Distant Publics: Development Rhetoric and the Subject of Crisis

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rhetoric “With Distant Publics, one of rhetoric’s foremost theorists presents a riveting picture of development, weaving together history, theory, and observational analysis into a case for rhetoric’s centrality to urban development and development’s importance for rhetorical theory. This book should be read and taught far and wide; its method and theory are very much grounded in ground: material things, concrete issues (and issues of concrete). Its contributions to material rhetoric and to theories of subjectivity, publics, and citizenship are as important as they will be lasting.”—Debra Hawhee, Pennsylvania State University “To say that Distant Publics is about the rhetoric of development is really an oversimpli- fication. This book is a deep exploration of how rhetoric, ecology, sustainability, spatial theory, citizenry, and subjectivity converge. It is unique and powerful, asking us to rethink not just urban spaces and rhetorics but the very ways in which we conceptualize rhetoric. Distant Publics asks readers to engage what amount to the most pressing issues of writing studies and rhetoric in fresh, smart ways. Jenny Rice speaks directly to and within rhetoric and composition, but she asks us to see beyond disciplinary limits in provocative ways that demand we not settle for the safety and comfort of familiar conversations.” —Sid Dobrin, University of Florida Urban sprawl is omnipresent in America and has left many citizens questioning their ability to stop it. In Distant Publics, Jenny Rice examines patterns of public discourse that have evolved in response to development in urban and suburban environments. Centering her study on Austin, Texas, Rice finds a city that has simultaneously celebrated and despised development. Rice outlines three distinct ways that the rhetoric of publics counteracts development : through injury claims, memory claims, and equivalence claims. She provides case studies of development disputes that place the reader in the middle of real-life controversies and evidence her theories of claims-based public rhetorics. Rice finds that these methods comprise the most common (though not exclusive) vernacular surrounding development and shows how each is often counterproductive to its own goals. She demonstrates that these claims create a particular role or public subjectivity grounded in one’s own feelings, which serves to distance publics from each other and the issues at hand. Rice argues that rhetoricians have a duty to transform current patterns of public development discourse so that all individuals may engage in matters of crisis. She articulates its sustainability as both a goal and future disciplinary challenge of rhetorical studies and offers tools and methodologies toward that end. Jenny Rice is assistant professor of writing, rhetoric, and digital media at the University of Kentucky. pittsburgh series in composition, literacy, and culture University of Pittsburgh Press • www.upress.pitt.edu Cover photograph: “Trees and People Belong Together,” 1969. Prints and Photography Collection, di-06084, the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, the University of Texas at Austin. Cover design: Ann Walston ISBN 13: 978-0-8229-6204-5 ISBN 10: 0-8229-6204-7 9 7 8 0 8 2 2 9 6 2 0 4 5 ...