Rhetorical Education in Complicated Times: Poly-logical Invention and Written Discourse for the 21^st Century University

Abstract

Dialogism and dialectical knowledge making have long subtended theories of written discourse and therefore the design of rhetoric and writing curricula. As universities move toward interdisciplinary and applied disciplinary epistemologies, theories of written discourse based in the dialogical and dialectical tradition require new scrutiny. This article synthesizes scholarship from the rhetoric of science, written communication theory, and transdisciplinary theory to develop a new poly-logical and poly-lectical approach to written communication for interdisciplinary discourse. The article concludes with examples of hermeneutic and heuristic invention strategies for rhetoric and composition pedagogy that can encourage poly-logical and poly-lectical inquiry on contemporary interdisciplinary issues.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Thank you to RR reviewers Allison Dziuba and an anonymous reviewer for their insightful suggestions and advice during the development of this article. Thank you also to Louise Wetherbee Phelps for encouraging me to develop this article after my presentation at the Thomas R. Watson Conference on Rhetoric and Composition in 2018.

2 The term “polylogical” has previously been described in some argumentation discourse to mean: “multi-party and multi-position argumentation (polylogue)” as opposed to “the analytic apparatus in argumentation studies [which] tends toward dialectical analysis of dyadic disagreements” (Aakuhus and Lewiński 182).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Justin K. Rademaekers

Justin K. Rademaekers is an Associate Professor of English at West Chester University of Pennsylvania where he teaches rhetoric and composition courses and seminars on sustainability, environmental rhetoric, and writing in the disciplines. He directs the university’s Writing Across the Curriculum program and the Master of Arts in English program. He is the Chair of the Association for Writing Across the Curriculum. His research and scholarship have previously appeared in the Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, Across the Disciplines, The WAC Journal, Double-Helix: A Journal of Critical Thinking and Writing, and Composition Forum.