I’ve mentioned before in this blog how much my experience as a Fulbrighter has affected my life. In Part I of that blog post series, I focused on how the year I spent in South Korea shaped me, and in Part II, I wrote about the continuing impact that experience has had on my life. Now, I’ve written about both of those topics and more in an article published in the latest issue of Fulbright Chronicles. The full issue, issue three of volume one, has just been released, and my article, "The Role of Rhetorical Ethos in Developing Mutual Understanding: An Autoethnographic Study of One Fulbrighter to South Korea," appears in it.
As Fulbright Chronicles explains on its website, it “is a quarterly periodical established and edited by alumni of the global Fulbright program.” The journal notes it is “a space for Fulbrighters to share their important work with a broad audience.” One type of article the journal publishes “address[es] contemporary issues that affect the Fulbright program and its global community.” Other articles the journal publishes “explore how [the] Fulbright experience contributed to knowledge and cross-cultural understanding.”
My article fits in the latter category. Just as in my previous blog posts where I discussed my experiences with cross-cultural understanding as a Fulbrighter to Korea, I did the same in my Fulbright Chronicles article. However, in my article I also discussed how my Fulbright experience contributed to knowledge in my academic field of rhetoric and composition.
As Fulbright Chronicles explains on its website, it “is a quarterly periodical established and edited by alumni of the global Fulbright program.” The journal notes it is “a space for Fulbrighters to share their important work with a broad audience.” One type of article the journal publishes “address[es] contemporary issues that affect the Fulbright program and its global community.” Other articles the journal publishes “explore how [the] Fulbright experience contributed to knowledge and cross-cultural understanding.”
My article fits in the latter category. Just as in my previous blog posts where I discussed my experiences with cross-cultural understanding as a Fulbrighter to Korea, I did the same in my Fulbright Chronicles article. However, in my article I also discussed how my Fulbright experience contributed to knowledge in my academic field of rhetoric and composition.
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A photo of me in Gyeongju, South Korea. (Personal collection/Karen P. Peirce) |
I haven’t written about my work in rhetoric and composition in this blog before, so I’ll take just a moment here to introduce the field. The study of composition is the study of the teaching of writing. This area of my academic field focuses on theories and practices related to classroom experiences that involve writing. The other part of my academic field consists of the study of rhetoric. Although rhetoric is a word that sometimes is used pejoratively or as a put-down to mean empty words (“that’s just rhetoric”), the study of rhetoric is a substantive discipline traced to the ancient Greeks in western culture and other ancient societies in other cultures. Rhetoric as a field interests itself in, as the Merriam-Webster dictionary puts it, “the art of speaking or writing effectively.” What distinguishes rhetoric from composition is that, while both are interested in the study of writing, composition is interested in what happens in the teaching of writing, whereas rhetoric applies to writing in any context.
The research I wrote about in my Fulbright Chronicles article involves how a particular area of rhetoric, known as ethos, can influence mutual understanding across difference. I’ve studied and published about this topic over the years, and I reference that work in my article. In overview, ethos is often taught in composition classrooms as credibility. When writing persuasive arguments, students are taught that they need to establish a credible ethos by citing experts, for example, in order to convince the audience that the argument being advanced should be believed. However, if the aim is not to make an argument but is rather to achieve mutual understanding across difference, I have proposed that a different sort of ethos is more effective. If you’d like to know more about this, you can find the details in my Fulbright Chronicles article.
If you take the time to read my article, I’d love to know what you think of it. I’d be interested to hear whether you’ve had a similarly impactful experience in your life. What has shaped your personal and professional trajectory?
The research I wrote about in my Fulbright Chronicles article involves how a particular area of rhetoric, known as ethos, can influence mutual understanding across difference. I’ve studied and published about this topic over the years, and I reference that work in my article. In overview, ethos is often taught in composition classrooms as credibility. When writing persuasive arguments, students are taught that they need to establish a credible ethos by citing experts, for example, in order to convince the audience that the argument being advanced should be believed. However, if the aim is not to make an argument but is rather to achieve mutual understanding across difference, I have proposed that a different sort of ethos is more effective. If you’d like to know more about this, you can find the details in my Fulbright Chronicles article.
If you take the time to read my article, I’d love to know what you think of it. I’d be interested to hear whether you’ve had a similarly impactful experience in your life. What has shaped your personal and professional trajectory?