2. Overview
• The underlife of an
essay
• What is delivery? A
(very) brief explanation
• Group activity:
delivering writing
• Wrap-up
3. Once upon a time I wrote an essay…
• Context/Venue: Malea
Powell’s History and
Theory of Rhetoric
course at MSU, 2008
• Audience: Malea and
my peers
• Purpose: Final project
demonstrating my
learning
4. I decided propose it to a conference…
• Context/Venue:
Feminisms and
Rhetorics Conference
2009 at MSU
• Audience: Colleagues,
grad students, other
rhetoricians
• Purpose: To present
findings to the field
5. To do that, I had to do
many things…
• Research the conference
• Write a proposal abstract
• Submit the abstract
• Wait
• Receive my acceptance
• Prepare the essay for
presentation
6. I presented my essay…
• Context/Venue:
Feminisms and Rhetorics
Conference 2009 at MSU
• Audience: Colleagues,
grad students, other
rhetoricians
• Purpose: To present
findings to the field
And someone asked to publish it!
7. I decided to publish it!
• Context/Venue: Moon City
Review, a journal of poetry,
stories, art, and criticism
• Audience: Colleagues in many
different fields of English
studies including creative
writers
• Purpose: Sharing ideas about
race and performance;
expression…and a publication!
8. I had some work to
do…
• Research the journal
• Do a formal submission
(write a cover letter,
navigate the Submittable
site, etc.)
• Wait
• Receive comments from the
editors
• Revise and re-send the essay
• Wait
9. And my essay was finally published…
• Platt, Julie. “When I
Played Indian.”
Moon City Review
2010 (Fall 2010).
• But is this the end of
the story of this
essay? Or is it only
the beginning?
11. • Like the canon of style, delivery
refers to how you write/say/do
something.
• In antiquity, it was mainly associated
with oratory.
• Once considered the most important
canon, it fell out of favor and has
been “recovered” several times.
• Its evolution has tended to follow
patterns of technological change.
12. • Today, delivery is more than
gesture or intonation. It concerns
both the medium and the
circulation of discourse.
• Media: alphabetic text, video,
audio, graffiti, etc. What form
discourse takes.
• Circulation: letters, blogs,
YouTube, billboards, etc. How
discourse moves.
13. • Many steps were involved in delivering my writing
outside of its original classroom context.
• In order to circulate it (make it move), I had to
change its medium (change its form).
• I had to consider changes in things like
context/venue, audience, and purpose.
14. • Many steps are required
to bring a piece of
writing out into the
world, but this is often
invisible.
• This “underlife” of
writing is what we can
make visible by paying
attention to delivery.
