Hawk's New Book on Composition and Sound Published by University of Pittsburgh Press
Resounding the Rhetorical Examines Composition and Rhetoric as a Quasi-Object
In his newly published book, Resounding the Rhetorical: Composition as a Quasi-Object (2018), Associate Professor Byron Hawk examines current scholarship on composition and rhetoric through a new materialist lens, situating composition as a “quasi-object,” a situational and relational concept that mobilizes practices of invention. By focusing on music and sound as examples for his critical inquiry and by employing a range of theoretical and analytical approaches, Hawk explores how quasi-objects emerge as/through material and communicative expression. Further, Hawk studies how the discipline of composition and rhetoric is itself a “quasi-object” that can be investigated and co-produced through quasi-object analysis.
Hawk’s work considers what possibilities might be in store for composition and rhetoric when concepts of postprocess and postwriting composition—as well as the discipline itself—are reformulated through performance, circulation, and materiality. Resounding the Rhetorical, published in the Composition, Literacy, and Culture series at the University of Pittsburgh Press, should be of interest to all scholars studying rhetoric, composition, sound studies, and critical theory.
Among the praise for Resounding the Rhetorical are the following reviews:
“Resounding the Rhetorical adds the latest chapter in the lineage of the foremost critical theory in the field of rhetoric and composition. Hawk makes his most important and carefully researched contribution to the conversation about post-process theory. Along this lineage are swirling constellations of metaphors—ecology, dancing, networks, even parasites—and ultimately Hawk's case study of sound and music is used to illustrate how we can better conceive of composition and rhetoric.”
—Todd Taylor, University of North Carolina
“Hawk presents a new framework or theory of composition based on the quasi-object. By situating sound as a quasi-object, Hawk demonstrates what this framework might mean for six key terms in the field: composition, process, research, collaboration, publics, and rhetoric. This is an extraordinarily 'big idea' for the field.”
—Michael Neal, Florida State University
Learn more about Resounding the Rhetorical at the University of Pittsburgh Press website.