plagiarism again?
Music: Rilo Kiley: More Adventurous (2004)
They say that intellectual theft is the sincerest form of flattery, but I call it stealing. As I reported earlier this year, huge chunks of my book were lifted, verbatim, on a conspiracy theorist's website. On a Vanity Google last night I ran across another larcenous nugget o' liftage, this time from a graduate student in Canada.
This January Shaun and I published "Zombie Trouble," an essay that likens the failure of rhetoricians to tackle the problem of determinism to a fear of zombies. Central to the essay is an elaboration of the category of the unconscious as a dynamic locus of ideology. Here's our abstract:
In order to help frame a current theoretical impasse, in this essay we forward the figure of the zombie in Western cinema as an allegory for the reception of the concept of ideology by communication scholars. After noting parallels between (a) an early academic caricature of ideology and the laboring zombie; and (b) the subject of ideological interpellation and the ravenous, consuming zombie of more recent cinema, we suggest that rhetorical scholars have yet to move beyond an obsession with the laboring zombie. To escape the connotation of determinism that haunts ideology critique, we urge an acceptance of the category of the unconscious and a focus on ideology as a force of subjectification.
Key Words: ideology, interpellation, living dead, psychoanalysis, subjectification, the unconscious, zombie
Apparently, Rebecca Carruthers Den Hoed has had similar thoughts. At this year's annual meeting of the Canadian Society for the Study of Rhetoric, this individual presented a paper titled "Zombie Trouble: The New Unconscious and Rhetorical Agency." Hrm. Here's the abstract:
Rhetoric has celebrated the agency of the autonomous, intentional, conscious rhetor for centuries, aligning conscious, intentional, and (by extension) rational suasion with the production of powerful rhetorical effects since the time of Aristotle. However, under the influence of poststructuralism, rhetoric has begun to re-examine some of its assumptions about the rhetorical agent and agency: e.g., challenging the assumption that rhetorical agency is something individual agents always already "own," and investigating agencies that lie beyond the control or awareness of individual agents. However, the current debate over rhetorical agency still tends to neglect investigations of unconscious suasive processes, processes that might very well explain some of the ways rhetorical agency lies beyond the control or awareness of an individual rhetor. To address this lack, I intend to bring to bear some of the most recent theories of the unconscious on the core assumptions of the current debate over rhetorical agency; however, unlike the few scholars currently undertaking similar projects, I intend to extend my consideration beyond Freud's or Lacan's respective views of the dynamic unconscious - views that, while deeply embedded in poststructuralist theory, are painfully out of date and limited in scope. Rather, I will focus my attention on theories of the "new unconscious": theories gathering considerable force in psychological circles, and theories that should not be neglected in the current debate simply because rhetorical scholars are less familiar with them. While these theories of the "new unconscious" do not negate key aspects of Freud's or Lacan's view of the dynamic unconscious, they extend far beyond these views, and cut deeper into some of our core assumptions (and anxieties) about rhetorical agency.
Well, not exactly identical, but close enough to make me blog about it. I mean, these are not ideas unique to us, but the friggin' title: at least give us credit for the Butler-riff! Jeez. Here's her email address, should anyone want to drop her a note.