History of Rhetoric II: 1701 until the present

Object Analysis Prompt

In other words, when humans are displaced and deskilled, nonhumans have to upgraded and reskilled. This is not an easy task, as we
shall now see.
-Bruno Latour, Where Are the Missing Masses? (157).

Introduction
The assessment of object analyses must be negotiated. This must be the case because effectiveness is the key criteria
for successful object analyses, and effectiveness can neither be known nor described in advance; it can only be felt
afterwards. That said, I will try to tell you what I can before you all go off alone into the wilderness.

The object under analysis must have a discernable shape or edge, which is not to say that it must be isolated. The
object must have edges that you can get a grip on: some handle holds, some outcropping of rocks on which you can
place your feet.

The methods you use must cohere with the focus of the course. First, your method must allow you to address the
rhetoricity of the object and/or the bearing it has had on the development of rhetoric(s). For example, going only to
the factory where cell phones are made would not allow you to see how a cell phone circulates and produces effects.
Second, the object itself should shape how you analyze it. If you choose alcohol, for instance, video recording might
make sense given that is a dynamic and moving object. Paper might not lend itself to video in the same way. (As the
two documents described below demonstrate, you will be asked to articulate and justify your choice of method.)
Analysis isnt something you do to an object but rather with the object.

Basic parameters for an object analysis are, admittedly, difficult to layout in advance. It is not as simple as a 5-7 page
length requirement. To that end, there are two supplemental assignments: a design plan and a postmortem.

Design Plan
Flesh out the details for each of the following areas (250/500 words), which address the question of method:

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Object to be analyzed
Importance of this object (i.e., make a case for why is it important or necessary to analyze it at this moment?)
Technologies to be used in analysis (e.g., video camera, microphone, still camera)
Features of the analysis. Specify the kinds of pictures, text, or video you will feature. This section should be
fairly fleshed out.
Purpose of the analysis (i.e., what effect do you hope to achieve? What impact do you want your analysis to
have on an audience?)

Postmortem
Answer the following questions adopted from Jody Shipkas Toward a Composition Made Whole (4-5 double-spaced
pages):

1.

2.

3.

4.
5.

What, specifically, is this piece trying to accomplishabove and beyond satisfying the basic requirements
outlined in the task description? In other words, what work does, or might, this piece do? For whom? In what
contexts?
What specific rhetorical, material, methodological, and technological choices did you make in service of
accomplishing the goal(s) articulated above? Catalog, as well, choices that you might not have consciously
made, those that were made for you when you opted to work with certain genres, materials, and
technologies.
Why did you end up pursuing this plan as opposed to the others you came up with? How did the various
choices listed above allow you to accomplish things that other sets or combinations of choices would not
have?
Who and what played a role in accomplishing these goals?
More specifically, how did the object under analysis shape that analysis?
Nathaniel Rivers I English 4030/5020