A Genre in Place: The Relationship Between Genre and Place in the City Codes of Delphos, Kansas

Abstract

This project combines rhetorical genre theory, place scholarship, and rural scholarship to examine the relationship between genres and physical places. Because genres have been understood as “typified rhetorical action” since Carolyn Miller’s foundational text “Genre as Social Action” (24), most genre scholarship has focused on the social components, or actions, of genres. Genre scholarship has also recognized that genres must be understood in relation to their original context, as much as possible (Devitt, Bazerman, and Medway) and scholars often conduct studies in relation to the community/users from which the genre evolves and which it in turn shapes (Devitt, Bazerman, Medway, Paré, and Dryer). Yet, many of these studies focus on genres within academic, public, and work communities, rather than within physical places. Therefore, these studies have not yet studied genres within physical places or intentionally analyzed the physical components/aspects of those places. Despite some genre scholars, such as Dryer, Schryer, and Reiff, who attempt to bring more attention to the spatial and material components of genres and their connection to places, the relationship between genre and physical places remains underrepresented and unclear. Using genre analysis of the Code of the City of Delphos, Kansas, discourse-based and open-ended interviews of the City Clerk and City Mayor, and observation of the physical location and environment of Delphos, KS, this study hopes to understand better the relationship between genres and physical places. I focus on three primary components of materiality—production, distribution, and consumption—in order to examine the codes within their natural, physical environment. By studying the relationship between genres and physical places, I add a new perspective to the way in which genres function as social actions. I argue that including an analysis of the physical location with a genre analysis allows for an understanding of the particular, local social actions that are completed, as well as an understanding of the larger, more generalized ones. Additionally, I continue to complicate the representation of rural places by exploring how Delphos is defined by those outside of the physical place and those within it. In doing so, it becomes clear that rural places define themselves relationally, establishing their own rurality based on how alike or different they are from other physical places. Importantly, I conclude that by studying physical place and genre, it is clear that multiple places can impact one genre, and those places might resist the larger social actions of the genre, and one another.