Crossed-Up Disciplinarity: What Norbert Wiener, Thomas Pynchon, and William Gaddis Got Wrong about Entropy and Literature

Letzler, David

doi:10.3368/cl.56.1.23

Cited by 6 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 28 publications

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“…(p. 251 fn 2) Certainly, some articles in my sample pointed out previous scholars' mistakes, occasionally in strong terms. Letzler's (2015) primary motive was to correct literary critical understandings of entropy; in his view, prior critics were confused by the mistaken literary texts they interpreted. He declared baldly that their "entire perspective .…”

Section: Frequent Appearancesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Humanistic Knowledge-Making and the Rhetoric of Literary Criticism: Special Topoi Meet Rhetorical Action

Banting

2022

Written Communication

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This article examines the power of special topoi to characterize the discourse of literary criticism, and through emphasis on rhetorical action, it sheds light on the limitations of topos analysis for characterizing research articles in disciplinary discourse more generally. Using an analytical approach drawn both from studies of topoi in disciplinary discourse and rhetorical genre theory, I examine a representative corpus of 21st-century literary research articles. I find that while most of the special topoi recognized by Fahnestock and Secor and Wilder remain prevalent in recent criticism, contemporary literary critics tend to draw on only a select subset of those topoi when making claims about their rhetorical actions. The topoi they use most often— mistaken-critic and paradigm—help identify the ways knowledge-making work is undertaken in literary criticism, a discipline often considered epideictic rather than epistemic. But what the special topoi do not capture is precisely the distinctly motivated, actively epistemic character of this disciplinary rhetoric. Based on these findings, I suggest that special topoi must be seen as functioning in the context of the rhetorical action undertaken by literary research articles. These articles undertake not simply persuasion but the particularly humanistic act I refer to as contributing to scholarly understanding: a rhetorical action worth attending to for scholars of disciplinary discourse, because it is deliberately more concerned with practice than product.

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Section: Frequent Appearancesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Humanistic Knowledge-Making and the Rhetoric of Literary Criticism: Special Topoi Meet Rhetorical Action

Banting

2022

Written Communication

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Mathematical Clinamen in the Encyclopedic Novel: Pynchon, DeLillo, Wallace

taylor

2020

The Palgrave Handbook of Literature and Mathematics

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The counternarrative in early Pynchon: Race and power in “The Secret Integration”

Larsson

2024

Orbis Litterarum

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The issue of race and power in “The Secret Integration” requires re‐examination. Politically oriented readers have characterized the plot as forms of alignment with racism and segregation, whereas readers focusing on the esthetics and development of the authorship have to some degree recognized the role of the counternarrative in this early short story. What is at stake in the debate is the function of Pynchon's textual strategies of ambiguity and unreliable narration, and the significance of the text in relation to the wider authorship. This essay maintains that the story signals counternarratives to systemic racism and power on the plot, discourse, and thematic level. Pynchon's text not only makes resistance to racist and segregationist worldviews a prominent feature of the discourse and the reading process but also locates tension between openness and narrow‐mindedness among the main characters, at the thematic and plot levels. This essay demonstrates how “The Secret Integration” moves from modes of non‐conformism so prevalent in Pynchon's early short stories to a mode of counterhistory of fundamental importance to the later work.

show abstract

Crossed-Up Disciplinarity: What Norbert Wiener, Thomas Pynchon, and William Gaddis Got Wrong about Entropy and Literature

Cited by 6 publications

References 28 publications

Humanistic Knowledge-Making and the Rhetoric of Literary Criticism: Special Topoi Meet Rhetorical Action

Humanistic Knowledge-Making and the Rhetoric of Literary Criticism: Special Topoi Meet Rhetorical Action

Mathematical Clinamen in the Encyclopedic Novel: Pynchon, DeLillo, Wallace

The counternarrative in early Pynchon: Race and power in “The Secret Integration”

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