At the Intersection: Cultural Studies and Rhetorical Studies (review)

At the Intersection: Cultural Studies and Rhetorical Studies. Edited by Thomas Rosteck. New York: Guilford Press, 1999; pp. vii + 386. $50.00 cloth; $26.00 paper.

Scholars have long needed a book that addresses the intersection of rhetorical studies and cultural studies. Editor Thomas Rosteck's introduction to At the Intersection: Cultural Studies and Rhetorical Studies details various commonalities between the two fields. His later chapter (9) even implies that rhetorical studies has already anticipated and at times accepted many tenets of cultural studies scholarship. The desire for a full consideration of both fields is conveyed by his chapters as well as by the book's title, where "cultural studies" appears before "rhetorical studies." Moreover, the inclusion of authors commonly associated with cultural studies—Cary Nelson and Patrick Brantlinger—ventures toward a rapprochement between the two fields. However, several chapters in the volume express more comfort with rhetorical studies than with cultural studies. Other chapters express serious reservations about rhetorical studies' involvement with cultural studies. Additionally, despite their strong cultural studies foci, Nelson's and Brantlinger's chapters privilege literary theory and ultimately say little directly related to rhetorical studies. Thus, while the volume promises treatment of both fields and an exploration of their intersection, the numerous chapters written by regal figures of contemporary rhetorical studies give the book much more of a rhetorical studies flair. Furthermore, several key scholars who presently produce scholarship drawing from both rhetorical studies and cultural studies are not included.

Some chapters highlight the potential for cultural studies to enhance rhetorical praxis. The lead chapter by Carole Blair and Neil Michel exemplifies how rhetorical practice can be made richer by an emphasis on cultural studies. Blair and Michel first conduct a rhetorical analysis of the Astronauts Memorial (AM) as an object of public commemoration and draw attention to its epideictic rhetorical function and to the relationship the memorial emphasizes between nature and technology. Drawing on cultural studies methodologies, Blair and Michel then concentrate on the memorial's context and audience and realize, after noticing that many visitors to the AM are wearing Disney apparel, that an investigation of Walt Disney World (WDW), geographically proximate to the AM, is in order. They compare WDW with the AM, noting the sites' similarities and some differences, which leads them to revise their earlier analysis.

Barry Brummett and Detine L. Bowers (chap. 4) revamp Stuart Hall's theory of dominant, negotiated, and resistant subject positions to better address how viewers position themselves relative to texts. Through a discussion of textual construction of authority versus anonymity and narration versus noise, and an analysis of the film The Air Up There, they theorize both "object" and "subject positions." They demonstrate how the film centers a white spectatorial position while leaving open certain resistant possibilities for spectators, hence showing how an attention to audience resistance and agency can enhance hermeneutic discovery in texts.

Despite the attempts of these two essays to adapt cultural studies methodologies to rhetorical studies, in general essays favor rhetorical studies over cultural studies. For example, Rosteck (chap. 9) defines the concept "cultural rhetoric" as the study of "artifacts of popular culture" (230) and bases his ideas on the traditional rhetorical work of scholars such as Ernest J. Wrage, Edwin Black, Michael Osborn, Elizabeth Walker Mechling, Jay Mechling, Janice Hocker Rushing, and Thomas Benson. Essentially, while he does not define cultural studies as cultural rhetoric, Rosteck maintains that cultural rhetoric already exists in canonical rhetorical studies research. Elizabeth Walker Mechling and Jay Mechling (chap. 5) bracket contemporary cultural studies altogether, argue for an American Cultural Studies historical tradition based in U.S. pragmatism, and spell out seven working assumptions for doing "cultural criticism in the pragmatic attitude."

Like Rosteck, Thomas S. Frentz and Janice Hocker Rushing (chap. 13) seek a common ground between rhetorical studies and cultural studies. They nevertheless rely principally on rhetorical studies and charge cultural studies with being anti-community, saying that it lacks...