October, 1998: "Continuing Our Conversation" - KB Journal

‘99 conference

culture, criticism, dialectic:engaging kenneth burke

The Fourth Triennial Conference of the Kenneth Burke Society willconvene on the campus of the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa,20-23 May 1999, on the theme “Culture, Criticism, Dialectic: EngagingKenneth Burke.” Hosted by the A. Craig Baird Center for PublicAdvocacy and Debate and the Department of Communication Studiesat the University of Iowa, the conference features diverse opportunitiesfor engagement: plenary keynote addresses, concurrent panelsessions,seminar sessions, informal but topical “post-prandial parlor”conversations, special and ongoing events, including video screenings,publishers’ exhibits, photograph and artifact displays, and WWWprojects, awards ceremonies, critics’ roundtable discussion, featuringthe keynote speakers, on-going conversations, into the evening. Key-note speakers for the conference will be Jane Blankenship, MichaelCalvin McGee, and William R. Rueckert.

University of IowaIowa City, Iowa

20-23 May ‘99

The conference hotel is the Holiday Inn of Iowa City, which also willhost the opening reception and other social activities. Special eventsare planned at Old Capital, the Iowa Union, the Becker CommunicationStudies Building, and the Amana Colonies. It’s an easy walk from theHoliday Inn to the campus buildings; buses to the Amana Colonies willbe provided for those flying in. Other tours can be set up to the Amishvillages south of Iowa City and to the Herbert Hoover PresidentialLibrary, ten miles away. Registration material will be available by March.

1999 Conference Information: pages 4-9.

‘96 conference

continuing the conversation:kenneth burke’s centenary

Duquesne UniversityPittsburgh, PA20-23 May ‘96

Preparations for the 1996 Conference began at the 1993 Conference.The Chief Conference Planner, Star Muir of George Mason Univer-sity, was elected and a Conference Planning Committee was formedwhich included Elvera Berry, Roberts Wesleyan College, ThomasCarmichael, University of Western Ontario, Timothy Crusius, South-ern Methodist University, Greig Henderson, University of Toronto,James Klumpp, University of Maryland, Richard Thames, DuquesneUniversity, and David Cratis Williams, University of Puerto Rico.The Program and Selection Committee was selected with co-chairsDavid Cratis Williams and Greig Henderson. The Awards SelectionCommittee was also duly constituted, with members Arnie Madsen(Chair), University of Northern Iowa, C. Allen Carter, OklahomaCity University, Mark McManus, West Georgia College, Jean Miller,University of Maryland.

The Conference theme, “Continuing the Conversation,” was sug-gested by Burke’s own anecdote from Philosophy of Literary Form,where we join a lively conversation in progress, engage in discoursewith others in the “parlor,” and then depart with the discussion stillvigorously in progress. Since Burke has “moved on,” the theme ofthe 1996 centennial Burke conference contained the seeds of newgrowth and new directions: a celebration of the discourse and theinterchange with which we are all engaged.

1996 Conference Report: pages 10-35

March 1998 4 The Kenneth Burke Society Newsletter

Submissions of Papers, Abstracts,or Program Proposals

The Society invites submissions of papers, abstracts,or program proposals. Topics are open to anysubject related to Burkean scholarship. Onlycomplete papers submitted by 15 December 1998will be eligible for awards; papers and proposalssubmitted after that date but before 1 January1999 will still be considered for inclusion on theConference program. Papers accepted for theprogram will be considered for a volume plannedto come out of the conference. Awards will begiven for Top Graduate Student Paper and TopPaper overall. Texts of all submissions (papers,300-500 word abstracts or program proposals)should be prepared for blind review. Identifystudent papers as such in the submission coverletter only. Send three copies of all submissionsto David Blakesley, Department of English,Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL62901-4503; or James F. Klumpp, Department ofSpeech Communication, University of Maryland,College Park MD 20742-7635. Paper andproposal selections will be announced by 15February 1999.

‘99

Self-Nominations forTopical Seminars

The Society also invites self-nominations for topicalseminars engaging the work of Kenneth Burke. Theimmediate goal of each seminar is to allow a groupof participants to explore a specific topic of pivotalcommon interest in multiple sessions spread through-out the conference; however, the ultimate goal is toenable participants to develop research questionsand scholarly agenda that guide further work on theseminar topic. Seminar particpants will prepare andpresent position papers, although formats may varyamong the seminars. Paper and program submittorsare also encouraged to participate in the seminarseries. In order to self-nominate for seminar inclu-sion, please send your name, contact information,and a rank order for your preferred three (3)seminars selections to David Cratis Williams, BurkeConference Planner, Department of English, Univer-sity of Puerto Rico, PO Box 23356, San Juan, PR00931-3356. Every effort will be made to honorseminar preferences. The deadline for self-nomina-tions in 15 January 1999. Seminar placement willbe announced by 15 February after which seminarparticipants will be contacted by the coordinatorsof their seminars with information concerningspecific procedures for each seminar. Questionsconcerning each seminar can be directed to thecoordinator of that seminar. In indicating seminarpreferences, please clearly identify the seminarsby both title and coordinator. Seminarswith their coordinators are listedon pages 6-9.

The Kenneth Burke Society Newsletter 5 March 1998

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Nominations for AwardsThe Society also calls for nominations for awardsin the following categories: Lifetime Achieve-ment, Distinguished Service, and EmergingScholar. The Lifetime Achievement Awardrecognizes sustained excellence in Burkeanscholarship and pedagogy; previous recipientsare Leland Griffin (1990), William Rueckert(1993), and Bernard Brock (1996). The Distin-guished Service Award rewards major contribu-tions to the work of the Society; previous recipi-ents are Sharon Dailey (1990), James Chesebro(1993), and Dale Bertelson (1996). The Emerg-ing Scholar Award honors a young scholar whoseearly work shows most promise for long termcontributions to Burke studies; previous recipientsare Dale Bertelson (1993) and Mark Wright(1996).Nominations should include a brief rationale qualify-ing candidates for the Awards for which they arenominated. All nominations are confidential. Dead-line for all nominations is 15 December 1998.Please submit nominations to C. Allen Carter, 4320Lyrewood, Norman, OK 73072. E-mail:[email protected].

Request for Archive Material

The Society invites persons and/or departments withvideotapes, audiotapes, photographs or accounts ofKenneth Burke who would be willing to show,display, or otherwise share those materials at theConference to contact J. Clarke Rountree, Depart-ment of Communication Arts, University ofAlabama at Huntsville, Morton Hall, Huntsville,AL 35899-00001. Office phone: (205)-895-6645. E-mail: [email protected].

Additional InquiriesDirect additional inquiries to the relevant planner:

Chief Conference Planner: David CratisWilliams, Department of English, University ofPuerto Rico, PO Box 23356, San Juan, Puerto Rico00931-3356. Office phone: (787) 764-0000, ext.3797 or 2553. E-mail: [email protected]

Local Arrangements: Bruce Gronbeck, Depart-ment of Communication Studies, 105 BCSB,University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242-1498;Office phone: (319) 335-4034. Messages: (319)628-4033. Fax: (319) 335-2930). E-mail: [email protected].

Program Planning and Seminars: James F.Klumpp, Department of Speech Communication,University of Maryland, College Park MD 20742-7635. Fax: 301-314-9471. E-mail: [email protected]; or,David Blakesley, Department of English, SouthernIllinois University, Carbondale, Carbondale, IL62901-4503. Fax: 618-453-3253. E-mail:[email protected].

Awards: C Allen Carter, 4320 Lyrewood,Norman, OK 73072. E-mail: [email protected].

Additional conference information will be postedon the following websites:“Burke-L”: http://www.siu.edu/departments/english/acadareas/rhetcomp/burke/index.html.“Kenneth Burke Society”: http://www.home.duq.edu/~thames/kennethburke.

Conference Calls


Back to Basics:Applying Burkean Thought inthe Undergraduate Classroom

Seminar Coordinator: Dennis Ciesielski,University of Wisconsin at Platteville.

Overview: Based on the presumption that scholar-ship informs pedagogy and pedagogy drives schol-arship, this seminar proposes that we introduceBurke’s ideas and theoretical approaches into theundergraduate classroom with an emphasis ongeneral education or core courses. Approaching“entry-level” college thinking from Burke’s rhetoricalperspective might open new venues for learning andinterdisciplinary collaboration, and compel incomingstudents to become participants in their educationrather than buying into the competitive aspect Burkesees as exclusive and socially counterproductive.

Contact Information: Dennis Ciesielski, Depart-ment of Humanities, University of Wisconsin atPlatteville, 1 University Plaza, Platteville, WI 53818.Office phone: (608) 342-1908. E-mail: [email protected].

Kenneth Burke and Ethics

Seminar Coordinator: Timothy W. Crusius,Southern Methodist University

Overview: The purpose of the seminar is toexplore the intriguing problem of ethics, afterNietzsche, in the “postmodern condition,” and to dothis in the context of Burke’s career-long preoccu-pation with the ethical. As we know, for Burkeethics is not simply arbitrary or an example of thewill to power, but ontological, rooted especially inthe being of language, in the negative and the ten-dency to be “rotten with perfection.” Thus, for him,there is no route “beyond good and evil.” But thereis also no urge on his part to return to classicalethics, whether “after Aristotle” or “after Kant.” Sothere are many unanswered questions, among themthe following we shall address:

♦ How should we characterize Burke’s own ethics?♦ How did Burke pose and approach the question?♦ What happened to the Ethics of Motives?♦ Compared to other philosophers of his time, how

well did Burke cope with the question of ethics?♦ What can Burke contribute to the postmodern

conversation about ethics?

Contact Information: Timothy W. Crusius,Department of English, Southern Methodist Univer-sity, Dallas, TX 75275. Office phone: (214) 768-4363. E-mail: [email protected]

Kenneth Burke andthe Rhetoric of the Seen

Seminar Coordinator: Bruce E. Gronbeck,University of Iowa

Becker Communication Studies Building


Kenneth Burke andAmerican Poetry

Seminar Coordinator: Miriam Marty Clark,Auburn University

Overview: This seminar explores Burke’s pro-foundly important and generative relationship toAmerican poets and poetry from the 1920s to the1990s, from Pound and Williams to Ammons andNemerov. The seminar comprises three over-lapping areas of study:

♦ Burke’s poetics, beginning with Counter-Statement, particularly as those are (or can be)addressed to lyric texts;

♦ his analytical and critical writings on poets andpoetry together with his engagements (throughessays, reviews, talks, and letters) of other criticalmovements, particularly the New Criticism andDeconstruction, which focus significant energieson lyric poetry;

♦ and his influence, which is established throughfriendships with American poets (Moore,Nemerov, Ransom, Roethke, Williams) andassociations with critics and theorists (Blackmur,Bloom, Cowley, DeMan, Donoghue, Ransom,Tate) of poetry. The primary purpose of theseminar is to develop a fuller understanding ofBurke’s contributions to poetry, poetry criticism,and literary theory in the twentieth century and soto expand our knowledge of his complex contri-butions to American intellectual life.

Contact Information: Miriam Marty Clark,Department of English, 9030 Haley Center, AuburnUniversity, Auburn, AL 36849-5203. Email:[email protected]

Overview: Burke’s fondness for words aboutwords is legendary, yet it must be remembered thathe likewise appreciated visualization and face-to-face performance as dimensions of symbolic action.Yet, Burke left no systematic legacy on the analysisof visual, especially mass-mediated, discourse. Thisseminar asks its participants to think about specificways in which Burkean thought, criticism, and/orvocabulary are useful in studying especially elec-tronic—radio, television, film, the digitized world ofthe Internet—but also other forms (e.g., theatre,demonstration, spectacle) of publicly shared, seen,and performed discourse. There is a purposiveambiguity in this call: ways of studying either “visualdiscourse” or “public performance” are acceptable,for both are variations on the problem of under-standing how The Seen works rhetorically. Partici-pants may work in either or both vocabularies whenapproaching their position papers. Participants in thisseminar will share, not common readings, butcommon screenings, which will be sent out as soonas seminarians are selected:

♦ a shortened version of “Triumph of the Will” (withEnglish subtitles)

♦ a 1950s anti-Communist documentary♦ the joint appearance of Bill and Hilary Clinton on

“60 Minutes” in January 1992♦ scenes from the funeral of Princess Diana♦ selected political advertisements

Contact Information: Bruce E. Gronbeck,Obermann Center for Advanced Studies, N134OH, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242;Office phone: (319) 335-4034. Messages: (319)628-4033. Fax: (319) 335-2930). E-mail: [email protected].

‘99 Seminars


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Kenneth Burke and theAmerican Philosophical Tradition

Seminar Coordinator: David Hildebrand,University of Texas at Austin

Overview: At the present time, Burke’s work israrely invoked by philosophy at all, not even byAmerican philosophers. This is surprising, given theabundance of important parallels between Burke’sviews and American philosophy, especially pragma-tism. Participants in this seminar would

♦ investigate points of identification and division be-tween Burke and American philosophical tradi-tions;

♦ discuss what it means to categorize Burke as aphilosopher, and thus how doing so can trans-form our understanding of Burke’s criticalproject(s), as well as philosophy’s;

♦ discuss the practical and ameliorative implicationsof these works for contemporary American life.

Contact Information: David L. Hildebrand,2300 Enfield Road, Apt. D, Austin, Texas 78703Office phone: (512) 469-0628. E-mail: [email protected]

Burke, Phenomenology, andExistentialism: Can They Dance?

Seminar Coordinator: Wade Kenny,University of Dayton

Overview: Burke’s relationship to phenomenologyand existentialism is checkered. On the one hand heis at times quite critical of writers such as Heideggerand Sartre; on the other he explicitly employswriters such as Kierkegaard and Nietzsche indeveloping some of his fundamental ideas, and

ironically produces ways of thinking that are verysimilar to the existentialist arguments that have beenput forth in this century by Sartre and Heidegger forexample. In this seminar, we will explore some ofthe key ideas in both existentialism and Burkologywith a view toward mergers and divisions. Discus-sions may revolve around connections with specificscholars like Levinas, Sartre, Unamuno, Heidegger,Merleau-Ponty, or around specific issues such as therelationship between Heidegger’s argument thatthings come into being through a dialectic betweenhiddeness and unhiddeness and Burke’s notion ofthe terministic screen.

Contact Information: Wade Kenny, Communica-tion Department, University of Dayton, Dayton, OH45469-1419. E-mail: [email protected].

Art, Politics and Social Change:Will the Real K.B. Please Stand Up?

Seminar Coordinator: Kathleen Farrell,University of Iowa

Overview: Literary and rhetorical scholars havepaid little attention to Kenneth Burke’s politicalactivities and his struggle to theorize the relationshipbetween aesthetics, rhetoric, and political action.This is surprising given the Greenwich Village milieuof intellectuals and artists. This seminar aims to focuson this aspect of Burke’s work and life, takingadvantage of the recent work by Jack Selzer andprimary historical materials from the Burke archivesat Penn State, the Newberry Library in Chicago,and the James T. Farrell collection at the Universityof Pennsylvania, the letters between MalcolmCowley and Burke, and selected essays from the“Little Magazines” including the Dial, Contact, theMasses, Seven Arts, & the American Mercury.

‘99 Seminars


Contact Information: Kathleen Farrell, Depart-ment of Communication Studies, University of Iowa,Iowa City IA 52242; phone: (319) 353-2253;email: [email protected]

Kenneth Burke and theRhetorical Tradition

Seminar Coordinator: Michael Leff,Northwestern University

Overview: The prominence of Burke’s writingshave encouraged, if not forced, efforts to placeBurke in relation to the rhetorical tradition. Theearliest of these efforts judged Burke in relation tothe Aristotelian tradition, either as completely com-patible (Holland) or as completely subversive (W.S.Howell). Burke has now been placed in relation toCiceronianism, to deconstruction, to medieval alle-gorical hermeneutics, and to post-modernism. Atthis point, a new assessment seems to be needed,taking into account the variety and diversity of per-spectives that already have appeared. Is there, per-haps, a Burkean way of understanding how Burkemay be interpreted? If so, what would it be and howcould we use it productively? This seminar will givespecial attention to the section entitled “TraditionalPrinciples of Rhetoric” in A Rhetoric of Motives,since this text offers a concrete ground for beginningdiscussion, but all of Burke’s corpus is open forconsideration. Some topics that might arise include:the unconscious in Burke and whether it distinguisheshis rhetoric from earlier traditions; Burke’s notionsof substance, ambiguity, perspective, irony; theoryand practice as conceived by Burke; style (tropics)and invention (topics) as Burke understands them inthe tradition and in relation to his own project; con-cepts of agency and the self in Burke and compari-sion to traditional and post-modern concepts;Burke’s view of his own placement in history andthe role of eloquence in his “counter-statement” tothe prevailing attitude toward language and knowledge.

Contact Information: Michael Leff, Departmentof Communication Studies, Northwestern University,Evanston, IL 60208-1340; phone: (847) 831-4932;fax (708) 467-1036; e-mail: [email protected].

The Enthymeme as Body of Proofin Kenneth Burke’s Rhetoric?

Seminar Coordinator: Tilly Warnock, Universityof Arizona

Overview: This seminar builds on Don M. Burks’insight in “Dramatic Irony, Collaboration, and Ken-neth Burke’s Theory of Form” that Burke is “preoc-cupied” with “what may loosely be called a theoryof enthymatic collaboration.” We will generate adefinition of “enthymeme,” from Burke’s two explicituses of the term, Burks’s article, and works on asuggested reading list, to track the development of“qualitative progression” in Counter-Statement andBurke’s juxtaposition of this term with “syllogisticprogression” in “Lexicon Rhetoricae.” We willfinally assess gains and losses of the claim that theenthymeme is the body of proof in Burke’s rhetoric.

Contact Information: Tilly Warnock, Depart-ment of English, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ85721; office phone: (520) 621-3553; fax: (520)621-7397; e-mail: [email protected]


Given that 1996 represented Kenneth Burke’s100th year, it seemed entirely appropriate to cele-brate his centennial and come full cycle back toPittsburgh, his place of birth—an urban setting abit different from the agrarian surroundings of thetwo prior conferences, and a bit more like theoriginal conference in Philadelphia. The confer-ence was hosted at Duquesne University in down-town Pittsburgh, and the seminars, presentationsand discussions were held in Bayer Hall, a com-fortable and recent addition to the campus. Out-side a fountain sparkled and the campus in gen-eral reflected the loveliness of springtime in Penn-sylvania with multicolored beds of flowers andthe relaxed atmosphere of a campus after gradua-tion. The weather provided a day of light show-ers, but was sunny and breezy much of the time.

Thursday evening Donn Parson, President ofthe Burke Society, provided opening remarks andinvited us to join the conversation. The Univer-

sity Provost Michael Weber, a renowned historianof Pittsburgh, presented an opening slideshowwith remarks about the cultural milieu of Pitts-burgh at the turn of the century, when Burke livedthere as a child. This narrative about Pittsburghin the 1890’s and the 1900’s looked at the classstructures which influenced young Burke, andprovided an insightful grounding for those inter-ested in the close relationship in Burke betweencontext and motive. David Cratis Williams,Program Planner for the Conference, concludedthe evening’s opening session by introducing usto early Burke, discussing his childhood, highschool experiences and friends that had lastingeffects on Burke’s approach to life.

At the business meeting, the Society voted tocreate a society journal, tentatively entitled KB,and gave approval for Richard Thames, past andcontinuing Editor of the Newsletter, authority toestablish an editorial board and begin the process

Star Muir, Chief Convention Planner

Bayer Hall


of production. A new position, Society Historian,was created to oversee the History of the KennethBurke Society, and James Chesebro was selected(in absentia but with agreement) the first Historianof the Society. Andrew King of Louisiana StateUniversity succeeded asPresident. Officerselected were: GreigHenderson of theUniversity of Toronto,Vice-President; DavidCratis Williams of theUniversity of PuertoRico, ‘99 ConventionPlanner; Arnie Madsenof the University ofNorthern Iowa, Trea-surer. Richard Thameswas re-elected News-letter Editor.

cuisine and ample libations. Awards were presentedfor Lifetime Achievement—Bernard Brock, WayneState University; Distinguished Service—DaleBertelsen, Blooms-burg University; EmergingScholar—Mark Wright, Embry-Riddle University;

Top/OutstandingGraduate Paper—Bryan Crable, PurdueUniversity.

The Friday nightconcert was plannedby members ofBurke’s family—Tom and SteveChapin, JulieWhitaker, andMichael Burke—who fashioned awonderful eveningaround his music and

Conference HighlightsThree speakers addressed the Conference in lieu ofthe single keynote of past conferences. WayneBooth, Professor Emeritus at the University ofChicago, spoke on “Burke’s Retreat from HisOwn Ontological Proof”; Richard Harvey Brown,Professor of Sociology at the University of Mary-land, addressed the issue of “Postmodern Capital-ism as Symbolic Action”; and Denis Donoghue,Professor of American Arts and Letters at NewYork University, spoke on “The Aesthetics ofCounter-Statement.” All provocatively openedup more conversations for participants and contin-ued many of these discussions throughout theconference into the culminating panel on Sunday.

The Saturday night banquet was a highlight ofthe Conference. Andrew King stimulated thealready effervescent crowd with a titillating andevocative tribute to the many different generationsof Kenneth Burke. Burke books were raffled offto graduate students, four lucky ticket holdersreceiving two new Burke books apiece. Awardswere presented to great applause and apprecia-tion, and all of this in addition to an outstanding

poetry, pulling together a tenor, soprano, bass,guitar, violin, and piano to play classical and folkmusic as well a few Burkeian advertising jingles.Selections from some of Burke’s letters wereread, as well as some of his unpublished poemscompiled and read by Julie Whitaker.

The Conference also featured a display ofmemorabilia and a gallery of photographs. Itemsavailable for viewing included an old typewriter,a Spanish copy of the Rhetoric of Religion, lettersfrom Burke’s travels, his copy of Aristotle’s Rhetoriccomplete with annotations, t-shirts, musicalscores, one of his canes, and his two-person woodsaw. The gallery was a fabulous selection ofphotographs of KB and family, including severalcelebrity shots and some “mystery” pictures.

Due to the effort and creativity of Burke’sfamily, these portions of the conference added thereal flavor of Burke himself. For this humanizingof Burke, as well for their tremendous creativecontributions and some of their insightful reac-tions in the seminars, the Society is greatly appre-ciative of the Burke family.


Welcome to Pittsburgh, the city of champions. Thelate Howard Cosell called it “the cyclorama of theindustrial revolution—a showcase of sport’s excel-lence flanked by giant seigfrieds shoveling slag intoblazing taconite smelt furnaces. He also called it:“a Homeric arena where even those who are notchampions may inhale The same oxygen and drinkthe same water that those who arechampions regularly consume.”

Three rivers, two mountainchains, four rail lines and six greatarterial roads were—so saidAndrew Carnegie—a strongfoundation for personal, corporateand communal enrichment. Fourscore and 19 years ago whenKenneth Burke was born here atthe very end of the reign of QueenVictoria, Pittsburgh was in itsheroic age. “To walk its streetsfull of powerful day laborers, wideawake industrialists, and strong

But Burke would not want us to spend a singleminute talking about his death. When MalcolmCowley wrote: “you and I were nobodies at 50, justcoming on at 60 and medal winners in our 80’s. Wecan enjoy freshness and novelty in our old age,” heechoed Burke’s sentiments who then quoted theFrench fabulist fondly: “Neither death nor the sun

can be looked at steadily.” KB lovedlife. He noted that even the morbid

prince Hamlet expostulated: “Methinks there is no goodness in the

worm.” Since this conference haslooked at so many aspects of

Burke’s life, thought and influenceit is well to remember that it tooka long time for Burke to become

Burke. He grew through themedium of human suffering, false

starts, misfires, crises, and alwaysthrough the ferocious beating that life

administers to those rare souls whoattempt to live out their own values.

limbed mechanics,” said the visitor, Carl Sandburg,“was a fructifying experience for a poet.” “Walkingthe vivid scarlet and black night of the city,” wroteVachel Lindsay “was like taking a bath in steel.”

Three years ago when this conference last met inthe velvet green spring of the Virginia piedmont,Kenneth Burke still lived. He was eagerly expected,but he did not appear. Late on the second day, twoenigmatic messages were sent to the convention.

The first: “Imitate the animals. Move to thecenter of the road.”

The second: “What is a bad story? Isn’t it anovel whose virtues have not been discovered.”

The first was interpreted as a plea to avoid binarytragedy by including a third term to insure a comicframe. The second was recognized as a parody ofEmerson’s famous observation about weeds: “Whatis a weed? A plant whose virtues have not beendiscovered.”

As late as 1925 his correspondence reveals hisuncertainty and differences. In January 1925, hewrote to Malcolm Cowley that he felt always like acertain character in Thomas Mann, an unengagedand ineffectual observer who seemed always to bewatching other people’s lives though iron framedwindows. Burke referred to Hans Castorp whosegrail seeking quest with Santembrini, Peeperkorn,and other “sages” ended pointlessly in his firstdoomed infantry charge of The Great War. In themid 1930’s he witnessed the death of the left’s faithin Stalin, whom many literati had revered as theKeeper of the flame of Socialism; he courageouslytold the intellectuals that even they could no longerignore the clay feet of the man he had called, thelittle father, Lenin. In the late 30’s he suffered thenausea and vertigo of moral uncertainty: “Godknows I was sluggish about making the change fromaestheticism to social emphasis. Like Conrad’s

STORMING VALHALLAPresidential Address: Andrew King, KBS President 1996-99


Lord Jim, I always just miss the full measure.”Burke was still a believer in Dostoyevsky’s stan-dard–greatness lies only in extremes. Extremes!The opening of the 1940’s finds him reeling from thecharge that he had stolen the pentad from I. A.Richards’ Science and Poetry published 1926. Hedefended himself angrily to Cowley in the NewRepublic arguing that he had conceived it in roughbark form in a 1922 issue of the Dial in a review ofStill Life and The Things We Are. As the lateCharles Krumpp averred in his famous adaptation ofthe Pentad in the Writing classroom a nine termedheuristic (containing the Pentad) appears in Horace(8 B.C.) In 1943 He still felt unworthy of a literaryaward proposed by Mariane Moore 17 years earlier.In 1946 he smarted under the savage attacks ofSidney Hook whose unhappy phrase beat uponBurke’s brain for four decades from The NewRepublic, and the New York Review of Books:“Burke lacks lucidity. Burke lacks lucidity. Burkelacks lucidity.” Two decades after he completedPermanence and Change, he was stillincensed by the suggestion that his coreconcept of the psychic necessity of oscillationbetween stability and innovation had beenstolen from I. A. Richards’ The Meaning ofMeaning. In the late 40’s hetold Cowley: People meet meand they say to me: “For all yourtalk, you seem to be a fellowwho is in retreat.”

All this seems astonishingfrom a man who regularly drankwatery coffee and devouredlarge sticky buns at Quaglino’swith the likes of Allen Tate,Marian Moore, George CramCook, John Brooks Wheel-wright, Lincoln MacVeagh andPaul Elmer Moore. But as hisearly pragmatism gave way toGrand Theory and SystemBuilding, and as his Marxism

was transformed, some say supplanted byDurkheim’s organicism, Burke became KB. By thelate 1950’s the edges of his hair had turned silvergilt, his eyes seemed alive with prophetic light, hisjaws strong and grinding, and his voice more stridentand metallic. Each day he became more Burkeian.

In the 1960’s he was rounding up all his intellec-tual resources for the work that would justify his life.In 1969, after the death of his beloved wife, hetraveled abroad for the first time. In the 1970’s heenjoyed celebrity and during the 1980’s and 90’sBurke could afford to surrender to Proust’s diseaseand without even Proust’s medium of the crumblingbits of brioche sweet madelines and flowery jasminetea, he could watch the architecture of the past as itreared before him like a Japanese cardboardtheatre. He could let the past haunt the present.

—continued on page 34

Old Main, Duquesne Administration Building


‘96 Seminar ReportsContemporary LeftRereadings of Kenneth Burke

Submitted by Greig Henderson (with a specialthanks to Co-Coordinator, Charles Elkins)

Participants: Angelo Bonnadonna,. ChrisCarter, Bryan Crable, Caroline Dunlap, MikeFeehan, Christine Wise

Part of our discussion dealt with Burke’srhetoric of demystification and critique of ideo-logy. Mainly to be found in Rhetoric of Motives,this critique seeks to reveal the places where asystem of interested interpretations masqueradesas a system of disinterested facts, where natureand universal essence are invoked and history andsocial existence are obscured, and where ideas aredetached from the material conditions that enablethem. Such a critique, however is immanentrather than transcendental since would-bedemystifiers are fully positioned within the social

totality and are thus unable to transcend the situ-atedness of their own discourse. But even if notranscendental vantage point is available, it is stillpossible to get inside the discourse of the other.As Burke points out early on in his career, anyideology is inconsistent enough to be turnedagainst itself, and the analyst who deploys imma-nent critique rather than transcendental criticismcan aid and abet an ideology’s self-deconstructionand thus transvaluate its symbols of authority. Theresult may be to bring about social change; imma-nent critique may lead to emancipatory critique.

No emancipatory critique can afford to ignorethe scapegoat process, a pivotal term enshrined inthe title of Chris Carter’s recent book. Integral tothe grammar of political narrative is a drama ofsurrogate victimage; the seminar presentation onthis topic devoted itself to exploring the sacrificialcrisis Burke not only wrote about but also livedthrough. The need for the purification of violentmotives was acknowledged by all, but the partici-pants gave voice to differing degrees of optimismand pessimism about the possibility of achieving it.

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Contemporary LeftRereadings of Kenneth Burke . . . 14

Language as Action:Burke, Austin, and Derrida. . . . . . 16

Kenneth Burke andHis Generation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Kenneth Burke and theQuestions of Multiculturalism . . . 19

Burkean Perspectives onArgument and Argumentation. . . 20

Kenneth Burke on the Rhetoric ofScience and Technology. . . . . . . . 22

Kenneth Burke as Philosopher. . . 23

Toward a BurkeanTheory of Democracy andDemocratic Social Change. . . . . . 26


tial medium for the pro-duction or “interpellation”of human subjects and an integral part of whatWess calls a rhetoric of the subject.” Sinceideology is largely habitual behavior and uncon-scious thought, it is “eternal” and will exist evenin a socialist society As Burke observes, “ideol-ogy cannot be deduced from economic consider-ations alone. It also derives from man’s nature as asymbol-using animal. For Burke, to regard either

ideation or matter as the motiveforce of history is to commit a

genetic fallacy, to use anessentializing strategy

rather than a proportionalstrategy and thus to treat

ideation or matter asoriginary causes ratherthan interactive ingredi-

ents in an overall motiva-tional recipe. “Regard-

less of how our aptitudefor symbolicity came to be a

part of our physiologicalstructure,” Burke writes,“once it began to developit manifested a nature of

its own. The ream ofsym-bolicity, then, espe-cially as enmeshed in theideological state ap

paratuses of government, school, church, family,law, and so forth, can be an originating force in itsown right. Althusser’s endorsement of propor-tional rather than essentialist causality, Wesssuggests, leads him to see ideology as an omni-present and transhistorical fact of human life.Althusser, Wess writes, “intervened in Marxistdiscourse, not only to war against the determinis-tic essentializing that spawned faith in the inevi-table march toward utopia in the grand narrativeof history, but also to war equally against thehistoricizing that stressed the ‘relative’ to theexclusion of the ‘autonomous.’” Wess eloquentlygets right, I think, what our seminar discussionwas groping towards—his book being a cogent,insightful demonstration that the conversation isstill ongoing and that there is still much to be said.

Another presentation looked at the role of thedialectic of constitutions, constitutions being, asBurke maintains, agonistic instruments and thusmajor players in ideological struggle. We were leftwith the tantalizing bit of information that just beforehis death, Burke was preparing to revisit the dialecticof constitutions and to develop anew his contentionthat the constitutional act is “the generative model forthe study of language as symbolic action.”

The final contemporary leftrereading of Burke looked athis work through the lensof the work of MikhailBakhtin and establishedfascinating parallelsbetween dramatism anddialogism, the unendingconversation andheteroglossia, poeticcategories and chrono-topes, the comic frameand carnival, and muchmore. The mutualconcern of these twothinkers with addressivityand expressivity madetheir juxtaposition fruitfuland illuminating.

Though obviously nota part of our seminar, thelatest contemporary left rereading or mark is to befound in Bob Wess’s marvelous book KennethBurke: Rhetoric, Subjectivity, and Modernism.Adopting Louis Althusser’s sense of ideology as“the lived relation between people and the world”as a habitual style of perception that has affectiveand unconscious components as well as cognitiveand con-scious ones, Wess rejects the false-consciousness thesis of vulgar Marxism. Accord-ing to Althusser, the human subject in the ideo-logical sphere tran-scends its decentred state ofdispersion and finds a consolingly coherent imageof itself reflected back in the social mirror. Ideol-ogy, however, is not simply epistemological fraud,a beguiling termi-nistic screen that separates usfrom the real, nor is it simply a causal conse-quence of commodity production. It is an essen-


Language as Action:Burke, Austin, and Derrida

Submitted by Robert Wess

Participants: Wayne Booth, Michael Chambers,Richard Cole, Denis Donoghue, Rob Hamilton,William H. Rueckert, Robert Wess (coordinator).

Like seminars at previous conventions, this onewas interested in relaticins between Burke andpost modernism. It differed in trying a differentapproach, focusing on a narrow rather than abroad range of theorists and texts:

Burke: ‘Ritual Drama as ‘Hub,’” Philosophy ofLiterary Form, 103-16; “The Dialectic of Consti-tutions,” Grammar of Motives, 323-401; “Wordsas Deeds,” review-essay of How to Do Thingswith Words, by J. L. Austin, Centrum 3.2 (Fall1975): 147-68.

Austin: How to Do Things with Words.Derrida: Limited Inc, ed. Gerald Graff (includes

all the texts that together constitute Derrida’scritique of Austin); “Declarations of Indepen-dence,” New Political Science 15 (1986): 7-53.

Seminar discussions concentrated mainly onsketching Burkean critiques of Austin and Derrida—concluding that Austin is too concrete andDerrida too abstract—but they also radiated out invarious directions from the core issues involved inthese critiques, particularly in the case of Derrida.

Austin and Burke are alike in rejecting positivistsemantics and in conceiving language as action;Burke’s title for his review of Austin, “Words asDeeds,” marks their area of overlap. But Austin’stheory of speech acts, as illustrated by his analysisof marriage, is too concrete because it limits itselfto describing the current convent ions to which anact of marriage conforms. Burkean analysis, basedon the constitution as the model for the act, ex-plains such conventions instead cf simply describ-ing them. A constitutional act is an arbitrationamong competing “wishes” in a culture. Consid-ered as a constitutional act, marriage is an act ofinclusion and exclusion by which some wishesare sacrificed to others. In the past in America,

interracial marriage was excluded; today, gaysand lesbians are challenging their exclusion.The Burkean act is situated in the “unendingconversation” of cultural transformations.

Arbitration among wishes in a constitutional actultimately requires reference to substance torationalize the sacrifice of some wishes to others(GM 376-77). Burke’s version of substance is arhetoric of substance with its pentadic modes.This aspect of the constitutional act provides aBurkean standpoint from which to critiqueDerrida, who also rhetoricizes substance.

Derrida’s deconstruction is a “double writing”:first reversal, then displacement (Limited 21).Double writing frames and tames difference.When double writing is forgotten, Derrida be-comes Derridada, a caricatured version whoespouses an unchecked verbal freeplay. Thiscaricature is an effect of the reception of Derrida’swork in the 1970s by a generation brought up onthe New Criticism and its interest in formalisticinterplay among words. For this generation,Derrida appeared to liberate this interplay fromthe confines of the autotelic text.

Double writing deconstructs the foundationalhierarchy informing a text’s version of substance,revealing that this substance is not “given” but aneffect of a “metaphysical decision” (Limited 93).Double writing’s first step reverses this hierarchy;its second displaces both hierarchies, in effectrecreating the moment of metaphysical decisionthrough which the text had to pass to come intoexistence. Burkean counterparts to such a deci-sion are easily generated from the pentad—e. g.,scene:agent vs agent:scene. Such a decision forDerrida is “undecidable” in the sense that there isnothing “out there” dictating that it go one way oranother. A choice that in effect creates a world, ametaphysical decision is itself prior to any world:“A decision can only come into being in a spacethat exceeds the calculable program that woulddestroy all responsibility by transforming it into aprogrammable effect of determinate causes. . . .Even if a decision seems to take only a secondand not to be preceded by any deliberation, it isstructured by this experience and experiment ofthe undecidable” (Limited 116; Derrida’s italics).


Duquesne Student Union

‘96 Seminar Reports

Derrida’s metaphysical decision is a point wherehis text and Burke’s overlap. Derrida’s version ofthis decision works within the terms of the textbeing deconstructed. In this sense, deconstructionis parasitic. Burke, by contrast , translates a textinto his own terminology. Abstractness is the priceDerrida pays for his procedure because the choicehe exposes is always formal—a choice betweencompeting hierarchies—and he leaves himself noway to situate this choice in historical circumstances.Burke’s constitutional act is more powerfulbecause it encompasses a metaphysical decisionwhile situating it in the “unending conversation.”

metaphysical decision and, on the other, Paul deMan’s and J. Hillis Miller’s conceptualization ofprosopopoeia as the figure of figures, prior to thedistinct ion between the literal and the metaphoric.In one formulation Hillis Miller speaks of proso-popoeia as con forming to the formula fit utilisusu–made fit for use by being used—as when ashapeless piece of wax is shaped by human handto become useful (Versions of Pygmalion 7-8).Prosopopoeia gives face to that which has no

Radiating out from Derrida’s deconstructiveexposure of a text’s metaphysical decision, theseminar considered issues revolving around thekind of judgment deconstruction makes in expos-ing such a decision. Deconstruction says to anauthor, in effect, (1) that the substance underlyinghis or her text is an effect of choice, and (2) thatthis choice is permissible (deconstruction doesn’tsay a text’s substance is false) so long as it’sacknowledged rather than concealed behind aclaim that the text’s substance is “given.” Intowhat kind of corner, based on what kind ofassumptions—ethical or otherwise—doesdeconstruction put an authors! The seminar alsoconsidered parallels between, on the one hand,Derrida’s and Burke’s conceptualization of

face, thereby creating a world within which, onceit’s in place, one can distinguish the literal fromthe metaphoric. Analogously, one might say thatthe “unending conversation” is the wax that anyconstitutional act transforms into a “substance.”As Burke proposes, “it is in this ‘unendingconversation’ that the assertions of any givenphilosopher are grounded. Strategically, he maypresent his work as departing from some ‘rock-bottom fact’ (he starts, for instance: ‘I look at thistable. I perceive it to have . . .’ etc.). Actually, thevery selection of his ‘rock-bottom fact’ derives itstrue grounding from the current state of theconversation, and assumes a different place in the‘hierarchy of facts’ when the locus of discussionhas shifted” (PLF 111 n. 27).


Kenneth Burkeand His Generation

Submitted by Andrew King

Participants: Andrew King (coordinator), JackSelzer, Ellen Quandahl, Nicki Michalski, ChrisMalone, Rosa Eberly, Ann L. George

After four sessions, the group achieved oneness.During the first session we appeared to be in “freefall,” the second was a fever dream, the third a redalert on the frontiers of madness. The fourthbrought deliverance. In the final session weentered into the House of Vishnu.

We did not reach settled conclusions. On thecontrary, we posed series of questions and indi-cated some avenues of exploration. Like Tolstoywe no longer seek the big ideals but find wisdomonly in the small passionate details of daily life.

(1) We question the so-called “stages” ofBurke’s intellectual life. The longer we exploredthe Bohemian 20’s the more we came upon theexposed roots of Burke’s 30’s political conscious-ness and the seeds of his ecological turn in the 60’s.

(2) We find the SAGE OF ANDOVER modelis not accurate. Even on his farm Burke livedlargely through correspondence and longed to be

in the city. He was always the SOCIAL BURKEwho like Cicero dreamed of the city when he wasat his country house.

(3) Despite frequent comparison Burke andHabermas are not merely two great systembuilders. Habermas comes at problems from thetop; Burke assembled his systems after construct-ing pieces at the bottom over decades. We pro-pose that the metaphysical impulse was a productof the moral climate of the late 40’s and early 50’s.

(4) The emphasis on Burke’s materialistcritique of capitalism has blurred the spiritualaspect of his critique. His ambivalent relationshipwith T.S. Eliot’s “solution” to the secularization ofthe West needs to be explored more fully.

(5) The group encourages fresh of readings of“The Rhetoric of Hitler’s Battle.”

(6) A fresh look at Burke’s rhetorical ethosmust be made. Burke is strategic when he speaksof strategy. He is constantly refashioning himselfand probing possibilities of his role as polymath.

(7) Re-opening the rhetoric vs. poetic questionis needed, not merely declaring Burke the

winner and laughing about “shy temperatelittle distinctions” made by Howell and

other traditionalists.(8) Burke’s position on some

specific issues of the time as re-vealed in correspondence and inthe small magazines is protean toa degree we had hardly imag-ined. Nor is it so simple a matteras to say that genius always con-

tradicts itself. Burke is ambivalent,perhaps envious and very human.

(9) Burke’s most powerful idea is “naming,” aconcept independently re-discovered by a largenumber of 20’s thinkers. The “Definition of theSituation” of I.W. Thomas and Junger’s “TheHuman Being is a Chart Maker” were features ofthis decade’s obsession with this method.

(10) There is need to explore Burke’s relationshipwith C. Wright Mills whose work with euphemisticdisguise seems to owe much to Burke’s influence.

The session will remain a happy memory, a bene-diction, a bright segment of our intellectual lives.



Kenneth Burke and theQuestions of Multiculturalism

Submitted by Dale A. Bertelsen

Participants: Jennifer Adams, Dale A.Bertelsen (coordinator, substituting for JamesChesebro), Bernard Brock, Eric Allan Hauser,John Hofland, Camilla Kari, Julie Whitaker.

Seminar participants met to consider the reliabilityand validity of a Burkeian critical perspectivewhen applied in a multicultural context, and totest and evaluate the significance of conclusionsreached using the Burkeian system in differentcultures. Two initial assumptions guided theseminar’s interactions:

(1) Burke’s perspective and critical systemsuggest that culture and symbol-use are intimatelyrelated. In this view, a Burkeian perspectiveprovides a foundation for how understandings arereached and the Burkeian critical system revealsinsights about an object of study. Accordingly,Burke’s system, on surface, seems an appropriatelens through which to view multiculturalism.

(1) For more realistic analyses, the criteria thatenable a specific critique should grow out of thecultural milieu which generates that critique. Acommon critical vocabulary, such as that providedby Burke, may permit insightful cross-culturalanalyses but may also obscure significant rhetori-cal dimensions in any given “co-cultural” analysis.

(2) Critical methods and their application maybe limited by the critic’s cultural orientation. SomeBurkeian concepts, such as victimage, terms fororder, and the pentad, are inherent in normativeculture but not as apparent in many co-cultures.In addition, Burke’s system seems rooted inliterate culture and might, therefore, overlooksignificant aspects of oral and electronic co-cultures. Accordingly, some Burkeian concepts andmethods might reflect a single culture orientation.

(3) If Burke’s system is to remain a viable modeof analysis, its basic premises must be continuallyre-examined and extended. As Burke suggested,critics might use his system as a starting point andshow where it succeeds and where it might belimited. Some participants suggested much of hisearly work might be suitable to co-cultural analysis,particularly his notions of master tropes, meta-phor, identification, and representative anecdote.

(2) Multiculturalism remains largely undefinedin the academy and in popular and media discus-sions. Definitions traditionally center on therelationship between “normative” culture and“non-normative” cultures. “Normative” culturemay be defined as Anglo-European culturesmediated or adapted in the United States. Incontrast, “non-normative” cultures might be“co-cultures” within the United States or culturesbeyond the borders of the United States. Accord-ingly, the symbol-using of “co-cultures” might bemore appropriate objects of study for criticsinterested in questions of multiculturalism.

Although formal conclusions were not anexplicit goal of the seminar, several areas ofagreement emerged:

(4) Critics have a responsibility to maintain thepossibility of other interpretations. Indeed, alter-native interpretations may be highly desirable.Abiding by Burke’s notion that “the main ideal ofcriticism, as I conceive it, is to use all that is thereto use,” critics are encouraged to function induc-tively, to tinker, and to recognize that in criticismas in life, things are “never twice the same.”

Participants emphasized that Burke like any othercritic has his own cultural orientation with inherentadvantages, biases, and limitations. From this per-spective most believed Burke’s system could not beuniversally applied. Nevertheless most concurred thathis perspective and critical system could be appropri-ately and usefully applied in co-cultural analyses ifaccompanied by careful examination and extension.


Burkean Perspectives onArgument and Argumentation

Submitted by Arnie Madsen

Participants: Brenda Burchett, Terry Croy,Charles Fierz, Andrew Hansen, CynthiaKing, Arnie Madsen (coordinator) JeanMiller, Kevin Minch, Donn Parson, GarthPauley, Lee Snyder, Calvin Troup

During our sessions, the seminar participantsconsidered a number of questions: 1) Is there aperspective on argumentation that is uniquelyBurkean in its focus? 2) If so, how would onedefine “argument” and “argumentation” via aBurkean perspective? 3) How would a Burkeanperspective on argumentation differ from aBurkean perspective on rhetoric? 4) Whatelements would a Burkean perspective uniquelyadd to the study of argumentation? 5) What

traditional elements of argumentationwould a Burkean perspective discount orignore? 6) Is it useful to study argumenta-tion from a Burkean perspective? 7) Wherein Burke’s writings would one locate aBurkean perspective on argumentation?

The first two questions consumed most ofour time in the seminar. We agreed that atraditional perspective on argumentationwould involve four elements. Argumenta-tion first would include the use of symbolsand language. Second, a person engaged inargumentation presents a claim or conclu-sion. Third, support exists for the claim(evidence, reasoning, etc.). Fourth, the claimis intended to have an influence on an audience(persuade, form attitudes, induce actions, etc.)

The seminar participants further agreedthat Burke is an effective arguer. How-ever, “argument” and “argumentation”are not traditional Burkean terms. Otherthan the chapter on “Argument byAnalogy” in Permanence and Change,those terms do not receive extensiveconsideration in any of Burke’s works.

Seminar participants suggested at least tworeasons for why Burke did not focus on argumen-tation: (1) that he perceived the broader conceptof rhetoric to be more important, and (2) that therise of argumentation as a separate focus of studypost-dated most of Burke’s major writings.

A traditional perspective on argumentationwould probably not be the same as a Burkeanper-spective. Members of the group thussuggested the following Burkean perspective onargumentation: “with argumentation humansuse symbols to position ideas within a contextand in a form that influences the audience’sexploration of ambiguity.”

In other words, to study argumentation from aBurkean perspective, we may need to set asidesome of our traditional notions regardingargumentation. A Burkean perspective onargumentation would broaden the argumentframe to include much of what is traditionallyconsidered as rhetoric or persuasion. As anexample,traditional perspectives on argumentation

Bayer Hall


consider arguments to be either rational or irrational,logical or illogical, valid or invalid, and so on. Theformal rules of argument construction offer clearguidelines by which to evaluate any claim.

However, one of the most powerful benefits ofa Burkean approach is its utility for exploringclaims that traditional perspectives on argumen-tation would be unable to consider effectively.A Burkean examination of argument would thusallow consideration of many strategies that occurin the gray area at the margins of traditional defi-nitions. As Burke indicates in Attitudes TowardHistory, rather than a simple dichotomy betweenthe rational and the irrational, there are insteadthree possibilities when we encounter a claim: itmay be rational, irrational, or non-rational (171).

Many instances of what we typically label as“irrational” might instead be enactments of adifferent form of rationality than we are used to.For example, is the non-linear reasoning in Japan

mentative form. Metaphor, synecdoche, metony-my, and irony all offer possibilities for presentingclaims to an audience. Rather than focusing onthe argument “forms” such as the syllogism orToulmin’s six elements of argument, Burke wouldthus focus on argument “form” as a means ofpositioning ideas to influence the audience.

Further, the Burkean perspective on argumenta-tion serves to decrease the emphasis on adver-sarial models of argument. Thus, to engage in theprocess of argumentation, one does not need totry to “win,” or emerge victorious from a situa-tion. Instead, one merely needs to assume aposition in relation to a thing or an idea. AsBurke suggests in The Philosophy of LiteraryForm, full exploration of ideas allows an indivi-dual to modify an argument, thus maturing it, inlight of the response from the audience (444).

Just as the nature of argument would focus oninteraction with the audience, so, too, standards

‘96 Seminar Reportsor other Eastern nations irrational? We think not.In-stead such non-linear reasoning is simplydifferent than that explored by traditional argu-mentation theory.

Thus, as Burke suggests in The Philosophy ofLiterary Form, each instance of argumentcontains its own “logic” (148). An argument isthus not inevitably and exclusively rational orirrational, or logical or illogical. Such consider-ations are too precise and scientistic for Burke.Instead, with Burke an argumentative strategy ismore fluid as it is better or worse for meetingthe unique constraints of a situation.

Much of the benefit of considering argumen-tation from a Burkean perspective is thus one offrame-broadening. Considering argument froma Burkean lens would not only change thevocabulary involved in the study of argument,but it would also inevitably add a new perspec-tive, allowing us to see arguments in new ways.

As an example, each of the four master tropes(Grammar 503-517) may be examples of argu-

for argument evaluation would also be audience-centered. For example, given a particular situationand predispositions of the audience, is the arguer’sevidence adequate to justify a particular claim?

As with many other constructs considered byBurke, a clear distinction between argumenta-tion and rhetoric would almost be a false dis-tinction. One could easily transform an interest inargumentation into an interest in rhetoric, and viceversa. Further, we doubt whether Burke wouldhave viewed such a demarcation as necessary(consider, for example, the fluid nature of Burke’sboundary between rhetoric and the poetic). Attimes, or in some contexts, a demarcation mayhave some utility. At other times the distinctionwould be less useful.

The group thus concluded that argumentation isboth nowhere and everywhere for Burke. His wri-tings can all lend insight into human argumentativepractice, especially in instances where traditionalargumentation theory would be incapable of addinginsight due to the limits of such perspectives.


Burke on the Rhetoric ofScience and Technology

Submitted by John Lyne

Participants: David Tietge, Mark Meister,Clarke Rountree, Tim Borchers, Edward Clift,Kirk Junker, John Lyne (coordinator)

attendant aesthetic/spiritual accompaniments ofsame in the technological context. We ingestedsuch questions as: Do the new cybermarvels re-introduce the possibility for re-enchantment of theworld—perhaps a felicitous turn that Burke didnot quite live to see? Might he have found someantidote there for his chronic technophobia?Might the “art of living” in the post Cold-War,post Steel-Town era (in our own fair land, at least)stand a chance of being meaningfully envisioned?

Finally, we washed the whole thing down withmildly intoxicating speculations on the possibilityof a Burkean or post-Burkean “Metabiology,”with purpose and organic life as a central meta-

‘96This band of Burksters merrily masticated on

several of the chewy issue clusters concoctedfrom the best dramatistic ingredients.

First, we sank our teeth into the doubly-frag-mented substance of knowledge/agency, givingrise to such Proustian reflections as these: Howdoes technical expertise figure into public dis-courses from a Burkean perspective? Is concep-tual integration possible, and if so, does it haveany relationship to the unities/disunities ofagency? Given the possibility for radicaltranformation of the technologies of informationpresented by cyberspace and other developments,what implications are there for social justice? Dothe de-centering tendencies of the Net run counterto Burkean notions of hierarchy, or are thosehierarchies forever re-instantiated?

We next formally induced an appetite for adiscussion of Burke’s Poetic Humanism, and the

phor (so irresistible—but always inviting a slap onthe wrist for bad scientific manners, given the anti-teleological bias of modern biology). And whatof the Burkean foresight in declaring the return ofthat little fellow, “ecology”? Might we find a dis-tinctively Burkean way of envisioning the worldecologically? (“Ever-Waxing Wayne” Booth found36 references—dissertations?—on the subject!)How can we Inspirit the world with drama, mean-ing, and a properly considered anthropomorphismwithout starting to sound like theologians?

Just the right way to end. Everyone enjoyed agood cigar and discussed how much the seminarhad been enlivened by the presence of TrevorMelia, Wade Kenny, and two of Richard Thames’students, John McInerney and Sam Pallone. Aswe yet reflect on the fine atmosphere and prepara-tions provided by our hosts, we continue to digestand process the substance of our rich repast.


Seminar Reports

Kenneth Burke as Philosopher

Submitted by Timothy Crusius

Participants: Edward C. Appel, David Blakesley,Timothy Crusius (coordinator), Robert L. Eulford, DavidHildebrand, Stan Lindsay, Mark MeManus, DanielleRogowski, Sarah Sinopoli. Also attending some of thesessions: Richard Thames, Don Burks.

We organized our discussion around sevenquestions taken up in the following order:

1) How might we describe the current condi-tion of philosophy?

2) Why make a case for Burke as a philosopher?3) What is Burke’s philosophy?4) To what tradition or traditions does it belong?5) To what contemporary movements or

“schools” of thought does his philosophy best relate?

as a philosopher is that contemporary philosophyis itself fragmented and in crisis. Taking our cuefrom the Kenneth Baynes et al. collection, AfterPhilosophy: End or Transformation? we took theessential issue to be whether, in our post-metaphysical, post-epistemological age, philo-sophy is still possible, still worth the candle.

As against those who believe that philosophyshould be replaced by something else (such ascultural criticism), we held out for philosophy afterPhilosophy, and believe that Burke did as well. Inshort, Burke belongs to that line of thinking thatwants to transform Philosophy rather overcome it.

Why make a case for Burke as a philosopher?For at least the following reasons, the case must

be made and remade:(1) Because in many of his most important books

and articles, Burke claims to be doing philosophy.

6) To what specific figures can we most profit-ably connect him?

7) What are his most important ideas andarguments so far as contemporary philosophy isconcerned?

We were fortunate to have a wealth of perspec-tives, including several participants who haddefinite, articulate views of Burke’s philosophy;partly because of this, the discussion format wasquite successful, the dialogue far-ranging, stimu-lating, and! in the tradition of Plato’s early dia-logues, inconclusive. The following synopsiscannot, of course, capture the richness of theexchange, and it may imply in places a degree ofconsensus that probably did not exist.

How might we describe the current condition ofphilosophy?One of the problems in making a case for Burke

(2) Because many of his most important recentcritics (for example, Lentricchia and Gunn) havealready made cases for Burke as philosopher. Infact, the tendency to take Burke as a philosophergoes back to the critical responses to Permanenceand Change (1935).

(3) Because we may find in the question ofBurke’s philosophy common ground for all whohave stake in Burke.

4) Because otherwise his near exclusion fromphilosophical conversations has the sanction ofour silence.

(5) Because it is hard to assess importantaspects of Burke’s achievement without a philo-sophical context.

(6) Because it provides a relatively fresh per-spective, different from taking him as a rhetorical-literary critic-theorist.



continued form page 23—What is Burke’s philosophy?I offered for discussion my basic answer to thisquestion: praxis philosopher for the linguistic turn,whose praxis is informed by a philosophicalanthropology.

On this question we encountered what may be-come an essentially contested issue: Is there in Burkea “coy metaphysics” or even a “coy theology”? Ifso, Burke belongs, as Southwell contends, to Philo-sophy. Appel made the case for Burke as a “generictheologian,” a position lent some support by WayneBooth’s address to the entire society.

Such a contention faces two main objections:Burke consistently denied belief in God; it may beargued that he also made no clear, unambiguoustheological or metaphysical claims. Of course,one may be “theological” without a theos, and asBurke himself contended, any interpretativeframework implies a metaphysics, includingDramatism-logology. But it is one thing to imply,

(1) Rhetorical philosophy (i.e., the Sophists,Isocrates, Cicero, Vico, etc., as discussed byErnesto Grassi).

(2) American pragmatism (especially James,Mead, Dewey). David Hildebrand, both in theseminar and in a conference paper, asserted thisconnection forcefully and thoughtfully.

(3) Neomarxism (e.g., Lentricchia, but manyothers).

(4) Practical philosophy generally, with specialattention to the philosophy of praxis in particular,from Aristotle to Marx.

There was some convergence in the notion thatBurke’s philosophy is postmodern, developsthrough reflection on human behavior andachievement, as opposed to theory in the strong,classical sense (i. e., contemplation of the eternal),and that the point of Burke’s philosophy is praxis,the struggle “towards a better life.” But exactlyhow to place Burke in terms of philosophicaltraditions remains a very knotty problem.

1996 Seminarsanother to affirm; in any case, Burke never madethe sort of claim that gets one into theological-metaphysical conversations.

The stake in this issue is high: If we take Burkeas a coy theologian, we remove him from themainstream of current philosophical conversation,which overwhelmingly assumes that Philosophy(i.e., the search for the Truth, foundationalism) isover. Even strongly religious philosophers (e.g.,Ricoeur, Gadamer, Buber) have mostly relin-quished Philosophy in the traditional, “strong”sense of the word.

To what tradition or traditions does he belong?A major reason why Burke’s philosophicalidentity is a problem is that he does not belong toany well-known, easily definable “line” ofthought. We can specify, say, where Marx camefrom; Burke is a much harder case.

We explored Burke’s affinities with

To what contemporary “schools” of thought doeshis philosophy relate best?In brief, we would connect him with

(1) Hermeneutics (and with philosophers closeto hermeneutics, such as Bakhtin)

(2) Critical theory (Nietzche, Marx, and Freud,and their many followers, including especially theFrankfurt school)

(3) Neo-pragmatismInterestingly enough, no one proposed pursuing

the post-structuralist/deconstruction connection, asdeveloped, for example, in Freccero, Nelson, andWilliams. Perhaps this is an indication that Nel-son’s case has proven unpersuasive. For Burke,as for Dewey, deconstruction is prelude to recon-struction, and Burke advances a philosophy thatis far more than a decision to “read philosophy acertain way.”

(A challenge to deconstructionists everywhere:Try to deconstruct Burke’s “the symbol-using


animal” without getting oneself into a self-refutingposition—i.e., without performing as the symbol-using animal.)

We began to run out of time as the last twoquestions came up. Nevertheless,To what specific figures can we most profitablyconnect him?

(1) To dialogue, dialogics, dialectic: e.g.,Bakhtin, Buber, Gadamer

(2) To theorists of human being, philosophicalanthropology: e.g. Ricoeur, Charles Taylor, HansBlumenberg, and many others who have notgiven up on a “proper” for wo/man.

(3) To contemporary ethical philosophers, suchas Levinas, Murdoch and Maclntyre. There wasmuch interest in that never-written book,“The Ethics of Motives,” and in thegeneral question of Burkean ethics.We may have here a seminar topicfor the next meeting.

And so on. This little list can be added to almostindefinitely. Maybe if there is a Burke as PhilosopherII we’ll pursue this question at length.

Salut! To anyone interested in Burke’s philosophyor in his role as a philosopher: I’d like to know whoyou are and what you’re thinking. Call 214-768-4363, or 214-341-9609 or write to TimothyCrusius, Department of English, Southern MethodistUniversity, Dallas, Texas 75275.

(4) To ecological thinkers—in this regard seeHolmes Rolston, Philosophy Gone Wild: Environ-mental Ethics.

What are his most important ideas and argumentsso far as contemporary philosophy is concerned?Here we really ran short of time, but a very few arelisted below:

(1) That the linguistic turn can most profitablystudy language as action-in-the-world as symbolicaction, not as a self-contained system of signs.

(2) “Know thyself” means in Burke primarilyknowing that symbols are in the saddle and theyride humankind.

(3) That mature human beings are alwaysalready rhetorically aligned.

(4) That philosophy is not apart from, but alwayscaught up in culture, history, and politics.

(5) That a central function of philosophy is thera-peutic, help in coping with ourselves and the world.

Reports


Toward a BurkeanTheory of Democracy andDemocratic Social Change

Submitted by James F. Klumpp

Parrticipants: V. William Balthrop (coordina-tor), Daniel O. Buehler, Nathaniel Córdova,Thomas Flynn, Phyllis M. Japp, James F.Klumpp (coordinator), Janette Kenner Muir,Catherine Palczewski, Paul Stewart, DavidCratis Williams.

Ours was a broad ranging conversation focusedon the character of late twentieth century democ-racy. Conversation was extremely lively withconsiderable variety among perspectives withinthe seminar. The result was not so much agree-ment as it was challenge. All of us agree, how-ever, that we will return home with the need toreassess fundamental beliefs about our topic afterconsidering the viewpoints of fellow seminarists.This report is organized around some centralthemes of discussion:

What is a democracy? The call for our seminarspecified that we were not merely concerned withthe institution of government, but with broaderquestions about how we conduct public life. Ourdiscussion reflected this broad scope, but the rela-tionships between public life and the institution ofgovernment remained problematic. Is it helpful todifferentiate between a public sphere (enteredwhen private issues cross into conversations withothers and a subsequent sense of community re-sponsibility for the problem) and a governmentalsphere (pertaining specifically to institutions ofgovernment)? Some of our group argued that thisdistinction was fundamental, that those cynicalabout the governmental sphere remained energizedto participate in a public sphere and accepted theresponsibilities and strengths associated with it.Others took the position that only a healthyparticipation in governmental processes can leadto a fully operating democracy.

Places of agreement occurred on what consti-tutes democracy. We explored the nature ofBurke’s metaphor of the “parlor conversation,”but some questioned the exclusivity they saw inthat metaphoric space. Others believed themetaphor established the terms for an earnedaccess to public life. We also noted the impor-tance to democracy of what Burke labeled “thewrangle of the barnyard” or the “parliamentarywrangle,” as well as the distinctions betweenthem. The most compelling characteristic that we

identified in the Burkean vision of democracywas “cooperative competition.” This notion

emphasizes that those participating in ademocracy must articulate both

identification with their communalsubstance (granting the power

of choice to the discursivepractices of their commu-

nity) and assert theirdifference (assertion ofperspective as a contri-bution to community).Discourse may vary inthe emphasis betweenthese terms, but demo-cratic discourse enactsboth in its messages.



Dimensions of Democracy: One way of express-ing this perspective would be to develop termswhich frame democratic symbolic action. As wediscussed, three recurred: dialectic, identification,and ritual. “Dialectic” stresses disagreement, theadversarial, as well as the possibility of transfor-mation; “identification” frames the dialectic asperformed in the context of “the other.” In demo-cratic discourse, there is awareness of audience.Appeals are a necessary part of democracy, andappeals must rise above self-interest to framesituations in some greater notion of the common.Effectiveness requires this; that is the essence ofthe rhetorical art. This engagement is also theethic of democracy; that choice is framed bymotivation that identifies the speaker with his/hercommunity. “Ritual” stresses that an account ofdemocratic discourse must be punctuated morebroadly than the individual message. Democracyframes a praxis, a way of acting. Democraticmotives frame situations in particular patterns ofsymbolic action, and in the framing reinventdemocracy anew. Only with a discourse thatreproduces the commitments and meanings ofdemocracy can democracy continue. In summary,democratic communication is marked by therisking of the self in assertion, framedby identification with democraticcommitments of community,and performs ritualsof democraticrenewal.

The Status of Our Democracy: Critique of ourcurrent political practice came easily. Thatpractice seems plagued by the impact of reduc-tion: participation reduced to voting; voters to pollrespondents; leadership to delivering messages;public opinion to poll reports and phone/mailcounts; communication to sound bites. But as wefocused more broadly on democratic practice inthe late twentieth century, several more difficultissues marked our discussion. Are our students(or “are we” for that matter) cynical or skepticalabout democratic participation? Although wenever resolved the question, it opened an impor-tant distinction. Skepticism is an intellectualposition, using doubt in productive ways. Theancient “cynics” took skepticism to such an extentthat they separated themselves in fundamentalways from the norms of their society. They sawthemselves removed. Is what we see in ourmodern democracy a cynicism or a skepticism?In which spheres?


continuing the conversation


We asked ourselves whether there was a place(physically and metaphorically) for debate in oursociety. Diatribe seems to be alive and well on theinternet and in our other media. Yet so many seemto isolate themselves from traditional forms ofpolitical expression, rejecting the character of thoseengaged in the political process, and claiming dis-interest. But just as surely there are counter-publics:places where those on the margins of traditionalparticipation are able to develop their voices to joinin new community relationships that can fundamen-tally change the nature of public interaction.

All of us agree that a key moment in ourseminar was when convener Balthrop confrontedus: Maybe this is, in fact, the golden age of demo-cracy, he asserted. Counter-publics proliferate.Anyone can mount a home page on the internet.White supremacists reinforce each other electro-nically. Little can be said without someonegetting in your face, disagreeing with your opin-ion. There are a thousand opinions on any issue.

developed. But we had intense discussion aboutwhat we teach and how we teach it to developdemocratic power. One view stressed thewrangle, the tragic rite of the kill, the strategicinstrumentalism that traditionally marks the teach-ing of persuasion: preparing our students to beagents of change. The other view stressed thatmeaningful democracy connects public notions inan intense way with “lived life.” This ideaseemed to connect with notions of “literature asequipment for living,” with identification as thestress in the new rhetoric, and with the preferencefor the comic frame. Which view democraticallyempowers our students? Is the assertive engage-ment with other opinions, or identification withothers in defining the situation, the central demo-cratic act? Is a language of “strategy” more appro-priate than a language of “style” in approachingour teaching? Is the symbolic action we teachsubstitute for, rather than participation in, demo-cratic action? We talked extensively about

‘96 Seminar ReportsThe seminar had a hard time denying the descrip-tion he provided, but had a more difficult timedetermining what the fact of the descriptionimplied. Is the crisis of modern democracyfundamentally about quality of discourse whenBalthrop stresses quantity? Is he describing ahealthy public sphere when our despair is over thegovernmental sphere? Is his judgement right aswell as his description: Is this indeed the goldenage of democracy?

Politics is “speech plus . . .”: One membercautioned us that democracy must involve morethan “mere” talk. This seemed a good warning toa seminar filled with those who teach speech. Oneof our readings was Frank Lentricchia’s treatmentof the relationship between teaching and action.As teachers, we recognized that our task was toenable or empower our students to democraticactivity. Democracy is not a “natural” conditionthat emerges if only barriers to it are removed;rather it is a human potentiality that must be

discourse, we recognized that discourse implicatedaction in a healthy democracy, but the character ofdemocratic action—for us as teachers, for us andour students as citizens, remained unresolved.

Undeveloped Burkean Powers in Democracyand Democratic Change: Our conversation wasnot so much about Burkean concepts as aboutmodern democracy. Yet some Burkean powerssurfaced, at times briefly, at times dominating theedges of our discussion. We isolated three ascrucial in our report.

First, the notion of the appropriateness of thecomic versus the tragic frames in politics was acom-mon, yet unresolved theme of our discus-sion. The two views of teaching discussed aboveseemed to mark the fault line on this issue. Inmodern democracy does failure to recognize thetragic “rite of the kill” as a fact of politics disem-power? Is the tragic at the heart of social changein a healthy democracy? Does the tragic work ustoward redemption and thus cleanse and reinvent


democratic forms? Burke seems to articulate apreference for the comic frame, yet his mostpowerful work — “The Rhetoric of Hitler’s Battle”for example — implements a tragic frame. Politicstoday is certainly marked by the wrangle and ahealthy commitment to the symbolic rite of the kill.Is that wrangle feeding cynicism and destroyingcommitments to politics? Or is cynicism fed by asense of inaction that would be fed by the comic?

A second Burkean theme, emphasized byDenis Donoghue’s plenary presentation was theaesthetics of democracy. One of the principlesthat a Burkean perspective on democracy seemsto suggest is that political ends are achieved throughaesthetic means. The seminar observed that cur-rent political discourse seems often to be shapedin what Burke has called a “psychology of in-formation” (perhaps illustrated in Tony Schwartz’image of The Responsive Chord, messages workby plucking the strings of voters) rather than a“psychology of form.” The latter would involvethe merger of substance and style in an aestheticsof action. We noted Burke’s discussion of consti-tutions, a merger of substance and style as arepresentative anecdote for democracy. And weobserved that such efforts as Martin Luther King’s“I Have a Dream” speech indicate that momentswhen the aesthetic of politics is most accom-plished are moments when our democracy seemsmost endearing and enduring.

Third, we noted that a major unexplored powerof Burkean criticism is the power of invention.At one point in our discussions, we raised amaterialist voice: democracy implies not onlya process but also a material arrangement ofsociety. The notion reminds us that demo-cratic social change requires a vocabularyof motives that names situations in “a waythat we will be able to do somethingabout them.” Today, our society seemsto be beset by problems that are not yield-ing to democratic politics as practiced.The dislocations from globalization of theeconomy come to mind, as do the otherissues that compose the “age of anxiety.”America’s racial divide continues unabated,perhaps even exacerbated by languages of

“affirmative action.” Abortion practices divide thenation as the search for “common ground”struggles. Among the powers of Burkean criti-cism is the power to develop and name situationsin ways that open democratic approaches to them.Burkean critics become inventors of discourse aswell as commentators on the invention of others.This more broadly conceived notion of inventingmotives that shape praxis is one of the untappedpowers that can empower democracy and demo-cratic change.

Toward a Reinvigorated Democracy and Demo-cratic Social Change: The lively discussion ofour four days leaves each of us with questions toask about our assumptions and new ideas to trackdown in approaching the crisis in democracy. Wewere a committed seminar, intense in our commit-ments to democracy, eager to engage othersworking on the problem, and willing to exploremany ideas about democracy and democraticsocial change. We appreciate the opportunitythat the seminar provided for conversation,wrangle, and invention.


Perspectives onContemporary American Politics

Moderator:Dale A. Bertelsen, Bloomsburg University

“Competently Managing the New Frontier?: TheRepresentative Anecdote and the 1988 DukakisPresidential Campaign”Arnie Madsen, University of Northern Iowa“Packwood’s Search for Purification: A PentadicInquiry”Camilla Kari, University of Maryland“Beyond the Voter Persuasion Paradigm:A Burkeian Perspective on Political Alienation inthe 1996 Presidential Election”Thomas Flynn, Slippery Rock University

Marxist and Ontological Frames

Moderator:Donn W. Parson, University of Kansas

“‘Metabiology,’ Marx, and Symbolicity: Burke’sTheory of Ideology”*Bryan Crable, Purdue University*Top Graduate Paper and Top Submitted Paper“Kenneth Burke and the Nature of Reality”Caroline Dunlap, Wayne State University

Rhetorical Criticism

Moderator:Bernard L. Brock, Wayne State University

“Liver as Verb: The Biogrammar of OrganDonation”Edward M. Clift, University of Utah“Entelechy in Aristotle and Burke: Etymologicaland Terminological Considerations”Stan A. Lindsay, Butler University“‘Is this the weirdest thing?’: A Burkean analysisof television talk shows”

Jennifer Adams, University of New Mexico.

Literary Perspectives

Moderator:David Blakesley, Southern Illinois University

“Burke Among Others: The Early Poetry”Jack Selzer, Pennsylvania State University“Towards a Better Life: Burke, Booth, andRhetorical Traditions”Rosa A. Eberly, University of Texas at Austin

Perspectives on Politics

Moderator:Phyllis Japp, University of Nebraska

“Self-Evident Truths? A Rhetorical Analysis ofthe Declaration of Sentiments”Heather C. Balas, University of Maryland“How to Burn a Witch and Other Receipes forPersecution: A Burkean Interpretation of theSalem Witchcraft Trials”Christina Wise, University of New Mexico“The Importance of Attitude in ConstitutionalDialectic”Kirk Junker, The Open University.

Science, Technology, andPerspectivism

Moderator:John R. Lyne, University of Iowa

“The Third Productive Order: Notes on Burke’sView of the Rhetoric of Science and Technology”David J. Tietge, Southern Illinois University atCarbondale“Accuracy and Adequacy: Burke’s Perspectiveon Perspectives”Richard M. Coe, Simon Fraser University“The Seeds of Metabiology: Kenneth Burke andthe Relationship Between Language, Mind, Body,& Reality as Informed by Naturalism and Biology”Richard H. Thames, Duquesne University.


Philosophical Issues

Moderator:Jim Klumpp, University of Maryland

“Burke, Rorty, and the ‘New Behaviorism’”Edward C. Appel“Was Kenneth Burke a Pragmatist?”David L. Hildebrand, University of Texas at Austin“Kenneth Burke and the Grammar of Existence:An Introduction to Pentadic Ontology”Wade Kenny, University of Cincinnati.

Comic and Religious Perspectives

Moderator:Andrew King, Louisiana State University

“What’s a 68? Going Down on Kenneth BurkeWhen He Doesn’t Return the Favor: FeministHumor and the Comic Frame”Cate Palczewski, University of Northern Iowa;“Kenneth Burke and Mary Baker Eddy”Mike Feehan“The Comic”C. Allen Carter, Oklahoma City University.

Perspectives on Literary, Socio-logical, and Rhetorical Criticism:A Panel Discussion

The final program, scheduled for Sunday morn-ing, was a culminating discussion panel featuringall of the guest speakers and additional invitedparticipants. It was an opportunity to identifycertain directions towards which people aremoving the ongoing conversation.

Moderator:Greig Henderson, University of Toronto

Panelists:Wayne Booth, University of ChicagoRichard Harvey Brown, University of MarylandDenis Donoghue, New York UniversityMichael Leff, Northwestern UniversityWilliam Rueckert, Professor Emeritus, SUNY.

‘96Convention Programs


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Call to Order:

The meeting was called to order at 1:44 PM byAndrew King, Vice-President.

Reports of Officers:

Treasurer:Star Muir reported that the Society was doing“pretty good.” He recommended establishing athree year dues option, and recommended that theperson elected as conference planner not also serveas treasurer.

Conference Planner:Star Muir reviewed the current conference andpresented recommendations for the next planner.

Program Planner:David Cratis Williams reported for himself and GreigHenderson. He reviewed the current program.

Award Committee:Arnie Madsen expressed his appreciation to hiscommittee and recommended consideration ofchanges in awards.

Local Arrangements Coordinator:Richard Thames expressed his appreciation to theProvost of Duquesne University and to the NEH forsupport for the conference.

Newsletter Editor:Richard Thames reviewed the last three year’snewsletters.

Elections:

Conference Planner:David Cratis Williams, Greig Henderson, andRichard Thames were nominated for ConferencePlanner for the 1999 conference. David CratisWilliams was elected.

Treasurer:Arnie Madsen was elected by acclamation.

Vice-President:Greig Henderson and Bob Wess were nominatedfor Vice-President. Greig Henderson was elected.

Secretary:Phyllis Japp was elected by acclamation.

Editor of Publications:Richard Thames was elected by acclamation.

New Business:

Three Year Dues Option:Moved (Parson), Seconded (Brock), and passed.The society should establish a three year duesoption. Current dues would be $50 for the 3 yearoption, $25 for graduate students.

Office of Historian:Moved (Muir), seconded (Parson), and passed.Amend Section 1 of Article V of the Constitution ofthe Kenneth Burke Society by deleting the word“and” and adding the following at the end: “andHistorian.” Amend Article V of the bylaws byadding the following: “Section 6. The Historian shall

Kenneth Burke Society

Triennial Business Meeting


maintain the historical records of the society andsuch other material as s/he shall deem appropriate oras instructed by the President.”

James W. Chesebro was chosen Historian byacclamation.

Emerging Scholar Award:A discussion of the award followed without actionbeing taken.

Interdisciplinary Outreach:Discussion ensued on the importance of reachingdisciplines beyond the present attendees to buildthe conference. Local Arrangements chairThames pointed out that 2000-3000 peopleshould be contacted. The importance of electronicdissemination was stressed. No action was taken.

Establishment of a Society Journal:Moved (Brock), seconded (Rountree), passed.Authorize the Editor of Publications to establish a journal named “KB: The Journal of the KennethBurke Society” to be published annually. Discussion indicated plans to publishthe newsletter once a year in the fall and the journal once a year in the spring.

Adjournment:

Minutes: 11 May 1996

The meeting was adjourned at 2:54 PM.

Respectfully submitted,James F. KlumppSecretary


continued from page 13—

But as W. H. Auden said of Yeats: “In deathhe became his readers.” Merto Ponte once said:“The greatest thinkers are not those whosedogma imposes itself upon us for a season. Thethinker who I findmost suggestive, is one whocasts shadows that we struggle to dispel.”

Burke was one of those American originals.He was a man apart from the usual run of univer-sity scholars and networking literati. There wassomething different about him. Something arrest-ing. He was someone you never forgot—athinker with a gift of universal familiarity and yet a

Storming Valhallakind of Druid—an American original who stoodat the lectern with Richard McKeon during theAristotelian revival at Chicago—a man whospoke with Richard Weaver about his vision of anew Arcadia, a man who visited the shades ofantiquity with Ezra Pound, who journeyed toMedieval and Renaissance hells with his friend,John Ciardi. Burke was a man who experiencedgreatly and dreamed even more greatly. Late inlife he dreamed of being before the ship’s mastwith Herman Melville and Captain Ahab. Hedreamed of arguing with Mephistopheles for theransoming of Faust. Burke quoted Anne Sextonwho has written: “In dreams you are never eighty.”

And He has now outlived most of his oldcritics and those who remain value hismythopoeic style. I quote form the criticBainerd Cowan: “Unlike the famous NewCritics, Richards, Ciardi, and Brooks, hisexposition was guided by neither linearitynor logic. Burke’s was a mind medieval, amind that ascended from symbol to symbol.His associational method of buildingthrough accretions and similitude was closerto that of the medieval myth singer, Blondel,than it was to the Chartered PublicAccountary of Ivor Armstrong Richards.”And so we would do well to recall thewords of Lord Bacon on death:

With the dead there is no longer rivalry. Platois never sullen. Cervantes is never petulant.Demustheses never comes unseasonably.Dante never stays too long. AND WEMIGHT ADD—Burke is always luminous,evocative, adventurous and full of scholarlyenrichment. Welcome to his home town.

Delivered Sunday, 11 May 1996Duquesne University, Pittsburgh


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Balance Sheet does not reflect grant monies awardedand spent by Host Institution.

Opening balance $1,937.95

Conference

IncomeTotal Conference Fees 5,425.00Dormitory Housing 800.00Parking 75.00

6,300.00

ExpensesAwards 161.88Scholarships (3) 450.00Supplies 278.60DormitoryHousing/Parking 1,640.00Beverages 411.00Food/Beverages byDuquesne University 3,857.22Hotel for GuestSpeakers/Performers 1,428.00Travel/Food forGuest Speakers 785.29

9,011.99

Society

IncomeHistory Sales 60.00Back Newsletter Sales 72.00Video Sales 150.00Membership 2,219.00Labels 27.00Interest onChecking Account 49.20

2,577.20ExpensesSoftware 358.00Bank Charges 40.00International Check Charges 30.00Membership Mailing(underwritten by GM) [729.75]Support of 1994 SCA BurkeCommemoration Panel 200.00

628.00

Total Income: 8,877.20Total Expenses: 9,639.99

Balance Forward(1,937.95 + 8,877.20 - 9,639.99) 1,175.16

Kenneth Burke Society

Treasurer’sReport1993-1996

Submitted by Star Muir


This Newsletter combines the first two of three intendedissues. A winter issue follows with details on the Iowaconference. Misjudgements and unforseen difficultiesled to changes in publication schedule. After the ‘96conference, the Editor received a new computer, a scan-ner, and several software packages–all needed for theenvisioned website and journal. Once the computer wasset up, the Editor’s office was upset for painting, thencarpeting, then the ceiling’s collapsing from a radiatorleak. At the scheduled time of the first KBSN issue,Communication affiliated with English. Moving intonew offices across campus disrupted production, limit-ing access to the typesetter the Editor had used to printhigh resolution pages for making photographic plates–a process necessitated by the different operating sys-tems used by the Editor and university printing officeand complicated by the15-30MB KBSN files.When theEditor turned back to the Newsletter, information forthe Conference which would normally be published inthe second issue appeared to be forthcoming. He turnedto setting up the new website, believing he could postconference information quickly when it became avail-able, then publish the KBSN. But the Editor badly mis-judged the work involved as well as the aches and painsthat would result from extensive computer time neededto create arresting web pages. The entirely new graph-ics used in this issue are a product of the website effort.

Founded in 1878 by the priests and brothers of theHoly Ghost, Duquesne University carries a more thancentury-old tradition of providing a unique liberal andprofessional education with an emphasis on moral val-ues, a dedication to quality teaching and a commit-ment to service. Today Duquesne University servesmore than 8500 undergraduate and graduate students,offering more than 150 programs on the bachelor's,master's and doctoral levels in its nine schools: theCollege and Graduate School of Liberal Arts and Sci-ences and the schools of Business Administration, Edu-cation, Health Sciences, Law, Music, Natural and Envi-ronmental Sciences, Nursing, and Pharmacy.

The Communication Department at Duquesne offersbachelor’s degrees in either Communication Studies,Journalism, or Media Studies and master’s degrees ineither Rhetoric & the Philosohy of Communication orCorporate Communication. The Communication andEnglish Departments offer a joint Ph.D. in Rhetoric.

The Kenneth Burke Society is a nonprofit organiza-tion incorporated in the State of New York since 1988.Annual dues of $20 for faculty and $10 for students (ortriennial dues of $50 and $25 respectivity) fund+ theSociety’s triennial conference and other activities. Mem-bers receive a subscription to the Kenneth Burke SocietyNewsletter plus future publications (see insert). TheKBSNewsletter, published annually under the Society'sauspices, is financed by and produced in the Communi-cation Department at Duquesne University, Pittsburgh,PA 15282 (phone 412-396-6446; fax 412-396-4792). Asecond annual publication, KB: A Journal of the Ken-neth Burke Society, is planned. Readers are encouragedto "join the fray" by submitting letters, abstracts, or manu-scripts that promote the study, understanding, dissemi-nation, research, critical analysis, and preservation ofworks by and about Kenneth Burke. Authors should pre-pare manuscripts following MLA or APA guidelines andsubmit both a paper copy and a disk file using any estab-lished Macintosh, MS-DOS, or Windows wordprocessor.

Editor–Richard H. Thames, Duquesne UniversityE-Mail: [email protected]

The Society has posted an extensive website under theNewsletter Editor’s supervision; news, announcements,archives, and much more can be found at the internetaddress www.home.duq.edu/~thames/kennethburke.Because of difficulties with the server, users have hadproblems accessing and surfing the site. Another ad-dress will be posted once the files have been moved toa new machine the department has purchased to func-tion as the server for the Editor .

§Obituary and Memorial issues of the Newsletter are stillavailable for $4 (mainly postage). Contact the Editor.

DUQUESNEUNIVERSITY

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Announcements

October, 1998: "Continuing Our Conversation" - KB Journal

Documents

Transcript of October, 1998: "Continuing Our Conversation" - KB Journal