The Rhetoric of Expertise (review)

E. Johanna Hartelius’s The Rhetoric of Expertise offers a framework that views expertise as a situated construct negotiated between aspiring experts and potential audiences. This approach effectively, and accurately, treats the symbols and so-called “hard knowledge” behind expertise as relational. In doing so, Hartelius effectively avoids the binary traps that can ensnare even well-intentioned rhetorical scholarship when it either pretends that symbols constitute everything in existence or treats symbols as merely the stylistic packaging for the true knowledge underneath. Hartelius writes, “Rather than becoming entangled in the question of whether expertise is entirely symbolic (i.e., attributed based on performance) or entirely autonomous, we can use a rhetorical hermeneutic and begin a productive investigation with the assumption that style and ‘real’ knowledge are not only integral but inseparable” (164).

One of the book’s most valuable insights is that experts across disciplines rely on recurring rhetorical moves to establish their expertise with audiences. Experts situate themselves within networks of expertise, borrowing or rejecting the knowledge of other experts or institutions. They demonstrate a techne to showcase the authenticity and legitimacy of their expertise. They create identification with audiences and use the familiar elements of ethos—phronesis, arête, and eunoia—to highlight the relevance and public benefit of their knowledge. And experts connect their knowledge to both an immediate exigency and the everyday experience of their audiences.

After outlining an overall theory of expertise in the introduction, the book puts four individual domains of expertise under its lens. Chapter 2 examines the political discourse surrounding the immigration reform debate of 2005–2006, comparing the parallel strategies that political antagonists use to establish their expertise. The chapter first compares mainstream politicians Ted Kennedy and Bill Frist, who, despite sitting on opposite sides of the aisle, both portray knowledge of political procedure, a foundation in American mythology, and a suspension of self-interest that positions them as uniquely suited to serve the public interest. These establishment experts are contrasted with two activist groups, The National Council of La Raza and The Minutemen Project, who both claim that elected officials are sleeping on the job during a moment of crisis, requiring alternative political experts to step up. These organizations also justify their work through reference to foundational American narratives, but unlike the politicians, they explicitly invite public participation, in essence attempting to equip more experts.

The contrast between more authoritarian and invitational expertise reemerges in chapter 5, which compares Encyclopedia Britannica and Wikipedia. Britannica, full of static and officially authored articles on “serious” subjects, stands in stark contrast to Wikipedia’s perpetually updated entries on almost every conceivable subject. The vastly different approaches that these publications take to information dissemination characterize a key difference between those experts who teach the content of their knowledge and those who teach the process of their knowledge creation. Whereas one form of expertise leaves its knowledge-making processes inaccessible, the other invites participation from aspiring experts. As these publications contend for legitimacy, they help determine which forms of expertise count most in contemporary culture.

Chapters 3 and 4 both revolve around the conflict between institutional and personal expertise. In both chapters, Hartelius exposes an epistemological divide between academic, institutionalized expertise and lived, embodied experience that cannot be accredited. Chapter 3 contrasts narratives of 9/11, comparing the academic anthology History and September 11th with the first-hand observations collected in September 11: An Oral History. To establish their expert credentials, academic historians adopt a tone of dialectical inquiry and silent objectivity to teach history for the benefit of the public. In the collection of oral histories, on the other hand, observers of 9/11 offer accounts that rupture identifiable, everyday narratives with shocking events, and their recounted experience provides witness that memorializes tragedy as only eyewitness testimony can. Chapter 4 sets up a similar dichotomy, comparing Dr. Raymond DePaulo’s scientific Understanding Depression with the first-hand stories of depression sufferers written for the essay collection Unholy Ghost. DePaulo’s text...