Rhetorical Scarcity: Spatial and Economic Inflections on Genre Change

TitleRhetorical Scarcity: Spatial and Economic Inflections on Genre Change
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication2012
AuthorsApplegarth, Risa
JournalCollege Composition and Communication
Volume63
Issue3
Pagination483
Keywordsgenre, history, professional, rhetoric, science
Abstract

This study examines how changes in a key scientific genre supported anthropology’s early twentieth-century bid for scientific status. Combining spatial theories of genre with inflections from the register of economics, I develop the concept of rhetorical scarcity to characterize this genre change not as evolution but as manipulation that produces a manufactured situation of intense rhetorical constraint.