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The Hyper-Circumference of Effectiveness in 3...2...1... FTL Jumps
I recently re-encountered Kenneth Burke’s use of circumference to theorize the scope
of a rhetorical event. He mentioned the concept briefly in his 1978 essay, "Questions and
Answers about the Pentad," which I revisited for a graduate seminar I am teaching. Burke
called circumference a quote very important consideration…" for his discussion of drama-tizums,
of freeing drama from the stage and finding it everywhere in the world as acts, agents,
agencies, scenes, and purposes. Circumference is, of course, elaborated more fully in A
Grammar of Motives. Here he spends ten pages on the idea in relationship to the scene-act
ratio, noting that circumference is co-constitutive of a subject: quote “the choice of circumference
for the scene in terms of which a given act is to be located will have a corresponding
effect upon the interpretation of the act itself” (end quote). Circumference is more
than contextual, more than spay-she-o-temporal; it is terminological, too, and Burke reminds
us quote to be on the look-out for these terministic relationships between the circumference and
the 'circumfered'" (end quote), between words and the invisible fences they build.
Inquiring into the effectiveness of teaching digital writing for the WIDE-EMU conference
has gradually drawn me to consider—and really puzzle over—problems with circumference:
what is the time-place perimeter appropriate for grasping teaching effectiveness? Effectiveness,
after all, remains sprawling, leaky, untamable, and to adequately honor these conditions,
I explore the notion of hyper-circumference, which I will elaborate through a series of
three representative anecdotes on October 15.