Anyway, here’s my SkeptiCamp Denver talk, “Pragmatic Rhetoric for Idealistic Skeptics”. If you haven’t already, I’d suggest reading my previous post before watching the video, as the post provides some context, explanations, additional information, etc. Thanks! :)

Speaking in a new context is challenging. I’m quite comfortable in front of a classroom, but I’d never before spoken at an event like this, and the dynamic is definitely different. I knew what I wanted to talk about, but couldn’t quite figure out exactly how I should talk about it in this context, particularly because I was up first and didn’t really know how the other speakers would be structuring their talks. So, long story short: 1) I was more nervous than I expected to be, 2) I was quite sick (mostly allergies), which made me feel a bit out of it and not as quick-on-the-uptake as I like to be, 3) because I’d never before spoken at an event like this, I wasn’t quite sure how to pace myself, so I ended up getting through only about half of what I had planned to discuss, 4) I move around way too much and use too many filler words (note to self: don’t do that next time! :) ), and 5) although I know that I could have done better, I’m very happy that I did it, grateful to have had the opportunity to do so, and plan to keep working on improving my skills and on becoming more comfortable speaking at these sort of events, as I’d love to continue doing so in the future (and am super-excited to be on the “Skepticism and the Humanities” panel at TAM 2012!)

Also, in the days leading up to SkeptiCamp, I wrote about 3,000 words on this topic (“Pragmatic Rhetoric for Idealistic Skeptics”) and plan to use that content to craft a longer and more in-depth and thorough version of this talk at some point. Additionally, I’ll soon post either a summary of what I talked about and/or an overview of everything I had planned to talk about.

I really love this topic and find it to be so inspiring and exciting. I love the idea of expanding the definition of rhetoric and of “taking back” rhetoric, so to speak, of thinking of rhetoric as something that any idealistic and/or active skeptic can and should have in their “toolkit”, of understanding how frequently we utilize rhetoric, of valuing and prioritizing one’s audience, specifically by embracing and utilizing the principle of clarity and the principle of charity, of modeling the evidence-based decision making and critical thinking that we want others to adopt, of remembering that it’s not about us and that it’s not about how we can “win” or “conquer” or “beat the other side into submission”; instead, its about discovering the most effective ways to inform and persuade our audience, of encouraging idealists to see the value of and the usefulness of pragmatism, of illustrating how pragmatic rhetoric helps us to change the world for the better and to actually do something, instead of just congratulating ourselves for holding certain beliefs and having certain ideals, etc., etc., etc. Anyway, I’m excited to improve upon and expand this talk and to also discuss the topic in other ways/contexts.

(And, for anyone who’s interested, I referenced and/or made use of two sources in my talk: Daniel J. O’Keefe‘s ”News for Argumentation from Persuasion Effects Research: Two Cheers for Reasoned Discourse” (PDF) and Ray Hyman‘s “Proper Criticism“)

So, onwards we go. First, here’s a picture of goofy-faced mid-word-me during my talk, taken by my friend Reed :) :

First speaker of day is @mirandachale on "Pragmatic Rhetoric for Idealistic Skeptics" lockerz.com/s/206667212

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SkeptiCamp Colorado (@SkeptiCamp5280) May 05, 2012

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And the video! Many thanks to Michael Clifton for filming the entire day (the schedule can be found here). I tried my best to set the embedded YouTube video to start at around 7:20 or so, but I’m not exactly sure if that will work or not. If it doesn’t work, fast-forward to roughly 7:20 to see my talk. I encourage you to watch the other talks, too. There were some fantastic ones (I especially enjoyed seeing Bryan & Baxter). Anyway, voila!:

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& Lastly, here’s a group photo, taken by Stu Robbins:

Group picture! SkeptiCamp Denver 2012 in Parker, Colorado lockerz.com/s/206726849

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SkeptiCamp Colorado (@SkeptiCamp5280) May 05, 2012

Yay SkeptiCamp!

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More soon! ♥

I’ve been teaching, planning, writing, reading, listening to hours upon hours of “Rat Pack Radio” on Pandora, etc. etc. etc.

Oh, and I went to Washington D.C. a couple of months ago. That was pretty amazing. I mean, the Library of Congress and the National Gallery of Art? Swoooooon. (I’ll post some photos soon.) And I’m going to Denver next week and to Las Vegas in July. Yay travelling!

So, a few things:

1) As I mentioned, I’m headed to Denver next week. I’m going to visit my friends, whom I’ve dubbed The Cool Colorado Kids, and I also get to do a talk at SkeptiCamp Denver on May 5th. Yay! I’m excited & grateful for the opportunity. SkeptiCamps are awesome. They’re the brainchild of my friend Reed Esau, who is perhaps the coolest of the Cool Colorado Kids. Anyway, my talk is called (or, well, will be called, as I’m not done working on it yet) “Pragmatic Rhetoric for Idealistic Skeptics”. I’ll probably be talking about similar ideas on the humanities panel at TAM 2012 in July, but I’m not sure yet.

2) I’ll try to blog here more often. Having a clear focus helps me, so I’ll probably stick to writing about rhetoric, writing, teaching, critical thinking, skepticism, and such (I’m currently quite enamored with and fascinated by the concept of “the rhetorical situation” and I’ll most likely be posting about it soon). I’ve also started using Tumblr again (well, there’s nothing there yet, but…), and you can find me at mirandaceleste.tumblr.com. It will be a blog-ish place for me to fill with fun posts about lovely/pretty/swoon-worthy/poignant/delectable/wonderful things that I like.

3) Speaking of rhetoric (well, it’s sort-of-related, at least), here are a couple of my favorite Ryan Gosling “Hey girl…” meme images from the “Rhet/Comp Ryan Gosling” Tumblr. Hee! (& Here’s a list of other Ryan Gosling “Hey girl…” Tumblrs):

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4) I can’t stop listening to Sinatra’s “My Way” lately ♥. Here’s a fantastic performance of it from 1969:

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More soon! Thanks for reading ♥

Very exciting!: I’m going to be on a panel at The Amazing Meeting 2012. I’m really grateful for the opportunity & will post more info about the panel when it becomes available. I’m looking forward to the conference and to spending time with friends in Vegas. Oh, Vegas. I do love you so & it’s been a year since last I saw you :)

♥

That’s not to say that all or even most images are worthless, of course. Far from it. We’re surrounded by and bombarded with images, in both the physical and the virtual world. That’s just a fact, not a value judgment. And many of these images make claims of one sort or another. We can “read” them as texts, so to speak. Sometimes these arguments are subtle and nuanced, intended to unconsciously nudge us towards a certain perspective or stance on the issue at hand, while some are heavy-handed in their rhetoric, unmistakeable in their intention to persuade. Arguments made by images appeal not to our reasoning skills or to our intellect, but to our emotions.

The study of the arguments and messages conveyed by images is referred to as visual rhetoric. Each semester, I discuss visual rhetoric in my rhetoric/composition courses and encourage students to “read” images, analyze them, practice skepticism towards them, and to determine their message and/or argument. Whether you greet the visual era with optimism, see it as the downfall of western civilization, or something in-between, it’s difficult to deny the importance and necessity of visual literacy.

Upon first encountering the concept of an image as a text and of  ”reading” and/or “uncovering” an image’s implicit meaning and/or argument, I imagine that most of us think of visual advertisements. And while it certainly is important to analyze and practice skepticism towards the claims of advertisements, I think that most people are aware of that and already do so, at least to some extent.

As such, I believe that it’s more important to focus on images that are not advertisements, and to analyze how and why these images attempt to persuade us to feel, think, and/or act in a certain way. Images are symbols to which we ascribe meaning and value (this concept is referred to as “the symbolic perspective” or “the symbolist perspective”). In visual rhetoric, audience is key. The way that we react to images determines both their meaning/argument and the effectiveness of that argument. As Keith Kenney explains in “Building Visual Communication Theory by Borrowing from Rhetoric” (PDF), because of the symbolic nature of visual rhetoric, “understanding the intentions of the communicator is less important because meaning is now the result of an audience’s efforts as much as, if not more than, whoever created the message” (66).

Extending our visual literacy beyond advertisements equips us with the necessary tools to analyze, think critically about, and be skeptical of the claims presented by all sorts of images. In the Encyclopedia of Rhetoric and Composition, William Nothstine and Martha Cooper explain that “the symbolist perspective centers on the notion that all persuasion is really to a significant extent self-persuasion, involving the active participation of an audience” (509). Visual literacy empowers us to decide whether or not we will “buy into” the message or argument presented by an image. When we analyze images and their arguments, we question, we think, we reflect, and we become an “active participant” in our decision making. In other words, we apply skepticism.

Ultimately, viewing images as persuasive “texts” can help us to apply to images the same skepticism that we already apply to written rhetoric and to oratory. Visual literacy is an empowering tool because it is a practical tool. It doesn’t matter whether or not you welcome the increasingly visual nature of our culture, as we must apply skepticism towards the world we have, not the world we wish we had, and visual literacy is one of the easiest and most useful ways to apply that skepticism.

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Works Cited

Cooper, Martha, and William Nothstine. “Persuasion.” Encyclopedia of Rhetoric and Composition: Communication from  Ancient Times to the Information Age. Ed. Theresa Enos. New York: Garland Pub., 1996. 509. Print.

Kenney, Keith. “Building Visual Communication Theory by Borrowing From Rhetoric.” Journal of Visual Literacy 22.1 (2002): 53–80. Print.

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(If you’re not familiar with Bill, be sure to check out some of the articles and posts that I’ve written about him.)

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is a powerful, wealthy, and dangerous organization. They wield a great deal of influence over many politicians, affect the outcomes of various aspects of the legislative process, and pose a direct threat to the basic human rights of many Americans. Their priorities are skewed, their claims are frequently baseless, and they protect the Catholic Church over all else, no matter the cost. They get away with this because no one holds their feet to the fire and makes them answer the tough questions. Let’s ask those questions. Let’s shed some light on their tactics and actions and raise consciousness about the harm that they cause. They’ve gotten away with this for far too long.

Well, someone in the media is asking the tough questions, shedding light on their tactics and activities, and raising consciousness about the influence that they wield and the dangers that they pose. Rose Aguilar, an author, journalist, and the host of “Your Call“, a daily call-in show on San Francisco public radio, has been doing much-needed and important work on this issue, and is calling out the USCCB in a way that most in the media have refused to.

Last Monday’s episode of “Your Call” asked the question “How did the US Conference of Bishops become so powerful?”. It was an excellent episode, and I highly recommend listening to the podcast. And today, Rose’s op-ed, “The birth control bishops“, was published on Al Jazeera English. I’m honored and so happy to have been quoted/used as a source in it:

Speaking of damage control, over the course of my research, I ran across an analysis of a May 2011 USCCB 143-page $1.8m report [PDF] analysing the extent of the sex abuse crisis in the Catholic Church titled: “The Causes and Context of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests in the United States, 1950-2010″. The report was compiled by the research team at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York.

“It is important to note that, although the research was carried out by the John Jay College, the UCCSB had the final say on whether or not to authorise publication of the report,” writes Miranda Celeste Hale, an English professor at North Idaho College, who writes about politics and the negative effects of childhood religious indoctrination.

Hale spent her spring break reading and analysing what she calls a worthless and dangerous report, which blames the cultural revolution of the 1960s for the abuse.

Hale says one of the most egregious aspects of the report was that the researchers arbitrarily redefined paedophilia as sexual abuse of victims that were ten years old or younger at the time, despite the fact that the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) sets the cut-off age at 13.

Redefining paedophilia allowed the researchers to claim that 22 per cent of sexual abuse victims were age ten and under, while the majority of victims were pubescent or post-pubescent, but Hale points out, if the researchers had used the DSM’s definition, that percentage would jump from 22 per cent to 73 per cent.

“The redefinition of paedophilia was really shocking,” she says. “Normally, a high percentage of priests would have been considered paedophiles and suddenly it’s fewer priests. No media outlet bothered to mention that or the fact that the report was funded almost solely by Catholic affiliated organisations.”

Hale believes the report is a “major setback in the movement towards church accountability”. She writes: “No, we must not shut up. We must not allow the Church to dominate the discourse. Speak out in whatever ways you can. On its own, what you or I say or write may not have any effect on the Church or the discourse surrounding this issue. Taken as a whole, though, our words provide a clear indication that there are many of us who will neither blindly accept the Church’s domination of the conversation nor quietly sit by while they evade justice time and time again.”

Rose is doing really great work, trying to keep media attention & scrutiny on the USCCB and their destructive activities and attitudes, and I’m really grateful for that.

Anyway, please go read her article- it’s excellent & I hope that it (and all of her work on this issue) gets the attention that it deserves. ♥

And, as usual, I’ll probably be Twittering a bit about it. Find me at @mirandachale. :)

The description that I posted at YouTube:

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is a powerful, wealthy, and dangerous organization. They wield a great deal of influence over many politicians, affect the outcomes of various aspects of the legislative process, and pose a direct threat to the basic human rights of many Americans. Their priorities are skewed, their claims are frequently baseless, and they protect the Catholic Church over all else, no matter the cost. They get away with this because no one holds their feet to the fire and makes them answer the tough questions. Let’s ask those questions. Let’s shed some light on their tactics and actions and raise consciousness about the harm that they cause. They’ve gotten away with this for far too long.

& My analysis of the USCCB’s “The Causes and Context of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests in the United States, 1950-2010″ can be found here.