“What Wants to be Said (Out Loud)?: Octalogs as Alter/native to Hegemonic Discourse Practices”
by Eric Reid Hamilton | Xchanges 14.1, Spring 2019
Altering the Narrative or Narrating the Alternative
In 1988, the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) scheduled a panel for academics to speak off the cuff, amongst one another, in person—with available transcriptions published thereafter. Although it was a group of scholars selected in advance with predetermined questions and discussion prompts, this Octalog, as it came to be known, served as an alternative genre to the traditional academic paper by offering an organic and unconstrained (dis)placement of rhetorical theorists. The name is derived from octa for the eight participating scholars, and log as a shortened version for “dialogue.” As Lois Agnew summarizes in “Rhetorical Historiography and the Octalogs,” this “phenomenon…came into being” when noteworthy scholars “proposed and chaired a roundtable composed of eight distinguished historians of rhetoric who gathered to discuss the methods, subjects, and purposes of scholarship in rhetorical history. The members of this panel,” which included “James Berlin . . . Sharon Crowley, Susan Jarratt” and others, “presented short opening statements, followed by a lively conversation that was recorded and published in Rhetoric Review the same year” (237).
As James Berlin uttered in the initial Octalog of ’88, “The historian often has more control of history than the events of the past that actually transpired” (17). Berlin adds, “To understand a rhetoric, it is thus necessary to examine its position in the play of power in its own time.” And: “We then must have histories of rhetoric, multiple versions of the past, each version acting as a check, a corrective to the others” (17).
By offering a setting for live (and often lively) discussion, it allows scholars to clarify, inform, and build from one another. For instance, one scholar’s understanding of another’s work may be infinitely increased and clarified merely by having an in-person conversation whereby questions and concerns are answered. In contrast, the conventional written model is one that ends up taking place at much later dates in between every utterance—with each scholar having to submit their work, wait for a response, edit whatever modifications the editors happen to suggest, and sit on it until the article or book in which it is contained gets released. Agnew notes, in retrospect, this setting served as “a catalyst for further conversations about rhetorical historiography both during and after the event” (237).
The fact that CCCC instituted a sequel demonstrates the successful impact the original colloquium had on the field. If one were to expand on this process, these types of roundtable discussions could be revisited multiple times in any environment, regardless of topic, as often as possible. Such settings also offer great opportunities for scholars to ‘check in’ with one another. By offering an in-person debriefing of sorts, in a back-and-forth manner, such colloquies could be infinitely fruitful for both the participants and the audience, as well as any readers of the transcripts for years to come.
Alluding to the multimodal, transmedia nature of this distinct genre of discourse: “The printed transcripts of these events have provided a valuable resource for those who have sought to understand the problems and possibilities inherent in historical inquiry and the ethical implications that surround that enterprise” (Agnew 238). Going forward, Murphy wonders, “If the Octalogs continue to happen every eleven to twelve years as they have so far, what will be the concerns of the speakers in the 2022 session?” (Agnew et al. 240). Murphy adds: “The very fact that we keep having Octalogs is itself a sign that we have learned well the value of flexibility and self-assessment based on critical reflection,” and each manifestation has “embraced diversity, pushing back the uncharted and unexplored areas of our field while (at the same time) being inclusive. Our unwillingness to remain static is not a sign of a lack of stability but rather an index of our development” (245).