Invisible effects : rethinking writing through emergence. Studies in composition and rhetoric ; vol. 16.

In very good condition. - INTRODUCTION: WRITING EFFECTS, COMPLEX SYSTEMS, AND EMERGENCE -- An Opening Example: Keeping Knoxville Scruffy -- Each chapter of this book will begin with a short secrion set off from the rest of the text, that is meant to illustrate how the principles of complex Systems discussed in the chapter can add to or transform our understanding of writing practices, writing pedagogy, or rhetorical inquiry. The purpose of this format is to providc, up front in each chapter, concrctc cxamples that help reveal why Systems theory principles matter for teaching, writing, and analysis. The rest of the chapter will be a mix of discussion and explication ofthat chaptcr's pritnary conceptual focus. For this Introduction, the opening section is a Condensed offshoot of the opening example featured in Chapter 2. -- -- As Jenny Edbauer Rice describes in her well-known (to rhetoric and writing scholars) article about the rhetorical significance of the slogan "Keep Austin Weird" (Edbauer), the phrase rose to prominence in Austin in the early 2000s, and quickly becamc a rallying cry�a proclamation of iden-tity for the city and its residents that spoke to their pride in the unique character of the city that they thought was being lost as a result of massive gentrification transforming the area. The phrase also spawned a cas-cade of variations, each retaining the basic structure of the original, but with a twist (The University of Texas Liberal Arts collcge's t-shirts read-ing "Keep Austin Liberal Arts" were one example of a popul�Variation [Edbauer 17-18]). It should be noted that these textual variations, while somewhat diverse in their intent, were all tied to the same cultural, geo-graphical, social, and historical exigencics present in that locality in that time period. However, the success of "Keep Austin Weird" also inspired other cities to launch their own, similaT slogans, in an effort to re-create the same generative effect Austin's slogan scemed to have on urban devei-opmcnt. Never mind that the Austin slogan emerged in largc part as an oppositional response to the urban development of the region; these other cities saw it as causing what came to he known as Austin's "coolness," which ostensibiy manifested in visual effects such as increased development, more commerce, and more Jobs in the region. In this case, many city leaders expected�often erroneously�that they could mimic the "coolness" of Austin via the effects of a slogan similar to "Keep Austin Weird". -- The city of Knoxville, Tennessee, and its moniker, the "Scruffy Little City," is a helpful Illustration of such misguidcd cxpectations. While that slogan dates back to 1980 (McElroy), it was more recently rccast as "Keep Knoxville Scruffy," a move that was specifically inspired by "Keep Austin Weird" (Markley and Sharma .385). The appeal behind the attempted appropriation is clear. As geographers Scott Markley and Madhuri Sharma describe in their research into urban and suburban gentrificarion, this kind of slogan is part of a branding strategy designed to market a city's "cultural heritage, local history, and/or distinet 'way of life,' which can only be expe-rienced by visiting or living there." This strategy in turn allows the city to extract higher rents from businesses on the basis that those businesses would have "exclusivc ownership over some apparently distinet and non-replicahle social, cultural, physical, and/or experiential landscape" (386). ISBN 9781433186837