Publishers--the silent partners in history creation

In the last couple weeks we’ve read a lot about the creation of the alphabet, language and literacy. Pretty soon here we’ll read about the reading revolutions that came prior to ebooks. (I read ahead because I like things in a top ten format and the topic seemed more interesting than my Lit Theory reading.) And after I read the Octologs I began to wonder about the power structures that shape our view of history. Specifically I began to wonder where they are located. Saying “the academy” is a cop out. The academy is a dominating force, but what drives it?

            I think a large part of it has to do with the currency of publishing. In nearly all of the readings (themselves, of course, published pieces) the rhetorical situation of publishing came into play. Jarrett rightly invokes Marx in her position statement in Octolog prime. Her first statement afterwards immediately goes to the material: “The printed offering that is on the sheet that you have makes a case for text selection” (16). The dominating monolithic histories stayed monolithic because of publishing. Forgotten histories are forgotten because they are not written down or because the author has less credible ethos (Crowley). Thus histories that add to the mainstream gain value. Put simply, it was not profitable to write about Other groups for a long time.

            In this way I read Bizzel’s chapter as a tale of capitalism. There was, as she puts it, “an explosion of feminist scholarship in the history of rhetoric over the last ten years” (95). I certainly don’t want to diminish the importance of this; however, this explosion creates certain markets and venues for publishing. In perhaps a more clearly capitalist story Lunsford outlines the publication process of Reclaiming Rhetorica. Here we have a grad class that subverts the conventions of a seminar class (at least as I know them) to write an important recovery of history. No publisher wanted it. Enter Lunsford and her academic currency. In terms of economics Lunsford and her ethos lent enough credibility to the project that, in the eyes of the publisher, this volume makes a saleable niche product. (Let me reiterate that this is the angle of the capitalist market, not necessarily how I feel about it.) The same market makes the more women-friendly edition of the Rhetorical Tradition possible. Now it could hardly be called a niche since it has proven itself profitable for publishers. I have to wonder what voices publishers decide are not profitable—are there minorities that, to the publisher, do not merit the time, effort and money spent on producing the material book? Is digital publishing with its low overhead and wide accessibility a venue for these voices? If so, why are some in the academy loathe to accept digital scholarship? Is it about more than being digital?

            Concerns about the push to publish are not new. Fifteen years ago Ferreira-Buckely outlined the “rush to publish” as one of her explanations on the lack of “thick description” in research (28). Today, the value of digital publication is hotly debated by tenure committees. The egalitarianism we’ve striven for in research is undercut by the capitalist system in which it is presented. Publishing in academia remains hierarchical and driven by profit—both in terms of money and prestige. To heed the words of Ralph Cintron, economic forces are eroding public education (125). Chief amongst its propagators are the publishers of these histories.

I was going to do another, shorter blog entry about layout and design. Instead I’m just going to tack it on to the end here:          

Additionally I have to be concerned about the hegemony of the publishing house. For years how people read information was mediated by technology (i.e. the alphabet, stone tablets, scrolls, codex, etc.). Each time technology “advanced,” literacy spread. It seems we’ve reached a curious point in academia. The publishers, who have historically been inextricably tied to the university system, have a stake in yesterday’s technology—the paper book. And it seems that the academy has bought into this notion in the most literal sense. Yes, Kairos and Enculturation and C&C online do challenge the monolithic publishing house dynamic; but the layout and design of these cutting edge journals still smack of print conventions. It’s hard to follow Vitanza’s call to “be wild” when so many of the conventions of (industrial age) print dictate what will contribute public knowledge and eventually history—elements like the value of alphabetic text, traditional page layouts, texts that engage only the audiovisual, linearity, “print” cycles, branded looks (fonts, spacing, photo formatting). Why do we restrict literacy with these print conventions when the technology is so obviously there?

Moreover, academia equates the medium with value (a la tenure portfolios and graduate admission processes). Take the Octolog I for instance. As a presentation it was quite popular. As an article, it becomes a site of study, a moment in history to be studied. This is great. It’s conversational. James Murphy makes some jokes. The crowd participates. Then a curious thing happens. In the following Octologs the presentation aspect of the, well presentation, comes through less. Gone are the transcript qualities. Now we have subheaders—a far more academicy convention. If the Octolog IV: The Journey Home were to happen today, how would it be presented? From my experience doing online teaching, I would like to see it as a Google Hangout with the broadcast feature, each of the participants live-tweeting as the others spoke.

In reality, it would be a presentation put into print—a thing made to look like a book chapter (for that is what articles are modeled after). We’ve sold ethos to publishing houses in exchange for prestige. This makes it hard to “cross border, lift rhetors, and study systems” as Burton puts it. I’m left wondering how long the Octolog III’s fascination with embodiment can sustain, when the places to discuss it are, on the whole, venues for capitalistic enterprise.