Will Kurlinkus

DISTANT PUBLICS University of

Oklahoma
TITUS KAPHAR
WHAT DID YOU WRITE Small
Groups
ABOUT?
HOW DO PEOPLE PARTICIPATE IN
SPATIAL DEMOCRACY? WHAT
DOES SPATIAL DEMOCRACY LOOK
LIKE? HOW CAN WE TRAIN
STUDENTS TO PARTICIPATE?
1. WHAT IS THE
ARGUMENT OF THIS
BOOK? Find the page
+ Quote

2. HOW DOES EACH

CHAPTER PROGRESS IT?
 INTRO: RHETORICAL VISTAS

¡  Exigence + Research Q: “I am interested in how to inter vene in

the negative ef fects of development. . . .How do people argue,
debate, and deliberate about the spaces where we live, work,
shop, and travel?” (5).
¡  Exceptional public subject: “the exceptional public subject is one
who occupies a precarious position between publicness and a
withdrawal from publicness. It is a subjecting thoroughly
grounded in feeling, which makes this rhetorical position so
dif ficult to change…” (5).
¡  Publics Approach: “my approach…understands publics and their
discourse as the best site for making inter ventions into material
spaces. In other words, rhetorical theor y and rhetorical pedagogy
can make a dif ference to the current development crisis not by
interrogating ‘place’ but by helping shape dif ferent kinds of
subjects who can undertake dif ferent kinds of work” (8).
CHAPTER 1. RHETORIC’S DEVELOPMENT
CRISIS

¡  Place: “a unique spot in the universe a material collection a

place with meaning” (31). This book uses Yi-Fu Tuan’s definitions
of place as opposed to de certeau.
¡  Non-places: “they lack the specificity of histor y, and they
intentionally elide fixed relations among people. What is
important in a non-place is simply the present moment” (31).
§  They lack an aura—a unique and sole presence in space and time.
Decisions in non-places are privatized no public input.
¡  Krisis (rhetoric): practical judgment in situations with no clear
solutions (wicked problems)
¡  Monitorial citizens: “one who sur veys the scene of public life for
crises and urgent demands” (37).
¡  Third place: cof fee shops, churches, libraries, bowling alleys,
gathering place away from home (first place) and work (second
place). Public relaxation and mingling. We’re lacking these.
§  They promote social equality by leveling the status of guests, provide a
setting for grassroots politics, create habits of public association, and
offer psychological support to individuals and communities.
 INTRO: RHETORICAL VISTAS
¡  P u b l i c s : “ a c t i ve m a n i fe s t a t i o n s o f t a l k … . m a te r i a l i z e a s c l u s te r s o f c o nve r s a t i o n s
h a p p e n i n g a t va r i o u s t i m e s , a c r o s s d i f fe r e n t p l a c e s ” ( 1 9 ) .
¡  Vernacular rhetoric: “networks of nonofficial space in which discourse on public matter
emerge” (10). —Gerald Hauser, Vernacular Voices: The Rhetoric of Publics and Public Spheres
¡  Public consists of many publics that arise in response to things, rather than just passively exist. Publics are provoked into being.
¡  Public Sphere: “a discursive space in which individuals and groups associate to discuss matters of mutual interest and, where
possible, to reach a common judgment about them. It is the locus of emergence for rhetorically salient meanings” (61).
¡  Publics are hailed into being
¡  J u r g e n H a b e r m a s : i d e a l p u b l i c s p h e r e o f c o m p e te n t , e q u a l , p a r t i c i p a n t s w h o b r a c ke t
t h e i r ( s o c i a l , e c o n o m i c , g e n d e r, a n d r a c i a l ) d i f fe r e n c e s a n d e n g a g e i n s o l e l y r a t i o n a l ,
i n fo r m e d d i s c o u r s e a b o u t a g i ve n p r o b l e m .
§  Big first theorist, describing the mix of the political and private realms of the 18 t h Centur y
§  Loves them third places (coffee shops especially!)
§  Nancy Fraser and Michael Warner theorize counterpublics in response to Habermas’s bracketing
of difference
¡  J o h n D ew ey, T h e P u b l i c a n d I t s P r o b l e m s :
§  Response to Walter Lippmann’s Public Opinion.
§  Public: a group of incoherent citizens called into action when some externality our of their
control needs to be changed. What prevents this coalition building?
§  Dewey’s solution is improved communication + local community
¡  C h a n t a l M o u f fe , T h e D e m o c r a t i c P a r a d ox :
§  Classical liberalism: rule of law, individual freedoms, defense of human rights
§  Democractic theor y: equality and popular sovereignty
§  The ability to sustain dissent is more important than any kind of rational consensus (ala
habermas)
§  Agonism: opponents will treat each other not as enemies to be destroyed, but as adversaries
who will fight for the victor y of their position while recognising the right of their opponents to
fight for theirs
NEW URBANISM
 CHAPTER 2. THE PUBLIC SUBJECT OF
FEELING (WITH EXCEPTIONS)

¡  public subjectivity: “the roles we inhabit when we speak and act

about matters that put us into relations with others…ask how
these subjectivities ‘invite certain modes of encountering and
interacting with others’” (45).
¡  Althuser interpellation: “through interpellation, an individual
‘recognizes’ himself or herself within the previously circulating
discourses that define a subject within particular ideological
parameters….hailed his audience as particular kinds of
citizens” (46-7).
¡  Koinos (an orientation towards public life), koine (common
character of a public) idios (a solitar y figure) oikos
(individualistic separate realm)
¡  Authenticity and publics: “The display of feelings was frequently
discussed as a measurement of public orientation and
validity….” (52). “If your not outraged then you’re not paying
attention” (55)
§  “Feeling angry is not a prelude to action; it is the action itself”
§  “Virtue signaling”
CHAPTER 3. VULTURES AND KOOKS: THE
RHETORIC OF INJURY CLAIMS

¡  injury claims: “positions rhetors as injured by anyone who

challenges their position”
§  “When injury constructs our identities as subjects, we find ourselves
invested in the ongoing maintenance of the wound site as a primary
mode of identification….injury claims can actually created
disempowering conditions by investing identity politics in their own
historical narratives of suffering and exclusion….The wound is both
stable and generative. It keeps in place the same old structures, even
as it rages against this system” (81-82).
§  If I don’t feel injured I don’t feel like I need to do anything
¡  emotional othering: “a few kooks led by their emotions” (74)
¡  Topos: “something that bonds the participants, who converge
on it even as they disagree about its status or
implications” (79).
§  Stasis? Let’s talk a little bit about stasis theory.
THIRD WAYS
CHAPTER 4. LOST PLACES AND MEMORY
CLAIMS

¡  “How do memory claims help to construct and nourish certain

public roles?” (102)
§  Memory claims always arise in times of instability: “Keep Austin
weird”
§  “By praising old Austin’s qualities—smallness, tolerance, uniqueness—
the memorializing rhetorics are obviously urging a certain course of
action” (103).
¡  “lost space narratives”: The loss of space that you define your
identity on. Do you have examples?
§  “Makes themselves somewhat distant from the place that is here
right now: New Austin…write themselves out of delibeartions….” the
old Austin was good but I have no stakes in the present (112).
§  The new Austin is a private space—we cannot deliberate about private
spaces in the same way (this is neoliberal discourse)
§  Newcomers lack the right kinds of memories
 SCAPEGOATING

¡  Scapegoat: “Allows rhetors to project agency for unhappy

events onto another body. By projecting agency, rhetors turn
themselves into objects…shifts the stasis question away from
the rhetor’s own potential actions. Instead the stasis is now
centered upon the scapegoat” (121).
§  NIMBY and scapegoating: scapegoating avoids culpability in the
network. Don’t put a garbage dump or a treatment plant by me (even
though I created the trash).
 CHAPTER 5. THE GOOD AND THE BAD:
GENTRIFICATION AND EQUIVALENCE CLAIMS

¡  East Austin, once the legislated bad side of town, is being

gentrified
¡  “People suddenly proclaimed their love for the area and its
culture scene” (130).
¡  Equivalence Claims: both sides are right, a decision is
impossible (krisis) vs. third ways…“implies that ‘facts’ are
open to multiple interpretation” (155)
¡  Spatial othering: Dr. Charles E Urdy Plaza, depicting colorful
images of East Austin but transforming it and evicting
residents in the present. Ignoring that those residents and
their families are still there. People put up walls and fences to
keep others out. “middle-class residents want to retain the
unique cultural feel of east Austin without actually preserving
the black and Latino cultures that helped build the
neighborhoods” (143). (new urbanism?)
 SPATIAL OTHERING

¡  Redlining: the systematic denial of various services (banking,

insurance, healthcare, food) to residents of specific, often
racially associated, neighborhoods or communities, either
directly or through the selective raising of prices (reverse
redlining).
§  1935 the Federal Loan Bank Board created maps of many major
cities, outlining preferable to loan to areas in green and non-
preferable/risky loan areas (read black) in red. These maps were
used by innumerous institutions to make decisions.
§  Also created counterpublics/black banks
CHAPTER 6. INQUIRY AS SOCIAL ACTION

¡  Inquiry as telos: investigation of networked relationships and

power. “What are the working relations? How can we change
the relations to remake the process?” (168)
§  The flaneur: The disengaged wanderer.
§  “By encouraging subjects who relate to the world through questions,
wonder, inquiry, investigation, archive, we are disallowing subjects
who write themselves out of the scene of rhetoric” (196).
 MID-TERM

¡  Our midterm for this class will be a 8 double-spaced page (not

including citations) wandering analysis of a thing or space
using the theory we’ve read.
¡  Requirements:
§  Must analyze a thing or a space.
§  This thing or place must be “local” (imagine another scholar writing
about the same topic—what can you know that they don’t, what
examples can you use?).
§  Must ask a local expert.
§  Must involve some kind of site observation.
§  Must connect to our theory.
§  Must include a research question: why or how does x?
¡  Midterm Due: October 17