Rhetoric, Technology, Culture Spring 2011

Kyle--You've drawn me in, once again, with your use of the word "affirmative" because while reading Edgerton, I too, kept thinking Muckelbauermuckelbauermuckelbauer...JohnMuckelbauer.

In regard to Muckelbauer's theory of invention, I appreciate that you are thinking about future(/al) matters, because in doing so you are also focusing on the potential implications/consequences if Edgerton's argument were to be enacted. By considering the future, you move Edgerton's argument toward the affirmative, toward a consideration of all possibilities not just those within the binary. I also agree with you that there is a way of being more inclusive, where the new should not be negated nor should it be given total primacy over the old or no longer used; there is absolutely a way of reorienting Edgerton's argument to be more affirmative.

I am probably getting completely off track--but your discussion got me thinking about writing and pedagogy (bear with me). The argument you put forth--in relation to Edgerton's--seems to echo the process v. product debate. Edgerton is, in a sense, a proponent of process, where what's produced matters less than what should be counted in getting us there. I wonder how we might read your argument as a way of thinking affirmatively about writing as a type of "back and forth" (think Andy Clark) inventing. The idea you seem to be putting forth is of a reciprocity of invention, that we invent intentionally but we also invent through thinking about how we might invent.

--Allison