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

by Couture, Barbara

• ISBN13: 9780874215779
• ISBN10: 0874215773
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-04-01
• Publisher: Utah State Univ Pr

Summary

The multiple ways in which we now see public intrusion into private lives (security cameras, electronic access to personal data, "wanding" at the airport), as well as private self-exposure in public forums (cell phones, web cams, "reality" TV), demand understanding. 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 mores to justify discrimination in public policies. That matters so private could be treated as legitimate -- in some cases vital -- for public discourse indicates how intertwined the realms of private and public have become in our era. The authors of The Private, the Public, and the Published argue that there are consequences of conflating public and private -- consequences that have implications especially for what is known as the public good. The essays collected here unfold the changing distinctions between "private" and "public," explore the various practices of private and public expression, and argue that they must be addressed in the college writing, rhetoric, and communication classroom. Scholars must work to create the conditions in public -- in classrooms and meeting rooms, in Congress and international forums -- that respect and defend the ethical treatment of private lives. Book jacket.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii
Preface	ix
Thomas Kent
Reconciling Private Lives and Public Rhetoric: What's at Stake?	1	(16)
Barbara Couture
PART ONE: PUBLIC EXPRESSION MEETS PRIVATE EXPERIENCE
Ain't Nobody's Business? A Public Personal History of Privacy after Baird v. Eisenstadt	17	(14)
Nancy Welch
Virtuosos and Ensembles: Rhetorical Lessons from Jazz	31	(16)
Gregory Clark
Keeping the World Safe for Class Struggle: Revolutionary Memory in a Post-Marxist Time	47	(12)
John Trimbur
Mary Putnam Jacobi and the Speaking Picture	59	(20)
Susan Wells
PART TWO: CONFRONTING THE PUBLIC AND THE PRIVATE IN WRITTEN LANGUAGE
The Collective Privacy of Academic Language	79	(15)
David Bleich
The Essayist In---and Behind---the Essay: Vested Writers, Invested Readers	94	(18)
Lynn Z. Bloom
Upon the Public Stage: How Professionalization Shapes Accounts of Composing in the Academy	112	(15)
Cheryl Geisler
Ethical Deliberation and Trust in Diverse-Group Collaboration	127	(12)
Geoffrey A. Cross
PART THREE: PUBLIC AND PRIVATE IDENTITIES IN POPULAR AND MASS COMMUNICATION
Identity and the Internet: The Telling Case of Amazon.com's Top Fifty Reviewers	139	(14)
Douglas Hesse
The Influence of Expanded Access to Mass Communication on Public Expression: The Rise of Representatives of the Personal	153	(14)
David S. Kaufer
Private Witness and Popular Imagination	167	(18)
Marguerite Helmers
PART FOUR: THE PUBLIC AND THE PRIVATE IN THE DISCIPLINE OF COMPOSITION STUDIES
Mixing It Up: The Personal in Public Discourse	185	(13)
Bruce Horner
Cultural Autobiographics: Complicating the ``Personal Turns'' in Rhetoric and Composition Studies	198	(18)
Krista Ratcliffe
Going Public: Locating Public/Private Discourse	216	(14)
Sidney I. Dobrin
Public Writing and Rhetoric: A New Place for Composition	230	(19)
Christian R. Weisser
References	249	(15)
Contributors	264	(3)
Index	267