Marback

Marback, Richard. "Speaking of the City and Literacies of Place in Composition Studies." City Comp: Identities, Spaces, Practices. Albany: State U of New York P, 2003. 141-155.

Marback theorizes our relationship with cities when we do civic work. We write cities and also represent cities, which do not necessarily have a voice of their own (drawing on Beauregard and the literature of urban planning). But we need to balance "the force of rhetoric against of the weight of material conditions" (142). Marback sees ideology--"a space between subject and object" (143)--as the domain for achieving this balance. We analyze objects (like cities) and speak for them and represent them but we place too much faith in "discursive intervention" (145) and not enough emphasis on material conditions. 'Rhetoric' blinds us to the realities of the 'material.' So we should find "the provocative ground of place making, where actions, attititudes, objects, spaces, values, and words intertwine" (147). He cites Detroit's own Heidelberg art installation as an examle of place-making's potential. The H. project intervenes in civic debates about Detroit and also changes the conversation in affirmative, creative ways. Juxtaposition of art, rhetoric, public debate, and Detroit's realities. "...all is not language" (148). The H. writes the city and intervenes in its materiality.