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Harlot: a Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion
It's a word that might raise some eyebrows: harlot. For the editorial board of Harlot: a Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion, that word has become representative of the philosophy behind their project, a digital magazine and web forum that seeks to bring the art of rhetoric into the public sphere-to make rhetoric as fun, interesting, and provocative as the magazine's name suggests. In academic circles, rhetoric has been commonly referred to as "the harlot of the arts" for quite some time, because, as Professor Jim Fredal explains, "rhetoric mimics and thereby subverts otherwise reliable language."
Fredal played a part in the beginnings of the magazine. "Harlot began as a conversation in a contemporary rhetorical theory class last winter with Professor Fredal," Katie Comer said, a Ph.D student in Rhetoric, Composition, and Literacy, and one of the founding editors of Harlot. "We were reading about critical rhetorics and the problem was all of these scholars were saying that the important thing about rhetoric is that it be in the public sphere-we have a certain responsibility as rhetorical scholars to engage in these issues that are important to the world. The problem was that [the scholars] were publishing these articles in academic journals and monographs that only academics were reading."
With the enthusiasm and encouragement of Dr. Fredal, Comer and fellow Ph.D. student Vera Dukaj came up with Harlot as a way to expand the conversation about rhetoric outside of academia. The magazine, co-editor and M.A. student Tim Jensen said, works both "top down"-with articles submitted, reviewed, and accepted, and "bottom up"-through blogs, wikis and other Web 2.0 technologies. The pilot issue, at www.harlotofthearts.org, examines a plethora of timely issues: a rhetorical analysis of Hillary Clinton's Sopranos parody campaign ad; a comparative analysis of Disney's Little Mermaid and the Hans Christian Anderson original; as well as an ekphrastic poem by poet Pablo Tanguay.
The project has brought together Comer, Dukaj, M.F.A in Poetry student Catie Crabtree, Tim Jensen, and Ph.D. student Kelly Bradbury, all of whom bring varying talents and knowledge-from creative writing to digital media-to the magazine. "I think it's actually really interesting how all of us have our own specialties, said Crabtree. "It just came together that way when we were writing our first abstract." The hope for the future is to bring in the talent from people both inside and outside academia. "We'd like to go from interdisciplinary to nondisciplinary," said Crabtree.
The ways in which the public will enrich Harlot remain to be seen. "I don't think anyone on Harlot thinks of this as the final solution. But we finally got to a point where we said something has to be done. I think part of the fun of Harlot is not knowing where it will go and to see what type of influence the public brings to it and what they will do with it," said Jensen
The Harlot editorial board has had immense support from their professors in the Ohio State English Department, including Jim Fredal, Kay Halasek, Dickie and Cindy Selfe, and Harvey J. Graff. "I think that says a lot about the faculty in the department," said Kelly Bradbury, "that they would stand by students starting a new project and support it with resources, energy, excitement, and motivation."
