Writing in the Age of Humans: (Post)Rhetoric-Composition and Vichian Ingenium

Abstract

Rhetoric-composition's turn toward posthumanism and complexity theory promises to help the field grasp contemporary writing. However, the turn's promise is undermined by its disregard for history, overvaluation of complexity, and unwillingness to engage the field's common sense. Giambattista Vico's theories of rhetoric and human development not only challenge the turn's representation of Enlightenment humanism but also point to the turn's inability to help writers participate in today's complex institutions. Vichian ingenium can serve as a touchstone for critical humanist scholarship and pedagogies that seek to chart a course between a bourgeois humanism and a barbaric posthumanism.

Notes

¹For the helpful comments and criticisms, many thanks go out to the two RR peer reviewers, Louise Phelps and Jeremy Engels, and Timothy Brennan.