Hailing black holes: Rhetorical realism in the age of hyperobjects. Issue 2 (1st December 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Zager, Brian
• Is Part Of: Empedocles. Volume 12:Issue 2(2021)
• Page Start: 111
• Page End: 128
• Publication Date: 2021-12-01
• Subjects: Communication -- Philosophy -- Periodicals; 302.201
• DOI: 10.1386/ejpc_00032_1
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1757-1952

Abstract

This article addresses the challenge philosophical realism poses to the field of rhetoric by exploring the possibility of symbolic communion with nonhuman entities. As a matter of framing, I invoke Timothy Morton's concept of the hyperobject to better understand the complexities of communicating with and about sublime nonhuman objects such as black holes. I then delineate how the stylistic modality of the weird best exploits the chasm between autonomous thingness and human (re)presentation that is a primary source of consternation for rhetorical realism. Finally, I draw from Kathe Koja's (1991) novel The Cipher to reconsider a bizarre rhetoric of black holes which displays the omnipresent tension of accessible-alterity characteristic of the struggle to rhetorically breach the nonhuman world.