this morning i was walking along M Street and saw a homeless man about 15 feet in front of me. he was standing on the sidewalk, holding a baseball cap out for money, but didn't seem to be talking to passers-by or doing anything to solicit donations. to my surprise, however, as i passed him, he lunged forward slightly and shouted "BOO!" as if to scare me into giving him money. though the strategy didn't work (i kept walking), i nearly burst out laughing, and later thought that maybe i should've given him some change to reward one of the most original and bizarre homeless-guy tactics i'd ever seen.

Well, at least it's not 5AM...this time.

So, how does a discussion of drama relate to my investigation into Plato’s Chora? To understand the direction in which this project will proceed and the subject matter that this project seeks to investigate, I think it is helpful to first think about drama, for several reasons. The first being that this project will be a performance. Using key terms that occur repeatedly within traditional scholarship on the Chora as my script, and the classroom as the space for Chora’s theoretical performance, this project seeks to (en)act the possibilities for a protagonistic application of the Chora in rhetorical scholarship. Moreover, the very format with which my project will take will be as much an explicit argument as it will be an implicit performance of that argument. While other literary forms, too, are open for interpretation, performance of drama requires different terminology, namely that focused on embodiment and (en)actment; a discussion of the choratic classroom, as I will show, requires such terms, since the Chora is always moving. Just as drama is the process of (an always changing) (en)actment of reactions to a set of words—putting forth an argument of who and what a character is—and just as that embodiment is open to various interpretations by the actor, the Chora also allows for that style of engagement in the classroom. This project, then, seeks to rhetorically open up the very physical, designated space of the composition classroom. Thus, the question that this project seeks to answer is not one of meaning-making or productiveness, but rather one of embodiment and enactment: How might we embody and enact the Chora in the writing classroom? Finally, this project will argue that like protagonists in drama, the fields of rhetoric and composition too must give up their will toward mastery—the desire to find the precise ”key” to a/effective writing. We might instead seek to open up the fields to the possibilities that come out of impreciseness, out of failure, out of not knowing. And by seeing our students, too, as protagonists, we might better be able to help them give up their insistence that what they bring to the classroom—a set of values, experiences, ideas of what writing is and is not—need be what they will leave with. If the Chora is a site of transformation, flux, as Plato’s dialogue intimates, then my project argues that the Chora allows us to, like the protagonist of a drama, occupy a space predicated on contingencies, refusals, blockings. And most importantly, we must take away all expectations of what we as instructors will bring to the classroom, and like Hamlet resign ourselves to the idea that in the composition classroom, the readiness really is all.

I wish I was here

To Begin (Again)

Three hours later, and I've got an introduction to a thesis on the Chora which doesn't even make mention of the Chora. . Looks like I've got a long road ahead.


“…learning is much closer to invention than to verification…The modes of academic writing now taught in school tend to be positioned on the side of the already known rather than on the side of wanting to find out […] and hence discourage learning how to learn.” -Gregory Ulmer (Heuretics)

“The theater is so endlessly fascinating because it's so accidental. It's so much like life.” --Arthur Miller

Drama, as a form, is strange. Time and space limit drama in ways that are different than other literary forms; unlike the novel or film, its structure is determined by (1) a requisite physical space, namely the apparatus of the theater and (2) by how long the audience is willing to watch a performance. On the one hand, these conditions reflect a unique set of constraints, for drama is a text which is bound to more than the space of a page. But perhaps the most curious aspect of the genre is that despite occupying a physical space and a designated amount of time, drama cannot be held; unlike film or other mediums where one is able to rewind, pause, fast-forward and so on, dramatic performances are, for the most part, continuous and forward-moving, and once a play ends, it is impossible to recreate the exact same conditions of that performance twice —i.e. cadence, inflection, choreography, even audience. Thus, the script, the theater, and the determined length of the performance serve only as a blueprint; they set up a framework, but what occurs within the space of that framework is essentially fluid, always changing. Thus, the conditions of drama create a unique tension—while the physical space and the space of the script create boundaries for what can and cannot occur, the performance that takes place within that space make it a text that is, essentially, without a singular, stable form.

We also see this paradox reflected in drama’s thematic structure. It would seem that the fundamental argument of all drama is that nothing is transparent. Drama approaches reality with the assumption that life is mysterious, which is why, arguably, in each plot, control slips away from the protagonist. We begin with a character who says “I’ve got it” –meaning, someone who believes he or she possesses a whole series of possibilities or solutions—only to soon realize that this is not the case at all. Why? Because life is revealed as one of contingency, without reliable probabilities; the world of drama is one of surprise.

Thus, dramatic action is open to a series of reversals and failures, and it winds up in a place radically different from where it started. The result is that the protagonist begins to accept that nothing is predetermined, and thus constantly second guesses his own assumptions about the world around him. We see this, for example, in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, where Hamlet constantly doubts his assumptions about his father’s death. Ultimately, however, Hamlet resigns that “the readiness is all” (4.2.237). In other words, outcomes or consequences which might occur cannot be calculated or foreknown, only embraced with readiness.

Of course, along with each protagonist, every drama also has an antagonist, who insists on control, on that story being that story, and he is unscrupulous to this fact. So, what you get in drama is also a conflict of experience. Whereas the protagonist lives with contingencies and creates the possibility for growth, the antagonist never realizes this, or, rather, realizes it too late.

What this project seeks to do is to advocate that, as writing instructors, we approach our classrooms as sites of drama and our roles in those classrooms and our students as protagonists. By using the term “protagonist,” I do not wish to imply that the aim of this thesis is to heroically save the fields of rhetoric and composition. Quite the contrary—my thesis will argue that these fields do not require any saving at all; that by giving up our antagonistic will toward mastery—the desire to find the precise ”key” to a/effective writing pedagogy—we might instead be able to open up the field to the possibilities that come out of impreciseness, out of failure, out of not knowing. And by seeing our students as protagonists, we might better be able to help them give up their insistence that what they bring to the classroom—a set of values, experiences, ideas of what writing is and is not—need not be what they leave with. We must, like the protagonist of a drama, occupy a space predicated on contingencies, refusals, blockings. And most importantly, we must take away all expectations of what we as instructors will bring to the classroom, and like Hamlet resign ourselves to the idea that in the composition classroom, the readiness really is all.

traveling bug is biting me hard

To say Georgetown is a strange place would be a gross understatement. As an employer, it might be best described as a schizophrenic monolith-- a tightly woven bureaucracy with an occasional mom-and-pop sensibility. It's both the Roman Empire right before the fall and Apple circa 2007--an ever expanding, customer-service minded, innovative, well-oiled machine.

And it's for that reason that I have somehow gone from being jobless next fall to having secured employment, once again, at Georgetown, based on a fortuitous run-in with an old colleague. And I'll be receiving full benefits. Amen.

When Nothing Goes According to Plan

I guess it's easy to forget the things that make you happy, but I am convinced that there's no better moment than when that feeling takes you by surprise and rushes back into you like a fierce wave of energy and anticipation. Having the opportunity, once again, to teach Shakespeare at Georgetown has put me back into that euphoric state of last April. I remember getting up really early and being unable to fall asleep at night because I loved what I was doing so much that I couldn't wait for the day to begin again. And each day on my way to work lines of dialogue would be floating around in my head and I'd recite Shakespeare's words over and over again like a prayer. And maybe accepting the opportunity to teach Othello this semester came at the cost of job security next fall, but a little voice keeps telling me that this was the right decision and from the delightful mess of books and old notebooks covering my floor and the sound of Harold Bloom's podcasts that have been echoing through my apartment all afternoon, I can''t imagine doing anything else.

Life seems to be piecing itself back together again. I haven't been this happy in a long while.