Sounding Out the Progymnasmata

Abstract

This article positions the progymnasmata, an ancient sequence of rhetorical exercises, as a rich resource for contemporary scholarship on rhetoric and sound. Drawing on work at the intersection of rhetoric and sound studies as well as scholarship that repurposes ancient rhetorical concepts to study digital media, I argue that refiguring the progymnasmata can significantly expand rhetorical studies of digital sound. I ground my argument in podcasts, a popular sonic medium that has garnered attention in rhetoric and writing scholarship, ending with a series of six exercises designed to help students learn to make podcasts.

Notes

1. Copious thanks to RR reviewers Steph Ceraso and Hugh Burns. Their generous and astute feedback greatly improved this manuscript.

2. In addition to scholarship about incorporating sonic projects into rhetoric and writing pedagogy, consider courses like Casey Boyle’s “Writing With Sound” (http://caseyboyle.net/project/writing-with-sound-rhe-330c/) and Steph Ceraso’s “Sound, Composition, and Culture” (https://soundnevertastedsogood.wordpress.com/).

3. Aspects of this dialogue exercise are prefigured in John Hagaman’s “Modern Use of the Progymnasmata in Teaching Rhetorical Invention.” Hagaman’s 1986 article describes a class in which students are “divided into two groups, one of which brainstorms an imaginative written dialogue between . . . two sides as it might occur on a televised interview show, while simultaneously the other group conducts an impromptu interview or videotape” (27).

4. In practice, two-person interviews are often recorded using two tracks. For the sake of this exercise, I encourage students to record everything as one track.

5. In the context of the progymnasmata, “topos” (Aelius Theon’s term) and “common-place” (Aphthonius’s term) are different from other rhetorical concepts with the same names. Despite etymological connections, this exercise is neither topos in the sense of a place for discovering arguments nor “common-place” in the sense of a piece of conventional wisdom that can be deployed in an argument.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Eric Detweiler

Eric Detweiler is an assistant professor in the Department of English at Middle Tennessee State University. He researches rhetorical theory, rhetoric and writing pedagogy, digital rhetoric, and the intersections between them. His current book project examines the history of teacher-student relationships in rhetoric and writing classrooms, putting those relationships in conversation with recent scholarship on rhetorical ethics. His work has appeared in such journals as Philosophy & Rhetoric, enculturation, and the ADE Bulletin. He also runs a podcast about rhetoric called Rhetoricity. Email: [email protected]