Affective Mapping and the Rhetoric of Futurity

In the context of composition pedagogy, how do we explain the disparity between the proliferation of theory and the implementation of practice? Since the 1960s, the proliferation of scholarship in rhetoric and composition studies has moved along at a "MTV-like speed" with new specialized discourses and sub-discourses appearing in the field as ubiquitously as they are fragmented. One reoccurring thread focuses on addressing the pedagogical needs of the composition classroom. As such, scholarship that advocates critical, liberatory, multimodal, multilingual, progressive, etc. methodologies routinely critique the current-traditional approach to writing instruction, an approach that focuses primarily on structure and mechanics. Although the aforementioned "progressive" methodologies have begun to be utilized more frequently in the classroom, the production of theory outdistances the actual implementation of theory. Personal experience and the abundance of scholarship that calls for pedagogical reform suggests that first-year composition programs remain rutted in the current-traditional, while theory is constantly on the proverbial assembly line. A possible explanation for this can be found by answering a second question: to what degree did the emotional affects of anxiety, shame, disgust, and optimism contribute to the formation (and fragmentation) of the discipline? One way to think about an answer is through what I've been calling an "affective mapping." Essentially, I'll be tracking the history of the English department and the splintering of disciplines within through a lens that will focus on viewing the emotionally affective responses to internal and external stimuli in and around academia. Furthermore, an affective mapping allows us to situate the current theory/practice dichotomy in a space created by the rhetoric of futurity. The mapping will show the ways in which the ongoing and persistent affect of anxiety functioned (and functions still) as a producer of scholarship, and at the root of this anxiety is what Lauren Berlant would call a cruel optimistic desire to be a part of a future only called into existence by the production of theory itself. In other words, we create an idealized future through the production of theory, and if we think about the existence of this future as one reliant on constitutive rhetoric, then it can only be sustained through further production of theory. This project will accomplish three objectives: 1. It will provide an alternative interpretation of the development of rhetoric and composition as an academic discipline. 2. It will offer a different explanation for the disconnect between theory and practice, which will allow for discourse on the topic to further expand. 3. It will provide ideas for the ways in which we, as teachers and scholars, will approach our own writing and teaching methodologies. The project does not intend to provide a definitive answer to these questions, rather it seeks to engage the discourse community in a different kind of conversation about the current state of the field.