Chora Essay- Derrida Kristeva

– Toward the Chora: Kristeva, Derrida, and Ulmer on Emplaced Invention Thomas Rickert The great problem of creativity is “creativity” itself. —Richard McKeon Our understanding of what it means to inhabit and interact in spatial environments is changing. Fields as diverse as computing, biology, information design, cognitive science, and philosophy have in their own ways been pushing for a different sense of what it means for bodies to do things in physical and informational spaces. The mind in particular is increasingly seen as something implicated in and dispersed throughout complex social and technological systems. It is leaky, commingling with the body and the ambient environs, and as emotional as it is rational. How these transformations affect rhetoric is less theorized, and this essay attempts to bridge that gap by looking at how these issues emerge in recent work on Plato’s concept of the chōra and rhetorical invention. Much rhetorical theory still works out of the separatist mind/body/environment paradigm being challenged. The demarcation between mind and body, and body and environment, along with a valuation of method, idea, and logic are typical of the older paradigm. One must have a plan, a method for achieving a plan, and a spatial arrangement or layout reflective of the plan; one then works as a rhetorical agent via ideas to achieve effects in the world “out there.” These assumptions seem prima facie matter of fact and perhaps indisputable, but in fact, this is not the case. In the new spatial paradigm, minds are both embodied, and hence grounded in emotion and sensation, and dispersed into the environment itself, and hence no longer autonomous. As Andy Clark says, “The mind is just less and less in the head,” and it enters “deep and complex relationships with nonbiological constructs, props, and aids” (2003, 4–5). In rhetoric, the innumerable permutations of the topoi, or commonplaces, can be seen as such a nonbiological construct: the mind utilizes an external symbolic resource to generate and organize rhetorical discourse. For instance, topic invention sees various ideas, either abstract (division, cause and effect) or culturally particular (taxes are bad, maximize efficiency), as providing a discursive place where thoughts begin and grow. Philosophy and Rhetoric, Vol. 40, No. 3, 2007. Copyright © 2007 The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. 251 also by displacing them. the chōra.252 THOMAS RICKERT The challenges to earlier conceptions of space and bodies show up not only in scholarly work such as Clark’s but also in forms of technological change. rhetoric has little addressed the chōra. how did it relate to his overall system of thought and that of his successors. is today generating not just the usual historical/philological interest—i. The chōra. vibrant Athens. these writers are interested in how the chōra as an ancient line of thinking can illuminate contemporary concerns. these writers suggest we can (and should) reapproach the inventional question Plato wrestles with in the Timaeus.e. the chōra transforms our senses of beginning. the questions that are raised here—about the locus of beginnings. which is how to move from static ideas to vital activity. has preferred inventional systems such as the classical topoi or contemporary approaches such as Kenneth Burke’s pentad (see Young. and I consider it no accident that the concept he developed there to explain how things come into being in the physical world. Second. the chōra as developed in the Timaeus has ever been a murky concept given to mystery and mysticism. the creation of boundaries between self and world. Plato dealt with these issues in the Timaeus. or redistributing rhetorical agency across a network of human and nonhuman agents. so there is scant work to build on. To the extent that. like emotion or the chōra itself. but in a quite literal sense a place. in whichever of its institutional incarnations. the chōra is generally seen as a troublesome early effort to explain spatiality . Lauer). there are at least two problems: first. As deployed in the work of Julia Kristeva. functioning as an exterior co-repository for thoughts and actions—activities we customarily locate as beginning exclusively within our minds. and affective (or bodily) registers. etc. informational spaces. and invention by placing them concretely within material environments. and the importance of place itself—are not new. Indeed. and Gregory Ulmer. Rhetoric. even if they have a new flavor and import. we should begin to consider media not simply the medium by which we interact and communicate with others. Still. what did Plato mean by it. open-ended systems” (10). Nor does it appear to have been intended to have bearing on rhetoric. and thus has delimited rhetorical space as grounded in discursive. from the speculative theory of the Republic to a dynamic. brought forward into our age.—but theoretical interest. stands to radically reconfigure our understanding of rhetorical space. However. By refocusing on what falls outside discourse proper. Jacques Derrida. printbased notions of representation and rationality.. It is an architectural component of our informational scaffolding. Thus. as Clark puts it. I am referring especially to the massive influx of new media. and in the case of Derrida. creation. “everyday notions of ‘mind’ and ‘person’ pick out deeply plastic. more precisely. Nevertheless. and that. . minds. negotiating. Derrida and Ulmer in particular utilize inventional methods that could be called choric. However. and databases. in some linear fashion. distributed. Aristotle’s assimilation of chōra to space and matter. should be of interest for rhetoric. although he did grant that Plato was the first to say anything of significance about space.1 Nevertheless. Accordingly. because of the way they attribute inventional agency to nonhuman actors such as language. and bodily character of rhetorical activity. while widely regarded as an advance.” “invention. This situation necessitates some basic groundwork in developing a sense of what the chōra has been. and suggest that one might read such passages as forms of subterranean argument. for instance.TOWARDS THE CHŌRA 253 more fully developed by Aristotle when he subsumed chōra under topos and theorized it as material space. and why a concept that has largely been associated with material space. is disputed by some because the chōra lends itself to other interpretations. or. such inquiry can itself lead to innovative inventional practices. it yet remains a problem that the chōra has no body of scholarship in rhetorical theory. and Ulmer are among those interested in what the chōra can offer us distinct from what Aristotle accomplished. Contemporary work on the chōra suggests that there is no clear demarcation of “in here” and “out there. While these last points constitute the main lines of the argument. far from this being only a philosophical-theoretical concern.2 Kristeva. I will strive to “begin at the beginning” and provide basic historical scholarship on the chōra. I should emphasize that since the chōra presents an expansive notion of invention attendant to environments and limits. even at these points. environments. at which times the main argument takes a backseat. the chōra is not only a matter of theoretical inquiry—it is of practical use. I ask some leeway from my readers. but being immersed in. In short.” and that the notion of system is not one of directly following a method. and harnessing complex ecologies of systems and information.” and “rhetorical space” are not in fact clear. the chōra helps us understand that rhetorical concepts like “beginning. and only secondarily with beginnings and creation. chōra’s original spatial meaning is of considerable importance. as opposed. and circumambient environs. networks. to topic invention. in line with an expanded notion of spatiality that complexifies traditional divisions among discourses. of what is available as means for rhetorical generation. They demonstrate that the chōra is of rhetorical interest because it transforms our sense of what is available as means for persuasion. In the chōra they find a theoretical resource able to generate new light on the emplaced (and displaced). bodies. Derrida. Given this. Keimpre Algra goes on to suggest for chōra the more abstract meaning “an extension that can be occupied” (1995. but he built the moving automata and the Labyrinth at Crete. Homer tells us. and in the extant written record topos is not encountered until Aeschylus (Liddell. For McEwen. and Jones 1940. In Book XVIII of the Iliad. and two tumblers whirled up and down through the midst of them as leaders in the dance. or ground. and he built the dancing floor at Knossos. a meaning that can include one’s place. And a great company stood around the lovely dance [choros]. but it was not the only word in use. taking joy therein. as it is a complex term in its own right and less pertinent to this investigation of the chōra. Topos and kenon were also everyday spatial terms. Chōra is the older term. . or one’s proper positioning. (18. as in social rank. as dancing requires a dancing floor (1993. region. . the original connotations of city and land remain very much a part of the discussion of chōra in the Timaeus. 76). It may be recalled that Daedalus was held to be the first architect. As we will see when we get to Plato. The connection between . and Jones 1940. Scott. Chōra and topos were often used synonymously to refer to space and place.806). 62–63). I will not be addressing it here. where they refer to both a dance and a dancing-floor.254 THOMAS RICKERT Dances with the Chōra before Plato The word chōra was a common word for space before Plato wrote about it. There are some finer shades of distinction as well. 1. words first appearing in the written record in the Iliad.3 In his study of the origins of architecture. city. the strongest in all of Sicily (McEwen 1993. and in fact topos shows up in the Timaeus alongside chōra (52b6). 33). Diodorus Siculus relates that after fleeing Crete. 2. Therein furthermore the famed god of the two strong arms cunningly wrought a dancing-floor [choros] like unto that which in wide Knossos Daedalus fashioned of old for fair-tressed Ariadne.590–605) McEwen looks at this and other passages in Homer and Hesiod to argue that we see here an emerging recognition that a precondition for activity is a place for it to occur.015). however. holding their hands upon the wrists one of the other. Kenon most typically refers to space as void. however. So. and. . it is also closely associated with land. Daedalus personifies the growing realization that place and making are conjoined. while chōra does connote place. Indra McEwen argues that chōra also shares affinity with choron and choros. as for example a soldier’s post (Liddell. Perhaps more significantly. Not only did Daedalus make the Knossos dancing floor (choros). Daedalus built a nearly impregnable city. There were youths dancing and maidens of the price of many cattle. Scott. The movements beyond the city boundary proper mark the weaving of the city because they are necessary for the polis to thrive. McEwen describes the placement of sanctuaries in early Greek cities as falling into three areas: those within the inhabited urban area. for Plato. those a short distance from urban area (suburban). However. If in its more archaic sense the chōra was a territory made to appear through what McEwen characterizes as a “continual remaking or reweaving of its encompassing surface” (82). Of particular relevance is the affinity that shows up here between architectural and discursive construction. In both cases. 51a–b). cf. an instability becomes apparent in the notion of the polis. McEwen remarks that what is striking about Plato’s Republic and Laws is that political order can be thought without this sense of making or weaving integral to the polis (98). Plato: Chōra Chōra Chōra Even with the above preamble. whereby what is constructed emerges directly from the situated activity of the inhabitants. rather. Sallis 1999. 116). The movements from city center to outlands and back constitute the weaving of the city. similar misgivings must also have engaged Plato insofar as he attempts to move from the Republic’s static ideals to seeing such ideals made and put into action. As Timaeus says. as the Timaeus makes clear. it is less than clear what the Platonic chōra is.TOWARDS THE CHŌRA 255 the polis and creation will be central to Plato in the Timaeus. the matrix or mother of all becoming. we can understand such making as processual. while retaining a dependency it wants to overcome. This ambiguity helps explain why . Looking at the archaeological work of François de Polignac. a polis consists of a town (asty) and territory (chōra) (155n4. it more properly means the surrounding territory. McEwen argues that here we see “the notion of a polis allowed to appear as a surface woven by the activity of its inhabitants” in “ritual processions from center to urban limit to territorial limit and back again” (1993. much like the dance “weaves” the dancing floor. when used in the context of polis. Furthermore. the chōra participates in the intelligible in a manner most perplexing and baffling (Timaeus. the chōra is not just the outlying territory on which the city depends. While chōra can mean land or city. it takes on far greater cosmological import as the Receptacle. and those extra-urban sanctuaries placed at the limit of the city’s territory (chōra) some six to twelve kilometers away. 81). suggesting that it is always bumping up against a limit or boundary that it must exceed. In this regard. suggesting that the chōra cannot be solely understood as phenomenal space. genesis and invention. usually considered approximately 48e–53d. The implication is that while a beginning requires a place. though not exclusively. its odd passivity marks it as fundamentally indeterminate (Timaeus. give nothing to what emerges. for instance.6 As will be seen. meaning that it is not a thing as customarily understood. this is entirely befitting the receptaclelike chōra. It is important to note that while the chōra thereby designates a kind of beginning. being neither matter nor ideal form. The first concern is to ensure that everyone who was there before is present again. Aristotle’s writings on space do not seem congruent with what Plato wrote. Aristotle’s repurposing of chōra through other terms has had the effect of confining it to work on material space.—but where. So. More pertinent here is that the counting to three is a recurring leitmotif as well as a structural feature. the chōra is itself called a “third kind” (triton genos) by Timaeus (48e). This uncertainty is reflected in the dialogue’s three different beginnings.5 An understanding of the chōra cannot be extracted solely by examining what seem the most relevant passages. even if there has been a legacy of controversy surrounding this move.256 THOMAS RICKERT Aristotle’s far clearer assimilation of chōra to hulē (matter) and topos (generally. the concept of chōra is complexly interwoven into the dramatic action and discussion of the dialogue itself. three. my dear Timaeus. 7). which makes the Timaeus into a continuation of the previous day’s discussion about an ideal city. the importance of numbers resonates throughout the dialogue. paralleling the sense that something is yet missing from the ideal city described . the dialogue starts with a count: “One. or. is the fourth of our guests of yesterday. 51a–b). including its dialogic character. by Proclus (1999. Certainly. such that we might see the dialogue itself as providing a place for the concept’s emergence. our hosts of to-day?” (17a).4 Further. it has no real qualities itself. the generative or choric aspects of that place remain indeterminate. place) has been dominant in the centuries since. one that mirrors an ambiguity concerning ideas of beginning and creation. From the dialogue’s first line the issue of a missing fourth arises. Sallis remarks that the appropriateness of this beginning was noted even in antiquity. as. The day that the Timaeus takes place is the next day after the conversation known as the Republic occurred. as Jacques Derrida’s and John Sallis’s commentaries on the Timaeus argue. Plato weaves the themes of beginning and creation into the dramatic action of the dialogue from the very first line. but rather must be worked through by attending to all aspects of the dialogue. The chōra is granted a strangely displaced place. However. not to mention with the Pythagorean themes that are woven into Timaeus’ discussion.7 More important. as we shall see. two. The dialogue is held to have three movements or (re)beginnings. mating. Sallis tells us that what the Timaeus comments on. and the discussants hope this condition is rectifiable. sexual difference. Not only is it a fabrication. Throughout the dialogue. and life. locatable moment is missing. and how we give life to and make a place for (static) ideas. which further implies that a beginning cannot be an isolated. we can see the Platonic chōra as addressing the question of the available means of creation. in order to begin—in order to go forward—the conversation must first go back. suggesting instead that something akin to mixture could replace genesis. decontextualized setting forth. it is a “technical city. but it lacks eros. Friedrich Solmsen argues that we can understand Plato to be wrestling with a problem that reaches far back into debates carried on by the Pre-Socratics. 18b).” a city of the head (1999. birth.TOWARDS THE CHŌRA 257 in the Republic. we may well see here the first glimmerings of the Necessity (anagke) Timaeus later discusses (47e). which raises the issue of memory. Sallis remarks that. rather. in the sense of finding ways to actualize or enact what are initially only ideas. Empedocles refined Parmenides. as something that exceeds the intellectual. A “beginning” as a singular. As is.” takes on greater significance in this context (26). or intuitions. then. but it does so as a reopening of the question of becoming. 20). the uncertainty of knowing anything about genesis is remarked. are the limits of fabrication. The fact that the Republic focuses strongly on controlling eros and all that goes with it. How is one to understand genesis. which is to say. from its very beginning. feelings. Socrates. the ideal city is a dead city. it becomes a rhetorical effect. Stated otherwise. or becoming? Parmenides is held to have dismissed any outright genesis. There is thus a tension between control. For this reason. it lacks becoming in a generative sense. strictly speaking. It misses actuality. corporeity itself in its singularity. In this. And. and . The insinuation is that a beginning is but an idea (l) materialized in rhetorical space and character. such as “procreation. A beginning is interwoven with memory. We can also say that this is very much a problem of invention. founding moment. whether as technē or poiesis. as something intellectual. the ideal city remains an ideal. a beginning already entails a past and the ability to recall it. While it evokes powerful feelings and approval. first complies with the discussants’ request to review the highlights from the previous day about the Republic. an idea Derrida also takes up. among others. The Timaeus’s task is to address a crucial problem concerning the Republic. and rather than having a precise point for launching forth. what emerges instead is a distribution (or matrix) of beginnings. with respect to eros (26). The Timaeus itself addresses this issue. The implication is that a beginning is not an autonomous. that this city can be brought to life and seen vigorously exercising as States do (Timaeus. 40). We can see apropos of Sallis’ comment on the limits of fabrication that the Republic already carries in germinal form this very question: how does one move from ideas. even if he steps back from the more assertive positions of his predecessors (Solmsen 1960. 28b.258 THOMAS RICKERT even the accounts given are characterized as only probable or likely (Timaeus. which is also a way of saying that there is no proper place for these concepts. The chōra thereby provides Plato with a means to explain the movement from Idea to Becoming as a form of vital. 55d. the sensible world participates in the intelligible world (1995. The limits to fabrication can be exceeded through productive eros. that it has no place. we might say that Plato posited this refined notion of genesis as an aid in thinking through how. There is a parallel here with the connection McEwen sees between dancing and having a place to dance: to give something a place means to see it in action. Further. to the sensible. Indeed. and that both beginnings and place are woven through the polis. This helps explain the import of the legend about ancient Athens facing off against the Atlanteans. or chōra and world. a point underscored by Kristeva). neither does the chōra. one that moves from the realm of the idea to the world of generation. but one where eros is present. one that has a place. and vice versa. the realm of the Forms. In making this comparison. At the risk of oversimplifying. The Timaeus thereby stages for us a new kind of beginning. 1). or from being to becoming. Indeed. and it is the purpose of the Timaeus to bring the ideal polis to life as an actual city. 48c–d. Put differently. as a “third kind” (triton genos) approachable as in a dream through a bastard discourse. 59c. There is no direct equivalency between ideal and chōra. robust actuality. And. the choric city will be one that not only has a place. active world? It is this question of passage that leads to perhaps the most troublesome aspect of the chōra. chōra’s nonplace frames the gap sundering the Forms from the physical world as well as providing passage between them. as Algra puts it. In this regard. This is what Socrates wishes to hear from his fellow discussants. an idea that adds to the implicit importance of place a bodily dimension (as well as a reinscription of a maternal feminine. 44d. Ann Ashbaugh makes a similar point when she claims that the Timaeus was the single most important Platonic dialogue in antiquity because it addressed a fundamental question—a question we have yet to answer definitively—not “of what an objective cosmos is. this place will come to correspond with Athens. 66d). the Timaeus implicitly argues that beginning is tied to place and memory. we could say that the choric city is where invention comes to life. the chōra can be taken as Plato’s attempt to reintroduce the notion of becoming. 3). but how it comes to be known by the soul” (1988. Eventually. more specifically in terms of Plato. that is problem of the Timaeus: that the ideal city is atopos. While the . or. the impetus behind the Timaeus in the first place is the limit of fabrica- . as Casey argues. Despite these insights and explanations. What must be underscored here is the necessity for the polis to go beyond its boundaries to thrive (a reinforcement of Timaeus’s anagke in 47e). 3–6). from the Pythagoreans.TOWARDS THE CHŌRA 259 Athens of Plato’s day appears less noble in comparison. It is what is necessary for the genesis of things. and in this sense. A beginning. The chōra is the maternal matrix of all becoming. Timaeus tells us that it is “most difficult to catch” and only apprehendable by means of a “bastard reasoning” (Timaeus. declining to leave its imprint on things just as it declines to take on the qualities of the things it receives (Timaeus. as we saw above with McEwen. and the polis to its exterior or what lies outside its boundaries. but those ideals further ennobled in agonistic activity. 52b). we might note that Plato reputedly took the bulk of the Timaeus. 50c). permanent and yet invisible. 132). The dialogue’s attempt to wrestle with the limitations of fabrication (or technē) following the discussion of the ideal city invites us to consider the relation of the chōra to the polis. The chōra is of a third kind that is not really a “kind”. as discussed above. being both the boundary of the city and what lies beyond the boundary. underlying and yet insubstantial” (1997. So. nevertheless. These patterns of boundary and disruption weave throughout the Timaeus. Placing occurs through displacing. 37). and their actual showing up. it is a Receptacle (hupodoxe). but the chōra also recedes. there remains something elusive about the chōra. a point Derrida makes by showing how the chōra disrupts representation itself (and hence rhetoric) even while it remains fundamental for the passage to representation. is never equivalent to what has emerged. even as something unstable or retroactively posited. the in which (en hō) and out of which (ex hou) they show up and pass away. the point remains that Athens of old comes to embody not just the ideal polis discussed in the Republic. Going still further. If at times the Timaeus waxes large with its cosmological import. For example. “it is a locatory matrix for things” (34). including the notion of the chōra. There is a dichotomy between what occurs in the passage to actuality by which things show up. yet it declines to be determined. And. This problem is already noted in the Timaeus. 51a–b. The region surrounding and sustaining a polis is also called chōra. something about it that resists determination (see Sallis 1999. while chōra is not a thing. the chōra has a specifically political dimension. which Edward Casey describes as something “at once locatory and yet not itself located. Thus. it is not strictly speaking an eidos. we might recall that the older sense of chōra as city or land is still always present. the fact that approaching the chōra requires a bastard discourse means that the chōra is disruptive of the other discourses in the dialogue (Sallis 1999. the desire to see the lifeless boundaries of the idea transcended in favor of an emplaced polis living in accord with eros. In the end. one that is subversive of the symbolic’s masculine. Rather. and thus. these seem insufficient for a founding. leaving nothing of his imprint on it. linguist. reaches back to Plato’s chōra in order to theorize a preverbal realm prior to and distinct from the symbolic realm. 109. Socrates resembles the chōra both by helping to generate what Timaeus relates. each section nestling the other. There is also a destablizing movement that speaks to a beginning’s ultimate indeterminacy. and it is in fact accessed through the symbolic after we acquire language (Kristeva 1984. 19). becomes also a writerly principle. the chōra. memory and polis become boundaries that must be gotten beyond. sensations. and semiotician. Derrida points out that Socrates himself plays a choric role in the Timaeus (more on this point below). 166). 117). For instance. Taylor 1928. and other marks and traces of psychical and . but there is a functional role to them that returns us to rhetoric’s orbit. ostensibly a cosmological likely story for genesis. and also linked to memory. The semiotic chōra includes emotions. not to abandon them. first there is the problem of the establishment of a beginning point (note also the irony in the tension between “first” and “beginning point”). receptacle-like. this is so to such an extent that some critics have asserted that Plato and by inference Socrates would likely have believed none of what Timaeus as a well known Pythagorean relates (e. There is something retroactive and motivated about a beginning. but to establish them as what will have been the beginning points. While such a point is necessarily threaded through the polis and its outlying areas.g. overly rational character. and—in a manner remarkable considering Socrates’ dominant role in most dialogues—also by withdrawing from the conversation. Such assertions may seem abstract. Derrida adds that the relation between the three sections is less thematic or logical than mutually generative. So far I have discussed several themes that emerge when the chōra is taken to be a concept useful for rhetorical invention. The originary chōra remains in dialectical relation to the symbolic. being the in which and out of which the dialogue emerges (1995. rhetorical. Julia Kristeva. 26). Kristeva: Invention Inventing Itself In Revolution in Poetic Language. even for Plato. French feminist. perhaps akin to the way Russian dolls are packed one inside the other (1995.260 THOMAS RICKERT tion. 1997. Indeed. As we have seen. Invention. The logos as the rational (or Johannine) Word takes prominence. With the acquisition of language. and yet only the smallest amount of what occurs in this relation can be considered symbolic—the rest. Particularly illustrative of such embedding is the mother-child relationship. or even represses. but because it exceeds the subject. 13). As Kristeva indicates with her epigraph from Hegel (11). archaelogical. In this sense. . bodily affect. to deny the chōra leaves us playing with the remains of the processes that give life to human activity and simultaneously forecloses on regaining access to them. Kristeva argues.TOWARDS THE CHŌRA 261 material experience. One might well add invention to Kristeva’s list of choric phenomena. and poetry examples of what the symbolic renders opaque. argues Kristeva. this has the effect of gathering what is originally choric under the Hegelian Idea and divorcing it from its role in the sciences and humanities—even though the chōra is still in play (13). Kristeva sees in magic. These terms underscore for Kristeva the necessity for the chōra’s vital. 81). has at stake our understanding of the passage “from nature to culture. and relational experience (83). and the Word is masculine. the symbolic cannot efface it. and is retroactively posited as originary: In the beginning is the Word. one that reincludes repressed aspects of environmental. masculine logos as the ultimate horizon of human understanding and a re-embedding of the subject in material history. the sciences and the humanities are “archivistic. Maria Margaroni remarks. and social networks.” Kristeva argues that we must acknowledge the limits of the symbolic and demonstrate the necessity for investigating what “[exceeds] the subject and his communicative processes” (16). is choric. As Kristeva tells us in her opening paragraph. Without the semiotic chōra. extra-linguistic processes. vital for a child to thrive. speaking subject” and how that passage is implicated in “the order within which we live” (2005. shamanism. these choric experiences come under and are transformed by the Idea and become signs. like avant garde literature and the other examples she gives. especially in the guises of law or what counts as “socially useful. not because invention is necessarily arcane or esoteric. and necrophiliac” (1984. esoterism. the Kristevan chōra is an “archaic origin” counter to the phallologocentrism of both John and Hegel. and our communicative processes do not exhaust or wholly explain all forms and aspects of invention. bodily. just as they aid us in gaining insight into the order within which we live. Kristeva’s focus on beginnings. the carnival. This amounts to a defetishization of the rational. demonstrates the incursion of the semiotic chōra into the symbolic. While the acquisition of language transforms our relation to the more originary chōra. from the biological organism to the social. Of course. and disadvantageous to the extent that it colors our general understanding of invention. general or special. but that it is inadequate as an explanation for inventional activity. The purity accorded the rational idea is particularly seen in the emphasis on systematic method as the key to rhetorical invention. and about the relationship of that originary moment to what follows. which thereby shuts out for further inquiry the question of invention itself. en hō). Culture’s high premium on rational thought typically elevates ideas to the role of cause. the special topics would be cognitive abstractions showing particular ways for thought to follow. the other parts being of the semiotic chōra. ideas are assumed as starting points. situation. the topoi. For instance. but also a misleading one. Kristeva demonstrates that the chōra disputes the purity of desire for the rational idea. of course. While it does not deny the use of ideas for invention. but they have bearing on rhetoric. while it is the medium by means of which understanding and discourse show up (the in which. they are still integral to rhetorical production. sensation. raises anew questions about beginnings. . not as a metaphysical problem (à la “What is invention?” with “invention” being defined as a category with X number of characteristics). Note that while such phenomena fall out of a systematized inventional method. and presumably any easy or customary form of teaching. which in turn suggests that invention is also choric. Kristeva’s chōra challenges this assumption. leading us once again to privilege word and idea. would then need to be factored into any accounting of beginning. it does claim that ideas are only a part of what occurs in an inventional procedure.262 THOMAS RICKERT The chōra. In both cases. the symbolic. this opens a problem that does need further addressing: if Kristeva’s chōra resists codification. which would be impossible in any event. feeling. nevertheless. memory. to create but a short list of possible phenomena. We might then answer that one thing choric invention provides us with is a way to put invention itself back into question. As we have seen. as if a rhetorical process can pull itself up by its own bootstraps. The general topics (commonplaces) would be cultural familiarities ready at hand for a rhetor. then in what sense can we legitimately align it with rhetorical invention? A fair question. It assumes that we have firm knowledge already of what invention is. environment. then. is not a replacement for the chōra and its effects (the out of which. Kristeva’s point is not that method is useless or unproductive. thereby obfuscating what is choric. accident. not only did these questions interest Plato. Thus. ex hou). Mood. are seen as a means to initiate a discourse. about what lies at an origin.8 It is just that the use of method allows for the retroactive assignment of the productive cause to method. and sociopolitical negotiation. in the rhetorical tradition. ” which is bundled with two other essays in On the Name. we will find that there is some . in this sense. Derrida: Oh. Derrida’s systematic use of choric invention is so prolific as to preclude listing. in other words. Nevertheless. Derrida has directly addressed the chōra in a number of works.TOWARDS THE CHŌRA 263 but as an inventional problem. rather. and so forth. invites us to see choric invention as a particular form of beginning. Kristeva. every inventional act is also a (re)learning how to invent. This is not a mystification. spatial principle. I am reminded of a novelist who once responded to the question of whether or not writing novels made it easier to write future novels. The answer was no. however. we can address them through inquiry and the challenge of invention itself. it attempts to return us to the complexities and concreteness of what occurs in rhetorical discourse. and practical deployments of the chōra as an inventive principle. and it has the virtue of being teachable. the reasons were that every novel required new approaches and solutions to fresh problems that past writing experience could not cover. Khora! Derrida’s writings on the chōra take two general tracks: theoretical investigations about the chōra’s place in thought and discourse and its instability as a generative. while there are aspects to invention that cannot be codified. This is fine as far as it goes. One would want to bring into the purview of this inventive act less determinable factors: the affective state and conflicts of the rhetor. Considered from a choric perspective. who takes Derrida’s techniques and extends and refines them. For example. Such factors can be addressed by inquiry. we can envision an inventional scenario where a rhetor utilizing the topoi happens upon the topic of definition to advance a cause. but two in particular stand out: “Khōra. things are messier. It is the latter usage that is directly inspirational to Ulmer. and a book co-authored with Peter Eisenman documenting an architectural project. one I would like to describe as “invention inventing itself. but they cannot be absolutely determined. Already this suggests real differences between Kristeva’s chōra and Derrida’s (and Ulmer’s).” Such invention takes place in material and affective situations that in turn create us. Nor typically is the use of choric invention addressed specifically as an issue in these works. So. and the informational network she or he brings to the issue as well as those that brought forth the issue to the rhetor. Chora L Works. in so doing we resituate ourselves in a far richer conception of rhetorical activity. larger factors pertaining to the ambient environs and the social network she or he is in. We thereby come to the crux of the . One thing that they have in common is the struggle against reducing invention to ideas.9 Vernant did much work on the opposition between myth and reason. Derrida’s essay “Khōra” was originally included in a festschrift for JeanPierre Vernant. but rather as a kind of inventio. 51b). or. Further. perhaps more accurately. 92). The aporia described by Derrida is consequential not only for thinking but for rhetoric. and while it will not do to conflate these different senses of chōra.264 THOMAS RICKERT overlap. However. In On the Name. he is asking about the place of khōra. 52b. naming. the French classicist. we see that such a move is already telegraphed by Plato. we are also reopening the classic poststructuralist question of the relation of the name to what is named (signifier and signified). or bearer of imprints. So. to understanding production and invention exclusively within the principle of representation. and conjecture. “khōra” functions as a name for a referent the status of which is a matter of uneasy oppositions. and inventing. whereby mythos becomes logos and vice versa. nurse. commentators have latched onto the metaphorical resources offered there. Derrida looks to Plato’s Timaeus as a means to create a new discourse resonant with the aporia of the khōra and by which he addresses themes of beginning. which is one of the reasons he refers not to “the chōra” but to “khōra. it will be productive to develop a sense of how they can be brought together to advance our understanding of rhetorical invention. triton genos) may strike us as a typically Derridean move. but we should be careful in this assessment. is there a place for what lies outside this opposition (1995. Khōra is there a paradox calling for a “bastard reasoning” (logismō nothō) because of the aporetic (aporōtata) manner in which it takes part in the intelligible (Timaeus.e. when khōra as stated explicitly by Plato questions the distinction between the sensible and intelligible upon which rhetoric is built (1995. the question is complicated by its self-reflexivity. If we consider it less as the pursuit of a typical theme or topic of Derrida’s. commentators who depend on these rhetorical resources never wonder about them. 90). This question of place is tied to the issue of naming. In asking about the possibility of giving place to something that seems to have no place. placing. aporia. In this case. mother. “what is the place of place?”). Khōra is matrix. which gives it a form like that of a snake eating its own tail. a word that itself refers to place (i. In reading Plato’s text.” as if he were speaking to a woman by that name. Derrida in turn looks to khōra as a third term that lies outside the “regularity of the logos” yet does not belong to mythos.. Derrida argues. This thematization of a paradoxical third term/place/name (recall that Timaeus spoke of it as a third kind. including how they often reversed poles. and asks. while we can give something a proper name. receptacle. that Socrates aligns himself with the genos of the poets and the sophists is itself precarious. but I would like to examine an example from “Khōra” of particular significance because it involves a rhetor. metaphor. Being . as Derrida points out. which leads to a reopening of the question of how to invent. And yet. Socrates appears to place himself in a similar nonplace. it gives rise to a discourse and withdraws from that discourse. Socrates. 166–67). In short: Derrida raises the possibility that while rhetoric works through or even depends on invention. it is also that the poets and especially the sophists. who are given to wander. Additionally. this stops short of actually addressing or thinking invention. still the matter would remain a philosophical concern. The conundrum is that it is an issue that puts rhetoric’s relation to invention in a precarious place. for instance.TOWARDS THE CHŌRA 265 problem for Derrida. choric: like Plato’s receptacle. For Derrida. We only have so much access to what occurs during inventional activity. Derrida implicitly argues that the question of how to give place to something is an issue of invention. insofar as invention initiates a rhetorical discourse. However. we inevitably come to it via rhetoric—image. even though the question is of interest to rhetoric. have no proper place (107). Socrates admits of a similarity to the poets and the sophists. but this gambit also has the effect of putting his interlocutors into the proper subjective place for the dialogue to ensue—the place of the philosopher/politician (107–8). precisely because of its always-ongoing withdrawal. 94). When we give something a name. when Socrates at 19d describes his own inability to magnify sufficiently or bring to life the ideal polis discussed in the Republic—or. tropology (92. This choric role shows up. inventional activity comes up against its own limit. ranges beyond it. to reinforce the thematic point. Derrida demonstrates his choric inventio throughout his oeuvre. simile. an inventio is khōra-ic. to give place to it. which means he shares with them something of the imitative. an aporia that is itself choric. we can see here another take on invention “inventing” itself. invention may inhabit a paradoxical or impossible place within rhetoric. which in turn resononates with Derrida’s characterization of his relationship with Eisenman on the garden project as “Socrato-choral” (1997. how are we to think about and give place to the aporia that emerges when we attend to the disjunctions between rhetorical discourse and what in the dialogue falls out of that discourse. Looking back at Kristeva. or calls that very discourse into question? Were Derrida to remain only at the level of this questioning of the capacity or possibility of rhetoric. Derrida calls attention to how Socrates plays a choric role in the Timaeus. While rhetoric includes invention. and at some point. But as already indicated. There is a dichotomy between the functioning of invention and the attempt to grapple with actual inventional activity. is at work throughout Derrida’s corpus. Chora L Works is an unusual collection of texts documenting discussion and plans for a collaborative project between Derrida and the architect Peter Eisenman. the entire proceedings.” he also admits. But as we find at the end of the project. In Chora L Works. “Yet I have always had the feeling of being an architect. a “garden” for the Parc de la Villette in Paris. one that governs. One conclusion we can reach about this is that Derrida as a philosopher is certainly interested in beginnings. but at the same time. The project. unmarked place is the genesis for the entire dialogue on place and polis (109). built near a chasm. but that he confronts a limit with productive arts such as rhetoric and architecture. one does not get him to make architecture. This makes of Socrates’ silence for the bulk of the dialogue something remarkable if we consider it as corresponding to the khōra. this is because he is interested in inventing the impossible. As Eisenman asks early in the collaboration. this neutral. The chōra for Derrida is precisely such an impossibility. . the governing role of reason. and the problem of the abyss: like the Cornell campus. Derrida’s chōra inhabits an impossible place. in a way. Derrida recognizes how his treatment of the impossible supplies just another form of discursive construction. Given this.266 THOMAS RICKERT both like and unlike them. “How does one turn Jacques Derrida into a synthesizer? How does one make him make?” (8). in a manner nearly meta-metaphysical (in the sense that the chōra comments on the limits of metaphysics). Derrida quite literally utilizes Cornell’s surrounding landscape to invent his argument (see also Ulmer 1994. 72–73). This inventio. as Ulmer characterizes it. nothing but the book itself. One example directly relevant to the issue of place is Derrida’s essay “The Principle of Reason: The University in the Eyes of its Pupils. even if Derrida aligns himself with “anti-architecture. 8). In part. and transcripts. and invention. 40–41). however. collected in an artful design itself inviting commentary—documents four years of travails that ultimately produces . drawings. to the extent the project remains unfulfilled. a triton genos like the khōra. No garden is constructed. but into actual co-production. creation. . is an attempt to bring architecture and deconstruction not just into discussion with each other.” originally a talk given at Cornell on the dangers besetting the contemporary university. he falls into a third category. reason finds itself “above . when I am writing” (1997. one can see why Ulmer aligns Derrida with surrealism (Ulmer 1994. The book—two hundred pages of notes. 5). His withdrawal allows for the emergence of Timaeus’ cosmology and ultimately the khōra itself. Cornell’s topology gives insight into the topolitics of universities. essays. and the conflicts that emerge with Eisenman stem from Derrida’s attempt to realize this impossibility leavened with an intuition that it cannot be realized—that it remains impossible (see Dayan 2003. Such self-reflexivity is further appropriate for the electronic age. a choric rhetorician will attend to memory. 10–11). pastiche. the question of the “place” of the university. the Popcycle. co-adaptive systems. accident. where near-total mediation.TOWARDS THE CHŌRA 267 an abyss. He uses a hybrid combination of method. as in the tradition of topos” (1994. Derrida ably performs his choric invention. . Instead. and may even be said to supplant older inventional approaches such as the topics. and his own status as an au large professor speaking to an audience. What might this mean? For Ulmer. and Kristeva. By “directly. choric invention has great potential. Ulmer wrestles with the genesis of rhetorical production from out of our circumambient environs. it will mean inventive rhetorical forms. that are alternatives to the rationalistic methods developed for print culture. suspended over a gorge. among other things. In such a world. He is not attempting a rigorous recapturing of what Plato—or Derrida or Kristeva—might have meant or intended. the passage from choric world to expression. such as the Mystory.. and certainly a more practical approach. Instead. Ulmer states that “the writer using chorography as a rhetoric of invention will store and retrieve information from premises or places formulated not as abstract containers. and ecological systems theory are culturally and epistemologically ascendant. by weaving his discussion through a text of Heidegger. intuitions. and environments (places).” I do not mean in terms of direct appropriation of their thought. and the CATTt. technologies. networks. Derrida. Cornell’s founding and campus topography. Rather. and his sense of chōra is somewhat loose. but it is also work that builds rather directly on Plato. the precarious ground of reason. Ulmer: A Choric Inventio In turning to the work of Ulmer.” and the university too is threatened with losing its formerly secure socio-political place (Derrida 1983. i. Ulmer argues. As does Plato in the Timaeus. feedback loops.e. One of the key ideas developed in Ulmer’s book Heuretics is that the contemporary age of electronic media asks us to move away from the inventional techniques codified in the topoi toward techniques that build out of the chōra. Ulmer himself works via the chōra. In short. if not dominant. 73). we see a more complete flowering of the chōra as a rhetorical concept.10 These are inventive forms appropriate for an “information environment” (38). he is applying to them the very principles of choric invention he develops out of their work. This indicates a high degree of self-reflexivity that is fully in keeping with Ulmer’s writerly and inventional aesthetics. 268 THOMAS RICKERT and associative thinking. in terms of their composition. As suggested above by both Kristeva and Derrida.g. The movement in electronic media of digitalizing word and image is an externalization. including the sciences. given the centrality of place in these discussions. among other things. Ultimately. by providing new equipment of memory. except insofar as that is extended to a broader project of the generation of texts appropriate for the electronic age. One must be careful on this point. however. moves us toward a reconceptualization of place. also transform people and institutions (36). that a hypermedia composer constructs not arguments per se but an “information environment” through which a user will choose a path. and the kinds of activities that emerge from it. to be sure. place. The radical expansion and externalization of memory in cultural discourse. appropriating a network organizational pattern for an argument. the chōra is precariously placed in regard to reasoning and discourse. One of her remarks is that it is less that humans are getting smarter than that they are building . to construct variable-media discourses that he refers to as hypermedia. and the question of how an inventio suited to such generation can be formulated. are properly understood as dispersed or distributed. Ulmer’s chōra moves us from a thinking that is “linear indexical to network associational” (36) and concerned less with logic than with memory (experience. But. both personal and externalized/stored) and intuition (37). Katherine Hayles. for example. text. This is not solely a matter of the hermeneutics of cultural identity. Ulmer points out that computers. and Ulmer takes time to develop these ideas in detail. Hypermedia digitally combine image. and environment that have been picked up in numerous disciplines at this time. and sound in various permutations. Such attention to materiality has helped produce a sense of dispersion for the human subject that extends the insights of French poststructuralist thought. Such a notion of place. For Ulmer. has written about this dispersion in the ongoing work of systems theorists in her book How We Became Posthuman. e. I want to emphasize that these rhetorical forms rely on processes of externalization and dispersion. and databases creates an ocean of information. this will mean. the chōra allows Ulmer to reconceive the relations among a writer and his or her “specific position in the time and space of a culture” (33). But it can be added that such processes both join and help accentuate an ongoing attunement to the materialities of body. less with verification than with learning (xii).. they are likely to borrow techniques from one media form and apply it to the other. Choric navigation. which in turn requires navigation (30). electronic networks. and hence equally a reconfiguration of what it means to navigate. then. as well as rational discourse and logic. further. Like Derrida especially. in inventing an electronic rhetoric by replacing topos with chōra in the practice of invention. demonstrating that a common occurence such as steering a large ship into harbor depends on an interactive complex of knowledges. Ulmer is attuned to the displaced place of the chōra in a discourse of method and invention. it is a move that radically reconfigures rhetorical space and what can show up there as appropriate and available for theory and practice. “My problem. we perceive it only through its effects. or as if in a dream. technologies. they inevitably transform who we are in relation to that environment. it should also be remarked that when such transitions occur. and Derrida have all suggested. in the age of mechanized physics. computational models for the brain abound. 46). the chōra is only approachable through bastard discourses.TOWARDS THE CHŌRA 269 smarter environments (1999. Chōra is an other to method as traditionally conceived for at least two reasons. ecological understandings of what it means to be human transform our ambient environs. that traverse in what are . What are we to think of a writing and invention. we had mechanical models and theories for understanding human bodies and brains. is the other of method” (1994. Such a statement marks a key difference between topical and choric invention because it underscores how material and informational scaffolding become part of the “in which” (en hō) and “out of which” (ex hou) rhetorical and cognitive activity occur. 66). The chōra is the receptacle. Thus. 289). be represented (66). in the age of the computer. First. As Ulmer notes in Heuretics. This constitutes a dispersion of agency into the informatic-material environs that can include but extends significantly beyond the ideas-driven system of topical invention. if not discourse in general. as Plato. is to devise a ‘discourse on method’ for that which. Studies like those of Edwin Hutchins disperse that intelligence still further. Kristeva. but it simultaneously withdraws. there are theoretical parallels with the work of Kristeva and Derrida that bear mentioning because of how they situate us with regard to invention itself. While Ulmer makes of the chōra an inventional methodology. and Clark. both of which seem to be activities entirely caught up with representation. stricto sensu. Today. and because of this it cannot. Hayles and others invoke the choric as the locus of everyday activity. Likewise. similarly. which is to say. vocabularies. While we might well characterize our environments as “smarter.” in the sense that we have built information and ability into our circumambient scaffolding. Hutchins.” Ulmer may have been prescient on this point. like a black hole. as we are seeing a proliferation of studies that attribute to it a kind of “intelligence. in his 1985 book Applied Grammatology he argued that in Derrida’s rhetoric we see an inventio that “functions on the assumption that language itself is ‘intelligent’” (1985. and skills. but a further connection is to the Timaeus itself when Timaeus indicates that one approaches the chōra as through a dream (oneiropoloumen) (Timaeus. And not only other interpretations. But the impossible emerges when we try to equate this with invention itself. we see that. a going beyond boundaries and returning. Aristotle refers to the Timaeus more often than any other Platonic dialogue. Sallis argues that while it is customary to translate chōra as “space. Department of English Purdue University Notes 1. we run up against the limits of representation. is itself akin to the receptacle. in all the myriad ways available. What is suggested is that invention considered from the perspective of the chōra. The disfavor with which it is currently saddled only began emerging in the nineteenth century. Something of what occurs in the inventional process withdraws even as a discourse or hypermedia emerges. that precludes its being fixed in place. as well as the limits of a discourse on invention. like the Platonic polis. which in turn necessitates nothing more than another beginning. 1–2). which he also associates with Derrida (5). This in keeping with the fact that the Timaeus was the most popular Platonic dialogue in antiquity up to the Renaissance (Claghorn 1954. In all these instances. In fact. ensuring that what remains at the heart of invention is invention itself. Derrida makes a . Ulmer likens this to the dream logic of surrealism. even though it simultaneously emerges in and through place. self-reflexive exception: what is impossible is that a discourse of representation can capture invention. 2. Ulmer acknowledges how this traces the impossibility of the chōra. It turns back around on itself. What the chōra allows Ulmer to do is theorize and practice how this seeming inconsistency or paradox is actually productive. It is part of what enables or gives rise to rhetoric (as the receptacle).” strictly speaking. Kristeva. Ulmer broaches this idea himself when he states that “part of working heuretically is to use the method that I am inventing while I am inventing it” (17). it is untranslatable. or as given a place in choric genesis. 52b). The impossibility has nothing to do with what we can do with choric invention except the one. there is a movement to invention. but it also withdraws. by which invention can occur. But we should exercise some care here. but translations. It is for this reason that.270 THOMAS RICKERT claimed to be realms of nonrepresentation? Simply this: to take this fundamental insight and begin to think it through and invent out of it. and Derrida. about what is of interest and concern. Indeed. or another inventio. but most particularly about what happens when we think and we invent. or paths. Certainly representation can describe methods. if we think along with Ulmer. scholars such as Claghorn argue that the differences between Plato and Aristotle are magnified by the critics. 333). in which space is held to be a more abstract. because what is capable of receiving form is the same as space” (Physics. but Plato is the only one who tried to say what it is” (209b15–16). For instance. Socrates speaks very little. 35). Thus. generalizable term of which place would be a more determinable part. Furthermore. who makes the point in his book Questioning Platonism that while we take it as customary that authors write treatises with clearly articulated positions. 4. and ultimately chooses to treat the chōra as “khōra. I will simply note here that in the Timaeus. and it is a path mirrored in his choice of term. such conventional phrases will mean something akin to “Plato’s staging of the question of the chōra. N. ala the topos (position) of the chōra (region) (34). See also Drew A. for while they do at times. Sallis [1999].TOWARDS THE CHŌRA 271 similar argument.” i. that is. the primary voice is Timaeus. In the Physics. Aristotle is aligned with a tradition that sees the assimilation of chōra to topos as a move from the boundless to the bounded. Plato in fact wrote dialogues that staged issues. and then to suggest that Plato’s comments are of at best germinal insight and therefore also deserving of Aristotle’s criticisms (76). and Claghorn points to a very old tradition that the spatial theories of Plato and Aristotle are largely congruent (1954. 5. For example. Considered more rigorously. and his focus on certain images such as gold and the Receptacle to form his dominant impression of what the chōra is. Certainly. “I shall take it for granted that this part [on the chōra] can be studied more or less by itself. Edward Casey remarks that in Aristotle “place is literally marginalized: it becomes the closest static surface coextensive with the edges of a physical thing. Kristeva.” then. Taylor. 2–3). Ultimately. place and matter. even if the intellectual tradition has assigned this doctrine to him. 3. or simply if unconsciously “falsifying the theory of the Timaeus by forcing his own technical terminology into it” (347). even someone as otherwise careful and rigorous as Algra claims. but I hope to be understood as doing so sous rature. For Aristotle. at least in more recent commentary. Where the two terms do appear together. This also allows Algra to limit his discussion of the chōra to “the question whether and in what sense it serves as space” (75). at others they do not. 1–15). for material space. We should be leery of assuming the Greeks maintained this same conceptual distinction. Ashbaugh [1988]). Aristotle is simultaneously laudatory and critical of Plato’s thoughts on space and generation. or simply relative location. who sees Aristotle as disagreeing frequently with Plato. This essay explores other paths that can be taken with the chōra. he seems to be in agreement with Plato on a number of counts. is the judgment of scholars such as A. 6..” To what extent Plato understood the chōra as his own doctrine is unknowable. the indeterminate to the determinate (see Casey [1997]. Lee in support (Algra 1995. For a well known example. See in particular Hyland’s “Introduction” (2004. Aristotle tells us that “in the Timaeus Plato identifies matter and space. Algra points out that it would therefore be incorrect to equate chōra with space and topos with place as if topos were simply a more specifiable location within a generalized area (1995. a page that begins with 48e. topos can mean a part of chōra.” and cites E. When I use phrases like the “Platonic chōra. Aristotle tends to understand the chōra as the material substratum (hupokeimenon) of each thing (192a). E. even to the extent of falling into error (1928. I will be following a tradition of assigning a position to Plato. Indeed. locatable place. 7. It is beyond the scope of this essay to analyze the extent to which Aristotle’s reinscription of chōra is a distortion or an advance. and Ulmer. the introduction. 74). this gives especial significance to the fact that Derrida and Eisenman’s Chora L Works is bookended by a reproduction of a page from the Timaeus.e. 666). we can say that Aristotle took one of the paths made available in the Timaeus. For all three of these figures. This means that the extremely common if not automatic practice of equating Socrates’ arguments with Plato’s is suspect at best. There is a long tradition for separating space and place. everything has a definite. nor are these debates essential to the use of the chōra in Derrida. Aristotle in the Physics as well as in On the Heavens and On Generation and Corruption redefines the chōra in the terms of topos and hulē. with one point as exception. what is (at) its very margins” (1997. topos. Hyland. 209b11–12). More representative. Bury’s introduction to his 1929 Loeb translation of the Timaeus divides the dialogue into three parts: first. and this place is entirely material: it is the boundedness of bodies and things within circumambient space. Relatedly. as a proper name that challenges the relation between a signifier and its referent. It is worth noting that it is still common to explicate the chōra by attending solely to the section where it is introduced. Aristotle remarks that “everyone assumes that there is such a thing as place. including Solon’s legend of Atlantis . ” Diacritics 13(3):2–20. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Katherine. 1991. Ross Winterowd. Casey. nor need we stick to a tripartite structure. who have worked directly or indirectly with the choric logics developed by Ulmer. I will use the customary English rendition. George S. second. It should also be noted that Chora L Works includes both French and English versions of this essay. 1995. Stanford: —— Stanford UP. Derrida. New York: Columbia UP. Jacques. and Ian McLeod. the soul of the world and the discussion of the chōra and the triangles (27c–69a).272 THOMAS RICKERT (19a–27c). 1965. Trans. Murray. 2004.” Derrida declines to use an article with khōra. 2 vols. Derrida.” Paragraph 26(3):70–84. 10. Leavey Jr. 1999. Obviously. ix). 2004. Jeffrey Kipnis and Thomas Leeser. Liddell. Trans. and Henry Stuart Jones. and so on. Robert Scott. this is not the only way to section off the dialogue. Richard Young and Alton Becker claim that “rhetoric tends to become a superficial and marginal concern when it is separated from systematic methods of inquiry” (1965. which was never written. Works Cited Algra. “‘The Lost Foundation’: Kristeva’s Semiotic Chōra and Its Ambiguous Legacy. 1940. — — . Ashbaugh.” Harvard Educational Review 35(1965):450–68. 1995. On the Name. Thomas. 1997.. T. the creation of soul’s and bodies (69a–end) (Bury 1929. 1997. of which it was the beginning. Drew A. West Lafayette: Parlor Press. How We Became Posthuman. Claghorn. Natural-Born Cyborgs: Minds. Drifting on a Read: Jazz as a Model of Writing. Contemporary Rhetoric: A Conceptual Background with Readings. Questioning Platonism: Continental Interpretations of Plato. For example. A. Invention in Rhetoric and Composition. The Timaeus itself was intended for a projected trilogy. ancient Athens. New York: Monacelli. Hutchins. Janice M. 4). John P. Hyland. 1924. The chōra. Maria. Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato’s “Timaeus. Cambridge: MIT P. Hayles. J. and the Future of Human Intelligence. 1968. 2003. 1954. Margaroni.” The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. Becker. Chicago: U of Chicago P. Keimpe. ed. and a Hermocrates. I will retain Derrida’s French spelling for “khōra” when working with the essay of that title. Homer. 1984. followed by the Critias. Jacques. Rice (2007). New York: E. Additionally. Thomas Cole argues that rhetoric be limited to being a “self-conscious manipulation of a [speaker’s or writer’s] medium” ( 1997. Similarly. Revolution in Poetic Language. a name for what falls out of representation. Michael. the theme of threes is woven throughout the dialogue. “Derrida Writing Architectural or Musical Form. and Peter Eisenman. Plato’s Theory of Explanation: A Study of the Cosmological Account in the Timaeus. SUNY P. “The Principle of Reason: The University in the Eyes of its Pupils. Clark. Peter. of which we have a fragment. leads us toward a considerably expanded understanding of rhetorical invention. Oxford: Clarendon. Cognition in the Wild. reprint with supplement. Iliad. This assertion is at odds with a narrower conception of rhetorical invention. Julia. Jarrett. New York: Oxford UP. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins UP. reinforcing that point that it (she) is less a representational concept with a referent than just a (proper) name. 127). 9. the three parts of the World Soul elaborated. Dayan. David Wood. but there entitled “Chora.” Hypatia 20(1):78–98. otherwise. Cole. Edwin. Edward. 8. Three different cities are discussed (Socrates’ ideal city narrated in the Republic. Albany: SUNY P. Brill. rev. Lauer. Alton. 1975. N. Cambridge: Harvard UP. Ann Friere. 1983. A Greek-English Lexicon. 123–43. reprinted in W. Technologies. Albany: SUNY P. 1988.e. Andy. and Richard Young. The Fate of Place: A Philosophical Journey. See also Jarrett (1999). and Saper (1997). Kristeva. Berkeley and Los Angeles: U of California P. 1995. The Origins of Rhetoric in Ancient Greece. 2003. . Henry George. 2005. “Toward a Modern Theory of Rhetoric. then. It is nevertheless quite common. and three.. Ed. Concepts of Space in Greek Thought. and Atlantis). 1999. i. Chōra L Works. 1997. R. Saper. Heuretics: The Logic of Invention. John. — — . 1994. 1928. —— Young. Rhetoric: Essays in Invention and Discovery. Taylor. Sallis. 1962. Indra Kagis. Timaeus. Mark Backman.” In Teaching Composition: Ten Bibliographic Essays. Rice. Worth: Texas Christian UP. Artificial Mythologies: A Guide to Cultural Invention. Aristotle’s System of the Physical World: A Comparison with His Predecessors. 1976. Solmsen. reprint. “Invention: A Topological Survey. 1993. 1999. McKeon. Friedrich. A. 1987. Ed.TOWARDS THE CHŌRA 273 McEwen. Socrates’ Ancestor: An Essay on Architectural Beginnings. Ulmer. Oxford: Clarendon. Chorology: On Beginning in Plato’s “Timaeus.” Bloomington: Indiana UP. Applied Grammatology. A Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins UP. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P. 1960. ed. Richard. Bury. Richard. Plato. E. Gregory L. Jeff. Carbondale: Southern Indiana UP. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins UP. Ithaca: Cornell UP. Woodbridge: Ox Bow Press. Cambridge: MIT P. Craig. Trans. 2007. G. 1985. . Gary Tate. 1929. Cambridge: Harvard UP. Ft. The Rhetoric of Cool: Composition Studies and New Media.