According to Richard Enos, there is a serious problem in the discipline of modern composition: there is not enough new research in rhetoric. We're getting our information, not from primary sources, but from critics. Sometimes we're getting it third- or fourth-hand. And like the popular children's game of telephone, by the time the information works its way into our writing, it's often hopelessly distorted. What's holding us back from getting our hands dirty with the primary stuff? False belief "that research in rhetoric is retrospective or at best, static," says Enos. He claims that research in rhetoric is far from static. Instead, the new evidence and data we gather can enable us to develop "new methods to refine our theories and analyses." We are not burying ourselves in an irrelevant past; we are adding our voices to a great conversation.
According to James Kinneavy, there is another problem in the discipline of modern composition: the concept of kairos has been largely neglected in the contemporary comp classroom. Kairos, he says, "might be defined as the right or opportune time to do something, or right measure in doing something." We must devote renewed attention, Kinneavy argues, to "the appropriateness of the discourse to the particular circumstances of the time, place, speaker, and audience involved." Kinneavy places heavy emphasis on what he calls "situational context." That is, he wants to move away from a myopic focus on adding commas and combining sentences to writing for clear purposes and real people across the curriculum.
So what's the connection?
While there are several possible areas of overlap between these authors, I think that one critical point of connection is contextualization--tailoring the message to the audience. Kairos is all about audience. It's about students writing about ethical matters, issues that concern them, topics that interest them, and then keeping their audience in mind when they write. And the application of Enos's article is that by conducting primary scholarship, we have the ability to pull ancient rhetorical theories into modern times, framing them in light of current issues. We must spurn the temptation to only regurgitate what we've heard from other people and instead bring new perspectives.
For Enos, it's about contextualizing research through fresh takes on primary sources. For Kinneavy, it's about contextualizing writing through renewed awareness of kairos. Both are concerned with how classical concepts influence modern writers.
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I agree that Enos is concerned with the lack of original thought being presented in the field of rhetoric, and that it stems from a neglect of the primary sources. Why do scholars tend to forget about primary sources? I think it might be because they are trying to find an original idea and feel they must build on what has already been done, so they determine that what can be obtained from primary sources has already taken place and rely on the scholars that have come before them. Since they are trying to build on what has come before, they merely look at the thoughts of other scholars and comment on what has been said without offering a contribution because to look back at the primary source is to work on something that has already been done. It is easy to forget that we can offer a new idea simply by approaching a primary source in a different manner. We often fail to recognize the value and power of our own thoughts and contributions when looking at the commentary of the great scholars that have come before us. We then neglect the primary source and loose our greatest source of information and our opportunity to give light to our blossoming ideas because the scholars before us didn’t drea our attention to it.
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