Postcomposition

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Copyright © 2011 by the Board of Trustees, Southern Illinois University All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America 14 13 12 11 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Dobrin, Sidney I., 1967– Postcomposition / Sidney I. Dobrin. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-8093-3041-6 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-8093-3041-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-13: 978-0-8093-8788-5 (ebook) ISBN-10: 0-8093-8788-3 (ebook) 1. English language—Rhetoric—Study and teaching. I. Title. PE1404.D637 2011 808'.042071—dc22 2010040311 Printed on recycled paper. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992. This one is for Gary A. Olson, my mentor and friend; with much gratitude and respect. We call ourselves what we are, but also what we wish to be. This is inspiring and this is corrupting. For the ambiguity allows us to see the one in the other, to mistake what we wish to be for what we are. Since the satisfaction of an ideal is so hard to attain, it is easy to imagine. But the reality of an ideal must not blind us to its unreality, which is the source of its enticement to action, and of its usefulness as a measure of progress. A good rule is: we are never already what we should be. —Leon Wieseltier, Against Identity If I surround an area with a fence or a line or otherwise, the purpose may be to prevent someone from getting in or out; but it may also be part of a game and the players be supposed, say, to jump over the boundary; or it may show where the property of one man ends and that of another begins; and so on. So if I draw a boundary line that is not yet to say what I am drawing it for. —Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations ...