On Who's Under Whose Thumb

Last December at the Division of Rhetoric we did a seminar called something like "Where Does the Critic Stand? Norms and Values in Rhetorical Criticism". There was a morning of public presentations (Christian Kock, Hanne Roer, Lisa Storm Villadsen and Marie Lund Klujeff all took a stand), there was a student discussion panel and generally lots of students attending. As I recall it, Lisa Villadsen wrapped up the discussion that morning by saying something along the lines of:

"Where does the critic stand? Well, we seem at least to be able to agree that she shouldn't be under the rhetor's thumb (i lommen på retor)."

So what was pointed out as the bottom line was the fact that the rhetorical critic must set her own agenda and cannot let the speakers/writers prompt the norms or the conclusions! of her readings. This is certainly a sound principle which can still be rather hard to follow, especially when you're studying self-aware reporters like I've been doing (and I've been blogging about this issue before).

So for the Rhetoric in Society conference in Aalborg the coming November, I decided to take Lisa's cue and submit a paper about approaches to rhetorical criticism of self-aware reporters and calling my abstract Under Their Thumb? And I'll be returning to this when we get closer to November and as this semester's BA seminar on the Presentation of Self in Writing evolves.