Analyzing Cultural Artifacts -- Proposed Methods

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We have read some cursory texts on Burke and Bitzer. For this project, we will take up Burkean analysis and see how far it goes toward analyzing a cultural artifact.

While I will review the main points of J. Clarke Rountree III's piece, "Coming to Terms With Kenneth Burke's Pentad," on Burkean analysis, please read this piece if you have time prior to today's class. We will mimic JCR's approach to using Burke's Dramatistic Pentad by taking on 1.) Amped up characterizations of pentadic terms, 2.) Directing attention to particular terms, 3.) Possibly imposing constraints on certain terms (or overdetermined readings thereof, 4.) Seeking "strategic spot[s] where ambiguities necessarily arise (Grammar xviii)", and 5.) Exploring the nature of "terministic screens" (particularly through our Concepts in Contexts in-class and extended exercise).

I've been searching for useful samples of Burkean Analysis. I've found a few. Here's one, analyzing H. G. Well's The Time Machine. Note the mapping technique, the detail given to each paragraph, each analysis of a pentadic term and the ratios this writer found most illuminating.

In today's class, we will use a simple schematic to analyze a cultural artifact. The intense scope of the exercise should inspire you as you work with Burke's Dramatistic Pentad to analyze your artifact.

Finally, from rhetorical theorist, Barry Brummett, here is an analysis of the iPod, rendered as a kind of metaphor that bespeaks the iPod's allure as a cultural artifact. The chapter (from his book Rhetoric in Popular Culture) also contains an analysis of the Geico Cavemen.