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The author recounts an undergraduate introduction to critical theory, tensions between rhetorical instruction and creative or poetic resistance, and later teaching writing since 1995 using multiple texts. Through discussion of rhetorical theories and Foucault’s ideas such as the episteme, the piece weighs discourse-based “truth” against the needs of engaging the real world, space, and the crisis of existence.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":15,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/literature/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/the-cea-forum-winterspring-2006-rhetoric-in-reality-postmodernism-viewed-from-outer-space/597795/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/the-cea-forum-winterspring-2006-rhetoric-in-reality-postmodernism-viewed-from-outer-space/597795.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"SANS","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-20","2026-10-15",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":81},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"What is the central conflict the author explores in relation to postmodernism and rhetoric?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"The author contrasts scientific and discourse-centered approaches to literature, questioning whether rhetorical or wholly subjective views can address the real-world reality of existence.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"How does the author describe their early experience with critical theory as an undergraduate?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"The author recounts taking “Introduction to the Theory of Literature,” finding it a disaster due to their expectations for reading and writing literature rather than studying its meanings through critical theory.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"What role does Foucault’s concept of the episteme play in the argument?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"Foucault’s episteme is used to discuss how different groups construct knowledge and truth through discursive formations, while the author evaluates how much this view connects to the world revealed through sciences.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},597795,1792295205,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":14,"category_name":15,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":81,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":44,"language":139,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":140,"faqs":141,"seo_title":142,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":143,"read_time":144},962090760505,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_155a257f0dc6eb9ab79c44ca47cae57d","The CEA Forum  \nWinter/Spring 2006: 35.1  \nRHETORIC IN REALITY:  \nPOSTMODERNISM VIEWED FROM OUTER SPACE  \nMaximilian Werner  \nIt is hardly surprising that rhetoricians, aggrieved at the continually increasing authority and efficacy of science, would insist that the laws of discourse take precedence over the laws of science.  \n~ Joseph Carrol  \nShow me a cultural relativist at 30,000 feet and I'll show you a hypocrite.  \n~ Richard Dawkins  \nWe will not serve what we do not love.  \nAnd we cannot love what we do not know.  \n~ Loyal Rue  \nFor every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.  \n~ Walt Whitman  \nHow to be happy and true  \nis the quest we're taking on together.  \n~ Eddie Vedder  \nWhen I was an undergraduate studying English at the University of Utah, I remember taking Introduction to the Theory of Literature my first year. The course was a disaster. I was an awful student of critical theory. Like most burgeoning English majors I knew at the time, I wanted to read and write literature, not to study what other people thought it meant to read and write literature. And then there was the fellow who headed the class. He had a pretentious fondness for Derrida that I did not understand, partly because I did not understand Derrida himself, and partly because as a teacher he was so self-absorbed that he could not reach any but the most earnest students. At least he did not reach me. After class, I would often see him in some corner of the cafeteria, where he would practice his French with a colleague who also taught theory for the department. I guessed they were talking about Derrida, but who could say? Together, these elements would constitute my introduction to the world of critical theory, what Robert Storey, author of Mimesis and the Human Animal: On the Biogenetic Foundations of Literary Representation, aptly describes as the “hermetic anthropocentrism of poststructuralism”  \n(206) . I wore the “D” I earned in that class like a badge of shame, but we shun what shames us, and so eventhough postmodernism of one form or another dominated the department, I managed to earn my degree while still avoiding this fellow, his ilk, and their “floating head” theories whose relevance would cease the instant I closed the book or left the classroom. Perhaps I was lucky.  \nMy orientation to literature was, if anything, romantic, and I would continue to entertain this view of language, literature, and life , ultimately, as an M. F.A. student in poetry at Arizona State University. The creative writing program there did not proffer any alternatives. In fact, the only challenge came when I, along with several other teachers-in-training, attended a weekly TA seminar taught by rhetoricians. The class was designed to help us become more effective teachers by introducing us to various rhetorical theories, principles, and strategies. I don't know how the literature students felt, but the poets resisted the rhetorical approach to language. Indeed, they were suspicious of, if not hostile to any approach that sought to demystify the medium with which they rendered their personal afflatus. Moreover, I am sure that the rhetors in the classroom experienced their own unique dismay at what they must have seen as our beautiful but ineffectual and anachronistic conception of language.“Language for the real world!” seemed to be their credo. I admit that at the time and in that context, both approaches had their own appeal. But that was before I had perceived the world from outer space. Now I see that neither a rhetorical, romantic, nor any wholly subjective view of life and literature is sufficient for addressing the nature, grandeur, crisis--in short--the reality of our existence.  \nI have been teaching writing courses since 1995, and over this nine-year period I have used six different texts, including Literature and the Environment: A Reader on Culture and Nature , which is the text I am using currently. With the exception of this last text, the books I","cbCaijcrF5scDyEW","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaijcrF5scDyEW","pdf",47479,"English","# The CEA Forum\n## Winter/Spring 2006\n## Rhetoric in Reality: Postmodernism Viewed from Outer Space\n## Introduction to critical theory\n## Tensions between rhetoric and creative writing\n## Teaching writing and key instructional texts\n## Discourse, the episteme, and “truth”","[{\"question\":\"What is the central conflict the author explores in relation to postmodernism and rhetoric?\",\"answer\":\"The author contrasts scientific and discourse-centered approaches to literature, questioning whether rhetorical or wholly subjective views can address the real-world reality of existence.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the author describe their early experience with critical theory as an undergraduate?\",\"answer\":\"The author recounts taking “Introduction to the Theory of Literature,” finding it a disaster due to their expectations for reading and writing literature rather than studying its meanings through critical theory.\"},{\"question\":\"What role does Foucault’s concept of the episteme play in the argument?\",\"answer\":\"Foucault’s episteme is used to discuss how different groups construct knowledge and truth through discursive formations, while the author evaluates how much this view connects to the world revealed through sciences.\"}]","The CEA Forum - Winter/Spring 2006 - Rhetoric in Reality: Postmodernism Viewed from Outer Space | PDF",1792085717,14]