Loading...
Editing culture: the rhetorical work of textual editing as shaping collective memory and social action
Nobles, Heidi Gabrielle
Nobles, Heidi Gabrielle
Citations
Altmetric:
Soloist
Composer
Publisher
Date
2018
Additional date(s)
Abstract
Scholarly editors in the digital age face unfamiliar challenges that demand critical analysis and creative approaches, yet contemporary editorial theory is at best fragmented and often underdeveloped. This dissertation recovers, documents, and synthesizes material relevant to developing heuristics for current university press editors by reaching back to antiquity and studying the development of three major editorial traditions in connection with early major developments in both rhetoric and literacy, then synthesizing those recovered theories with the challenges and promises of the current age. My exigence comes from my conviction that to change the texts people read is to change social reality--and editors change language all the time.^To study how those interventions take place, in Chapter One, I consider the most documented editorial tradition, critical editing, as a rhetorical activity, attentive to the influence that Aristotle wielded over both rhetoric--that is, using language to shape social behavior--and critical editing through the library of Alexandria. In Chapters Two and Three, I define two additional traditions, which I have named process editing (in connection with Cicero) and revisionist editing (in connection with Philo of Alexandria and Paul of Tarsus). In all these cases, I observe the practical methods and rhetorical strategies at work in their varied editorial activities.^In Chapters Four and Five, I move to todays university press publishing landscape, surveying recent professional activity via published material and original interview data and drawing on rhetorical theory to propose relevant heuristics for todays editors to leverage in approaching unpredictable projects amid shifting technologies. The work of this dissertation is epistemic, addressing the ways in which we structure knowledge and meaning. I posit and explicate a rhetorical theory particular to editing that stands as a counterpart to what has previously been named editorial theory. While prior theories consider editorial theory as a dimension of textual theory--that is, how texts function as documents, and how editorial intervention affects issues of textual identity and representation--my theory prioritizes the social functions of text, as editors work consciously and unconsciously to enact social influence through shaping cultural memory and subsequent human action.
Contents
Subject
Subject(s)
Digital humanities.
Rhetoric History.
Collective memory.
Editing.
Publishers and publishing.
Knowledge, Theory of.
Rhetoric History.
Collective memory.
Editing.
Publishers and publishing.
Knowledge, Theory of.
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Journal Issue
Genre
Dissertation
Description
Format
1 online resource (vi, 267 pages) :
Department
English