WRIT1001: Writing and Rhetoric – Academic Essays

Short Writing Task 2: Research Task

Semester 2, 2020

Word Count: 573 words (including excerpt and references)

Research Notes for My Essay “Defining Societal Norms via Unusual Rhetorical Methods”

Excerpt from VanHaitsma (“Gossip as rhetorical methodology for queer and feminist historiography”):

Along with historians of rhetoric interested in imaginative speculation, feminist and queer scholars in film, art, literature, and history have taken interest in gossip as a specific form of speculation. Their scholarship points to what I identify as three key features of gossip as a rhetorical methodology. On the one hand, gossip may be reclaimed in positive terms, insofar as it serves as a productive form of imaginative and speculative work crucial to feminist historiography and consistent with traditional scholarly methodologies. On the other hand, gossip may be enacted in a second way, which harnesses its associations with the illicit, working to methodologically queer normative conceptions of historical materials and methods. This second feature renders gossip a particularly powerful resource for studying non-normative genders and sexualities. But a third feature of gossip as a rhetorical methodology is its openness, its refusal to solidify criteria that close down who may gossip, about whom, and to what ends. Taken together, these three features suggest gossip’s potential usefulness for feminist, queer, and still other yet unimagined rhetorical and historiographic projects. (VanHaitsma 137)

Summary

VanHaitsma asserts that gossip is now viewed as a particular form of speculation by queer scholars and rhetoric historians in literature, film, and art. Gossip serves a number of purposes summarized into a productive form of speculative and imaginative work important to feminist historiography, in queering normative conceptions of historical methods and materials, and allows a wide range of openness available to all society members (161-162).

Paraphrase

VanHaitsma presents a unique point of view, one that reveals the power of gossip in feminist and queer historical writings, presenting it as a powerful tool that has the capacity to dictate the direction of imagination and speculation in a society (137). Gossip should be critically analysed in a more scholarly point of view, particularly in understanding the role it plays as a rhetorical methodology (VanHaitsma 137). Gossip creates relationships with peoples’ imagination, speculations, and harnesses its link with the illicit (137). Gossip is also presented by VanHaitsma as a powerful tool for the study of non-normative sexualities and genders (137). Combined, these roles of gossip introduce it as a rhetorical methodology because of its openness, its flexibility, and how it allows every societal member to speculate and imagine different scenarios for a diverse group of people (VanHaitsma 137). Therefore, gossip is potentially useful queer, feminist, and other yet to be explored historiography and rhetorical social groupings (137).

Direct quote (including signal and response)

VanHaitsma looks at gossip in a new light as a rhetorical method for “queer and feminist” historical writings, theorizing it as an important element in “film, art, literature, and history” as a “specific form of speculation” (137). In this presentation, my essay on how there are new and emerging rhetorical methods finds support as gossip, a societal form of speculation, is shown to be useful in explaining feminist and queer historical writings. My essay finds a basis to express gossip as a refined rhetorical method that informs the direction of a society regarding a specific matter.

Works Cited

VanHaitsma, Pamela. “Gossip as rhetorical methodology for queer and feminist historiography.” Rhetoric Review 35.2 (2016): 135-147. Web.