Private, the Public, and the Published: Reconciling Private Lives and Public Rhetoric

by Barbara Couture, Thomas Kent (Editor)

Overview

At the 2003 "Rock the Vote" debate, one of the questions posed by a student to the eight Democratic candidates for the presidential nomination was "have you ever used marijuana?" Amazingly, all but one of the candidates voluntarily answered the question. Add to this example the multiple ways in which we now see public intrusion into private lives (security cameras, electronic access to personal data, scanning and "wanding" at the airport) or private self-exposure in public forums (cell phones, web cams, confessional talk shows, voyeuristic "reality" TV). That matters so private could be treated as legitimate-in some cases even vital-for public discourse indicates how intertwined the realms of private and public have become in our era. Reverse examples exist as well. Around the world, public authorities look the other way while individual rights are abused--calling it a private matter--or officials appeal to sectarian morés to justify discrimination in public policies.

The authors of The Private, the Public, and the Published feel that scholarship needs to explore and understand this phenomenon, and needs to address it in the college classroom. There are consequences of conflating public and private, they argue--consequences that have implications especially for what is known as the public good. The changing distinctions between "private" and "public," and the various practices of private and public expression, are explored in these essays with an eye toward what they teach us about those consequences and implications.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780874214949
Publisher:	Utah State University Press
Publication date:	05/01/2004
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	286
File size:	4 MB

Table of Contents

CONTENTS List of Illustrations and Figures Preface Thomas Kent 1 Reconciling Private Lives and Public Rhetoric: What's at Stake? Barbara Couture PART ONE: PUBLIC EXPRESSION MEETS PRIVATE EXPERIENCE 2 Ain't Nobody's Business? A Public Personal History of Privacy after Baird v. Eisenstadt Nancy Welch 3 Virtuosos and Ensembles: Rhetorical Lessons from Jazz Gregory Clark 4 Keeping the World Safe for Class Struggle: Revolutionary Memory in a Postmarxist Time John Trimbur 5 Mary Putnam Jacobi and the Speaking Picture Susan Wells PART TWO: CONFRONTING THE PUBLIC AND THE PRIVATE IN WRITTEN LANGUAGE 6 The Collective Privacy of Academic Language David Bleich 7 The Essayist In and Behind the Essay: Vested Writers, Invested Readers Lynn Z. Bloom 8 Upon the Public Stage: How Professionalization Shapes Accounts of Composing in the Academy Cheryl Geisler 9 Ethical Deliberation and Trust in Diverse-Group Collaboration Geoffrey A. Cross PART THREE: PUBLIC AND PRIVATE IDENTITIES IN POPULAR AND MASS COMMUNICATION 10 Identity and the Internet: The Telling Case of Amazon.com's Top 50 Reviewers Douglas Hesse 11 The Influence of Expanded Access to Mass Communication on Public Expression: The Rise of Representatives of the Personal David Kaufer 12 Private Witness and Popular Imagination Marguerite Helmers PART FOUR: THE PUBLIC AND THE PRIVATE IN THE DISCIPLINE OF COMPOSITION STUDIES 13 Mixing it Up: The Personal in Public Discourse Bruce Horner 14 Cultural Autobiographics: Complicating the "Personal Turns" in Rhetoric and Composition Studies Krista Ratcliffe 15 Going Public: Locating Public/Private Discourse Sidney Dobrin 16 Public Writing and Rhetoric: A New Place for Composition Christian Weisser References Contributors Index LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS AND FIGURES Chapter 5 Figure 1. Mary Putnam Jacobi, 1860-65 Figure 2. Sphygmographic tracings Figure 3. "Ribbon-like fibres with nucleus, from uterus eight days after delivery" Chapter 8 Figure 1. Janet's layering of private and public over 22 sessions. Figure 2. Roger's layering of private and public over 10 sessions. Figure 3. Janet's public agents over 22 sessions. Figure 4. Roger's public agents over 10 sessions. Figure 5. Actions for I and authors in Janet's 22 sessions. Figure 6. Actions for I and authors in Roger's 10 sessions. LIST OF TABLES Chapter 8 Table 1. Janet and Roger's use of clauses in the private and public domains. Table 2. Janet and Roger's use of agents in the public realm. Table 3. Janet and Roger's actions in the public realm. Chapter 10 Table 1. Amazon.com Reviewers Considered for this Essay

Library of Congress Subject Headings for this publication: Rhetoric, Written communication, Privacy, Right of