Tripping over Boundary-Stones: Reflections on Engaged Scholarship

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Notes

1. John Freely, Strolling Through Athens: Fourteen Unforgettable Walks Through Europe's Oldest City (London: Tauris Parke Paperbacks, 2004), 111.

2. Dwight Conquergood, “Between Rigor and Relevance: Rethinking Applied Communication,” in Applied Communication in the 21st Century, ed. K. N. Cissna (Mahwah, NJ: Hampton Press, 1995), 80, 85.

3. In addition to Cox, most notably: V. William Balthrop, Carole Blair, Lawrence Grossberg, D. Soyini Madison, Della Pollock, and Julia T. Wood.

4. Reviewer 1, decision letter for submission to Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, email message to author, June 20, 2009 (emphasis added). The essay since has been revised and accepted for that venue.

5. This trend is broader than the field of rhetoric. Though sometimes forgotten, for example, more contemporary cultural studies scholarship also was born of concern with the empirical world and not the theoretical. Perhaps most concise and well known is Stuart Hall's argument: “Theory is always a detour on the way to something more important.” Stuart Hall, “Old and New Identities, Old and New Ethnicities,” in Culture, Globalization and the World-System: Contemporary Conditions for the Representation of Identity, ed. Anthony D. King (London: Macmillan, 1991), 42. For more on cultural studies’ approach to theory as a detour rather than an end unto itself, see Jennifer Daryl Slack, “The Theory and Method of Articulation in Cultural Studies,” in Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies, ed. David Morley and Kuan-Hsing Chen (London: Routledge, 1996), esp. 113–14.

6. Siva Vaidhyanathan, “The Googlization of Universities,” NEA 2009 Almanac of Higher Education, 2009, p. 66, http://www.nea.org/assets/img/PubAlmanac/ALM_09_06.pdf. I am indebted to Ted Striphas for sharing this timely essay with me and for providing feedback on this essay overall.

7. This paragraph was developed in dialogue with Rachel Hall; she generously has given me permission to borrow some of her thoughts and eloquence. Any errors or awkwardness undoubtedly are mine.

8. Debra Hawhee, Bodily Arts: Rhetoric and Athletics in Ancient Greece (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004); R. Marshall and A. Bleakley, “The Death of Hector: Pity in Homer, Empathy in Medical Education,” Medical Humanities 35 (2009): 10.

9. Rachel Hall, “‘It Can Happen to You’: Rape Prevention in the Age of Risk Management,” Hypatia 19 (2004): 1–19.

10. Phaedra C. Pezzullo, “Resisting ‘National Breast Cancer Awareness Month’: The Rhetoric of Counterpublics and Their Cultural Performances,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 89 (2003): 345–65; Phaedra C. Pezzullo, Toxic Tourism: Rhetorics of Pollution, Travel, and Environmental Justice (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2007); The Holland Dutch, “Toxic Tour,” Self-Starter, track 3, compact disc, 2008. The CD is available at The Holland Dutch, “Self-Starter,” cdbaby, http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/hollanddutch.

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Notes on contributors

Phaedra C. Pezzullo

Phaedra C. Pezzullo is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication and Culture at Indiana University