Robert’s Response

[Robert Greco]

#315

Full Disclosure, I posted this on the 3rd:

I think of myself primarily as a teacher. I find the most comfort and fulfillment in my profession when I’m in the classroom (at least on the teaching side of it). As such, I think of the digital shift more in terms of its contribution to pedagogy than its effect on scholarship. What’s more, I’m young enough and new enough not to have an overly fixed professional identity. But, when I look back at the image I had for my future profession before I started my MA, digital technology—on either the scholarship or pedagogy sides—factored into my vision of my professional future minimally, if at all. I have, nevertheless, tried to adapt to the newest developments in digital technology. However, when I think back to my admittedly limited knowledge of the history of composition, I hardly see a stable structure. It seems to my mind that the profession has gone through—and continues to go through—rather radical upheavals about everything from what is taught, to what constitutes scholarship, to what role we should play in the general education of college students.

As a result, I’m not particularly inclined to think of my professional identity as in flux; if anything, I feel a possible foolhardy confidence that the core principles of composition and rhetoric. Remain clearly and firmly entrenched. Hayles calls for a new rhetoric to deal with the changing realities of our digital age, but I’m not convinced that a new rhetoric is needed. We do, to be sure, need to expand our rhetoric and develop new ways of exploring and discussing the digital, but I’m confident that the vast majority of this work can be couched in the rhetorical principles that have served for the analysis of text, images, and objects in the preceding decades. If anything, the shifts brought on by the digital—and they are important and monumental—remind me not to be overly fixed in my sense of professional self. I need to keep in mind that the changes of today will likely not yield a stable plateau of composition and rhetoric, either in terms of teaching or scholarship. So, I’ve comfortably accepted a sense of professional discomfort, and I’m fine with that.

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