among those making a career out of (and into) these efforts?

The academic paper has the ability to meld an assortment of scholars and texts in order to create new knowledge, and yet, as with any established genre, the constraints embedded within such conventions could be seen as inadvertently hampering otherwise productive and complementary avenues of scholarly exploration, despite the best of intentions. This project is not a call for the dissolution of the academic paper, nor is it even meant as a harsh critique thereof. At the risk of sounding reductive: there are inherent benefits and drawbacks of any single mode and/or medium of discourse—a principle that has become a defining element within the blossoming discipline of Rhetoric and Composition. It wouldn’t require a particularly rigorous meta-analysis to see the irony of the selected medium currently being utilized if the author were to be contending that the academic paper is inherently flawed. Such an approach would also be presumptive, at best, coming from an aspiring scholar that is greatly indebted to the knowledge transmitted from works structured within that format. Rather, this essay is humbly illustrating some possible alternatives that could run parallel to contemporary conventions in order to widen the discussion and offer more affordances for scholarly discourse. By illustrating some notable critiques against the status quo penned by recognized post-structuralist and feminist writers throughout the last century along with a positive alternative framework established by the Conference of Composition and Communication’s Octalog panels, as well as some contemporary manifestations within a transdisciplinary doctoral program at Clemson University, we may demonstrate the shortcomings of traditional exercises in scholarly conversations while providing blueprints to build from in order to—not precisely emulate but rather—extend and strengthen the paradigms that constitute our discipline of Rhetoric and Composition, including all (cross- and trans-) disciplines for that matter.