Exclusionary Epideictic: NOVA’s NarrativeExcommunication of Fleischmann and Pons
Dale L. Sullivan
University of Nebraska at Kearney
The documentary program "Confusion in a Jar, " shown on the PBS series NOVA, isanalyzed in terms of rhetorical theory. The program is characterized as an instance ofthe genre of epideictic rhetoric. However, unlike most studies of epideictic that emphasizethe way the genre builds communion, in this case the negative side of epideictic as therhetoric of exclusion or excommunication is investigated, especially its rhetorical
function of closing off discussion. The program is shown to follow six episodes of anexcommunication narrative modeled on the narrative structure of the New TestamentGospels.
On 23 March 1989, the University of Utah held a press conference duringwhich two scientists, Martin Fleischmann, professor of chemistry at theUniversity of Southampton and fellow of the Royal Society of London, andStanley Pons, dean of chemistry at the University of Utah, announced theirhitherto unpublished discovery of a method for sustaining a nuclear fusionreaction by means &dquo;considerably simpler than conventional techniques.&dquo;’ Theannouncement was broadcast on national television, forcing scientists toundertake the review process in the public media rather than in their tradi-tional forum-professional journals. Fleischmann and Pons had broken theimplicit professional code that mandates that scientific discoveries be an-nounced in refereed journals before being announced to the general public.
The announcement by Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons and thedevelopments that followed have provided much material for those whostudy the culture of science. For example, Frank Close (1991) has written abook providing his interpretation of the affair. Thomas Gieryn (1992) haspublished an account of the way the press handled the situation, first bypraising the duo and then by blaming them. Trevor Pinch (1992) has lamentedthe way Fleischmann and Pons are being made into villains.
Although the sociologists mentioned above (and many more) have beenquick to make use of the cold fusion controversy, rhetorical studies have not
Science, Technology, & Human Values, Vol 19 No 3, Summer 1994 283-3060 1994 Sage Publications Inc
been forthcoming. Nevertheless, the affair offers many possiblilites foranalysis of the rhetoric of science and its popularization. In the present study,I restrict my focus to one such effort at popularization: the televisiondocumentary titled &dquo;Confusion in a Jar.&dquo;2 This documentary, aired on 30 April1991, in the Public Broadcasting series on science, NOVA, was devoted toFleischmann and Pons’ claim that they had discovered how to sustain coldnuclear fusion by means of electrochemical processes. I will explore theepideictic characteristics of the program, claiming that it is an instance ofritualized excommunication,3 in which the boundary between orthodox sci-ence and deviant science is clearly drawn.’
Such ceremonies are necessary to protect the authority of science (Gierynand Figert 1986, 68), to shield it from accusations that it is incapable ofmonitoring itself (Chubin and Hackett 1990, 134), and to keep the fundingfrom public sources flowing (Whitley 1985, 10). Because Fleischmann andPons committed several disreputable errors by contesting orthodox theory,by manipulating and suppressing data, by failing to acknowledge a co-author,and by seeking publicity (Zuckerman 1977, 111, 116, 122), it was necessaryto characterize the misconduct &dquo;as an isolated instance of individual illness&dquo;
(Chubin and Hackett 1990, 135) to make the deviants seem &dquo;strange&dquo; oranomalous (Gieryn and Figert 1986, 70).
The remainder of this article is divided into two major sections followedby conclusions: (1) a theoretical discussion of exclusionary epideictic and itsnarrative form and (2) an analysis of &dquo;Confusion in a Jar&dquo; in light of thattheory.
A Theory of Exclusionary Epideictic and Its Narrative Forms
There has long been interest in epideictic rhetoric. Ancient Greek andRoman rhetoric, Second Sophistic rhetoric, and Renaissance rhetoric allplaced special emphasis on it. It was largely misunderstood and unappreci-ated during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but rhetoricians areonce again turning to epideictic theory because of its role in creating andsustaining social groups.s One might even say it supplies classical rhetori-cians with a vocabulary for discussing the same phenomena that today areusually covered by cultural studies.
Epideictic rhetoric, according to Aristotle, is ceremonial rhetoric that
praises or blames someone and argues by amplifying (Aristotle 1358b 5 and12, 1368a 10). Although in antiquity the identifying characteristic of epide-ictic was that it employed praise and blame (Chase 1961), it was also
associated with philosophical thought (Duffy 1983), ceremony and ritual
(Carter 1991), education (Oravec 1976; Poulakos 1987), performance (Beale1978) and sophistic display (Consigny 1992). Unlike the audiences fordeliberative and forensic rhetoric, the epideictic audience did not judge acase; rather they were observers who tended to agree with the sentiments ofthe rhetor and expected to be entertained (Sullivan 1993; but see Oravec[ 1976] for a discussion of how the observers acted as judges).
Several modem scholars have pointed out the cultural functions of epide-ictic rhetoric. Among these are educating the young about virtue (Oravec1976), increasing adherence to orthodox values and creating a sense ofcommunion (Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca 1969, 51), and closing offdiscussion of an issue or settling the issue once and for all (Clark 1985, 194).Put another way, epideictic imparts knowledge and builds community (Carter1991, 219, 225). Because epideictic is the rhetoric that builds and sustainscultures, it is political by definition, although sometimes its political agendais eclipsed by its tendency to become a spectacle for its own sake (Procter1990) or to serve as an opportunity for the rhetor to display virtuosity(Consigny 1992). Although these cultural functions seem to be an amalgamof several diverse phenomena, one way of seeing how they relate to eachother and form a coherent universe of discourse is to characterize epideicticas the rhetoric of orthodoxies and see these various functions as manifesta-tions of rhetoric employed to build, sustain, and protect orthodoxies (Sullivan1992).
Our English word &dquo;orthodoxy&dquo; is nearly a transliteration of the Greekorthe and doxa, the first usually meaning &dquo;right&dquo; and the second &dquo;opinion&dquo;(Kerferd 1981, 137). Lawrence W. Rosenfield (1971, 65) links it with thenotion of common sense, or of seeing in a way common to other members ofthe culture; Bourdieu (1979, 82) describes it as right opinion dictated bygatekeepers; and Hariman (1986, 48) says doxa can also mean reputation. Ifa person is orthodox, he or she shares the common beliefs of the orthodoxyand sees as the other members see. An orthodoxy, as defined by Bourdieu( 1980, 279), is a culture having its own doxa, which constitutes a closed circleof presuppositions. The metaphor at work here is that of a city with walls.Those inside the city, or polis, constitute a culture based on shared culturalinterpretations and practices. Those inside the walls are the orthodox. Thosewho have never been inside the walls are foreigners (or in some cases, thelaity), but those who are members of the orthodoxy, and then act in such away as to warrant being set outside the walls, are heretics, or the heterodox.
As the rhetoric of orthodoxies, epideictic can be divided into five subparts(Sullivan 1991): education (initiating the neophyte), legitimation (estab-lishing authority to speak), demonstration (exhibiting the truth as defined bythe culture), celebration (rehearsing the victories and praising the heroes of
the culture), and criticism (establishing knowledge and demarcating borders).It is this fifth function-criticism-with which I am concerned in this article.Cultures with strong boundaries are particularly concerned with defendingthose boundaries, and, in this respect, science is a culture with a stronginterest in protecting its borders, both from those who would invade from theoutside and from those inside who deviate from condoned behavior and
thought. Although much scholarship on epideictic has emphasized its posi-tive side, its use of praise, this study looks at the negative side of epideictic:its use of blame to censure, marginalize, and exclude people; its schismaticnature (Mackin 1991); and its attempt to close off discussion of an issue(Clark 1985).
Given the cultural functions of epideictic, it should not be surprising thatit lends itself to being analyzed in terms of narrative theory. Narrativetheorists have suggested that all forms of discourse spring from stories, thateven such apparently nonnarrative texts as scientific articles can be read asstories or can be understood as an evolved form of narrative (Fisher 1987,49). Theorists have emphasized the importance of narratives in judgingactions, in patterning experience, and in binding people together in sharedinterpretations and celebrations. Alasdair MacIntyre (1984, 208) has shownthat we make moral judgments about a person’s actions by attributingintentions to the person, and we do that by contextualizing the action withina narrative history. A variation of this narrative function is the narrative’sability to define whether a job is done well or not. As Lyotard puts it, &dquo;T’husthe narratives allow the society in which they are told ... to define its criteriaof competence&dquo; (1984, 20).
Not only do we judge particular actions this way, we also understand moralaction to be a series of actions that conform to a pattern; that is, narratives
give moral significance to events by patterning them, producing what ArnoldKettle calls a moral fable (1951, 18). According to Hayden White, &dquo;[E]veryfully realized story ... points to a moral, or endows events, whether real orimaginary, with a significance that they do not possess as mere sequence&dquo;(1981, 13). This connection between patterns and morals helps explain theimportance of closure in narrative: the reader’s demand for closure is thedemand for moral meaning, which can be achieved only by giving signifi-cance to events as elements of a larger moral drama (White 1981, 20). Suchstories bind us together in interpretive communities and confirm our notionsof what life is like (Kermode 1981, 83). As interpretive and celebratoryactivities, narratives are &dquo;social dramas&dquo; that convert &dquo;particular values andends, distributed over a range of actors, into a system ... of shared orconsensual meaning&dquo; (Turner 1981, 152). Because our culture highly re-spects science, many of our stories depict scientists as saviors. As Dorothy
Nelkin (1987, 70) points out, popularized science often casts scientific ortechnological problems as myths or social dramas in which a communityis threatened by evil, and villains are identified. Walter Fisher’s descrip-tion of the social functions of narrative draws together what the others havesaid:
[The Homo narrans metaphor] holds that symbols are created and communi-cated ultimately as stories meant to give order to human experience and toinduce others to dwell in them in order to establish ways of living in common,in intellectual and spiritual communities in which there is confirmation for thestory that constitutes one’s life. (Fisher 1987, 63)
Because narratives are recognized as meaningful only when they fit aculture’s interpretation of reality, a relatively limited number of narrativepatterns exist in a given culture. Each new story that is told is an instantiationof one of these &dquo;moral fables&dquo; or &dquo;social dramas.&dquo; Each social action that is
performed regularly enough to have been identified by name has a narrativepattern associated with it. For instance, Gieryn (1992, 224) characterizes thepress’s early accounts of cold fusion as being instantiations of the myth ofthe god, Ra, bringing the power of the sun to earth. He could just as well havecompared it to the myth of Prometheus. These actions might be likened togenres of social action, actions that are repeated in recurrent situations (Miller1984, 159) and have thus become ritualized. Kenneth Burke (1969, 31), forexample, argues that Nazi anti-Semitism was a secularized replica of theDivine Scapegoat; that is, the action of placing a society’s sins on someonewho is to carry them away is a seemingly universal human moral action thathas been instantiated in such narratives as the Hebrew Day of Atonement(Leviticus 16) and the Christian Crucifixion of Christ (Matthew 27).
Many narratives could be associated with epideictic.6 However, this studyfocuses on the epideictic function of criticism. The specific social ritual ofinterest in my analysis of &dquo;Confusion in a Jar&dquo; is excommunication, the
setting outside of those who are guilty of deviant behavior.’ When we beginlooking for an excommunication narrative pattern, we may be frustrated atfirst. How many stories of excommunication, after all, spring to mind ?8 Theseeming dearth of such stories can be traced to our own cultural perception.We fail to recognize the excommunication narrative pattern because it hasbeen transformed into a vindication narrative in the New Testament Gospels.We read the gospel stories as good news because they end with a vindicationof the protagonist through his resurrection from the dead, but if these storiesdid not add that final episode, we would be reading narratives of excommu-nication instead of narratives of vindication. Thus, I use the narrative patternof the Gospels as a template suitable for analyzing the ritualized excommu-
nication of Fleischmann and Pons. The structure of the gospel narrativesconsists of seven episodes, which sometimes run simultaneously or mergeinto each other. It is only the first six, those that comprise the excommunica-tion narrative, that are apparent in &dquo;Confusion in a Jar.&dquo;
Episode 1: Wilderness Proclamation
The first episode is the voice of one crying in the wilderness. A delivereror prophet either comes from the margins or is announced from the marginsof society. Although Matthew and Luke begin with nativity episodes, neitherMark nor John does. They begin with the ministry of John the Baptist. Thus,the voice of one in the wilderness is the first episode that occurs in all fourGospels.
Episode 2: Enthusiastic Reception
After the deliverer is announced, there is a time of enthusiastic reception.In Mark, for instance, immediately after the story of John the Baptist and abrief account of the temptation in the wilderness, Jesus calls his disciples andbegins his healing ministry. Large crowds begin to gather wherever he goes:&dquo;As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside inlonely places. Yet the people came to him from everywhere&dquo; (Mark 1:45).9
Episode 3: Orthodox Inspection
The popularity of the new deliverer causes the established authorities tobegin evaluating him or her. Chapter 5 of the Gospel of John, verse 16 on,describe a public confrontation between the religious authorities and Jesus,in which they question his authority and he defends it.
Episode 4: Polarization
After the initial public enthusiasm for the new deliverer, popular supportbegins to wane leaving a small but dedicated group of followers. Theorthodox interpret this falling away as evidence that the people are beginningto see the newcomer as a fraud. The heterodox (those faithful to the new-comer) interpret it as a sifting out of the unbelievers. After Jesus’s teachingabout the necessity of eating his body and drinking his blood, many of hisdisciples &dquo;turned back and no longer followed him&dquo; (John 6:66). But whenhe asks the Twelve if they too will leave, Peter responds, &dquo;Lord, to whom
shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know thatyou are the Holy One of God&dquo; (John 6:68-9).
Episode 5: Official Rejection
The official inspection of episode 3 gradually leads the orthodoxy to arriveat the conclusion that the new deliverer is a heretic and they announce thedecision publicly. In John 7:45-52, the orthodox leaders agree that Jesus mustbe a false teacher; in John 10:33, they accuse him of blasphemy; in John10:45-53, they plot to take his life; and in Matthew 26:57-68, Jesus is broughtbefore the Sanhedrin where he is tried and sentenced to death.
Episode 6: Ritualized Excommunication
The last episode of an excommunication narrative (and the penultimateepisode in a vindication narrative) is the public excommunication or censureof the heretic. Episode 6 differs from episode 5 in that episode 5 is simply anappraisal of the heretic, whereas episode 6 is a ritualistic act of setting theheretic outside the borders. Episode 5 might be seen as a court action; episode6 as the carrying out of the court’s conviction. In the gospel story, episode 5consists of the mounting public accusations by the religious orthodoxy andthe two trials of Jesus (one before the Sanhedrin and one before Pilate).Episode 6 is the crucifixion, an act that took place outside the city gates,thereby symbolically setting the heretic outside the boundaries (Hebrews13:12-3).
Episode 7: Ultimate Vindication
Episode 7 is told only by the heterodox (or believers), and it turns thenarrative from a story of excommunication to one of vindication. It demon-strates that the heretic was the real deliverer after all. In the Gospels, thisepisode is the account of Jesus’s resurrection. It is this episode that sets thescene for a new orthodoxy to emerge.
The Excommunication Narrative of &dquo;Confusion in a Jar&dquo;
As a genre, television documentaries share an obvious characteristic with
epideictic. Epideictic audiences are not judges in the same way forensic ordeliberative audiences are; instead, they are observers or spectators normally
assumed to be expecting entertainment and education, or, as Horace put itfrom the rhetor’s perspective, such rhetoric is meant to teach and to delight.These two goals are achieved in rhetoric by the artful mixing of the familiarwith the novel.
Some sense of familiarity is created by the program’s early rebroadcastingof selections from news stories on the day Fleischmann and Pons announcedtheir discovery. As the program unfolds, the sense of familiarity continuesbecause of the metaphorical language, which gives the story religious over-tones and seems to cast Fleischmann and Pons as messianic figures. Forexample, the announcer says that Fleischmann and Pons &dquo;offered hope&dquo;( 115); he characterizes them as &dquo;unorthodox&dquo; (145); he claims that theyinspired &dquo;fusion fever&dquo; (297). Comparing their work to a similar case in the1950s, he says that the &dquo;Holy Grail&dquo; was still missing (348). In an interview,James Mahaffey of Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) says thathe and his team renamed the experiment &dquo;The Shroud of Turin&dquo; (378). Theannouncer calls those who associated with Fleischmann and Pons &dquo;believers&dquo;
(502). An electrochemist, David Williams, says, &dquo;So what you’re left with isalmost like a religious dispute. You have a group of people who believe verystrongly that cold fusion exists and then another group of people who believevery strongly that it doesn’t exist&dquo; (659). Finally, as the credits begin at theend of the program, an unidentified voice in the background says, &dquo;I did seea bumper sticker that said, ’Be merciful to electrochemists as they know notwhat they do’ &dquo; (674).
It is not just the language that sounds familiar, the story sounds familiar,it has the shape of experience as we expect it to be. That familiarity comesfrom the excommunication narrative pattern of the program, although view-ers are not likely to be aware of this pattern’s presence if they view the programonly once. A careful analysis of &dquo;Confusion in a Jar&dquo; shows, however, thatthe program moves through six episodes of an excommunication narrative.
Episode 1 : Wilderness Proclamation
The gospel narratives begin with John the Baptist announcing the comingSavior. John is dressed like a nomad, and he preaches in the deserts of Judea.Even during this early preaching, there is suspicion, for the establishedauthorities send people to investigate John’s claims (John 1:19). Similarly,&dquo;Confusion in a Jar&dquo; begins with clips from the press conference in whichFleischmann and Pons announced their discovery. In the second line, Ponssays, &dquo;We have established a sustained nuclear reaction.&dquo; The clips from thepress conference are interrupted by the announcer’s voice, who gives back-ground information. From the very start, there is a hint at the division between
Fleischmann and Pons and orthodox scientists. Fleischmann and Pons are infront of a large room filled with journalists. Immediately after a very shortshot of that scene, a scene of a chemistry laboratory comes on the screen, andthe announcer says, &dquo;At labs around the world, the chase for fame and fortunewas on&dquo; (3). Not only are Fleischmann and Pons in a public room instead ofa laboratory, they are also in a desert valley in Utah (22), a situation that isemphasized repeatedly. The viewer may even be reminded of John the Baptistproclaiming the good news in the deserts of Judea. The program drawsheavily on popular associations of Utah with conservative religious views,thereby hinting that the announcement is suspect. The contrast is emphasizedagain when the announcer says that work to test the claim began that evening,&dquo;At a time when labs were quiet and scientists outside Utah were enjoying adrink&dquo; (63). The screen emphasizes the fellowship of scientists by showinga few men around a table in a bar after a hard day’s work enjoying a drink,while over their shoulder, the Television in the bar plays clips of the Utahpress conference.
These hints at the suspect nature of the claim are not very strong, however,because the announcer plays up Fleischmann and Pons’s credentials, statingthat Fleischmann is a professor of chemistry and a Fellow of the RoyalSociety of London (27) and that Pons is a dean of chemistry at the Universityof Utah and a one-time student of Fleischmann (32). The announcer evencalls them two &dquo;respectable scientists&dquo; (36). These overt statements of praiseare counterbalanced by statements of blame. Referring to their decision to gopublic with their findings, the announcer says, &dquo;Pons and Fleischmann
announced their discovery to the press before they told even their closestcolleagues. Their decision to do so has since haunted them. But the word wasout&dquo; (34). A bit later, when the narrative plot has moved on, the announcerreinforces this statement of blame, saying, &dquo;It was highly unorthodox thatPons and Fleischmann had not published a detailed paper of their experiment&dquo;(145). Even so, the first-time viewer is probably not alert to the seriousnessof the trespass.
The first episode of the program, then, is the press conference, the
proclamation of good news from the margins. The news that cold fusion maybe possible is good news indeed, according to the program, because it wouldsolve problems like global warming, depletion of the ozone layer, thegreenhouse effect, even environmental disasters like the Exxon Valdez oilspill. The announcer says, &dquo;Most of the time when we think about such
disasters, we are reduced to despair&dquo; (52). After recounting the woes of themodern ecological situation, the announcer then says, &dquo;But perhaps this time,from the deserts of Utah, somebody was offering a real answer&dquo; (54). He goeson to enumerate the possible blessings in short, almost chantlike, statements:
&dquo;No more greenhouse effect. No more fossil fuels. No more global warming&dquo;(56). The visual reinforcement of this problem-solution sequence is graphic.While the announcer describes modem woes, the screen shows clips of theValdez disaster, but while he suggests the possible blessings of Fleischmannand Pons’s discovery, the camera pans the desolate scenery of the Utah desert,a sandy wasteland with sagebrush in the foreground and barren hills in thedistance. The announcer suggests possible blessings, but the camera suggestsbarrenness, wilderness, and marginality. The first episode ends with a clearadmission by Fleischmann on the television at the bar (over the shoulders ofthe drinking scientists) that this idea was so marginal that they did not evenattempt to get funding; instead, they financed it themselves (68).
Episode 2: Enthusiastic Reception
The initial proclamation is followed by a time of popular reception. Thepublic, or popular opinion, is usually symbolized in &dquo;Confusion in a Jar&dquo; bytelevision journalists, who at once play the double role of representing thepublic to the world of science and representing the world of science to thepublic. However, the public also finds a voice briefly in the form of acongressional hearing. One other expression of the public voice is that ofneophyte scientists. Science, in this program, is depicted as a hierarchy. Thoselowest in the structure (neophytes) are most like the public in that they areeasily excited, they are rather naive, they are relatively isolated from theongoing conversation of mature scientists, and they are willing to trusttelevision as a source of information. Those highest in the structure portrayedin the program are networked, accurate, and suspicious.
The contrast between the response of scientists and the response of the
public is depicted in this second episode. The public is represented byneophyte scientists, students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology(MIT) who hear about the experiment on television and enthusiastically tryto duplicate it the same evening in their dormitory. They have all thecharacteristics of early followers, of first-line disciples, caught up in theexcitement of the initial stages of a movement. They even look like biblicaldisciples: all three are youthful, one with long hair, wearing a bandanna, twomen and one woman. They talk like disciples, chattering excitedly and jokingabout the ponderousness of big science: &dquo;I mean this is High Power, BigScience and then here come along these two electric chemists who say, ’Ohyeah, we’ll just do this.’ Poof! You know, fusion in a jar&dquo; (92). When JoeHarrington, the student speaking in the previous quote, says &dquo;Poof,&dquo; he holdshis hand as a magician would who is throwing magic powder. The viewer
gets the strong impression that Fleischmann and Pons have become wizardsin these students’ minds, the program thus setting up the contrast betweenspurious magic and serious science.
The scene immediately following is an extended explanation, thirty-fivelines long, in which the announcer discusses fusion while the screen showsanimated drawings of white and grey spheres-representations of neutronsand protons-revolving around each other, joining, and exploding. There isno doubt that we are getting truth in this section: the announcer’s voice, whichhas come to be our truthsayer, and the animation combine to put us in ourplace as students, the scene being reminiscent of chemistry films we saw inhigh school. The placement of this scene immediately following the enthu-siastic reception of the students warns the audience that sober reflection isneeded. The explanation scene ends with several sentences in which theannouncer implies that Fleischmann and Pons-who &dquo;claimed that theycould make fusion take place at room temperature&dquo; and that they had detectednuclear products-might have been wrong. Their announcement was &dquo;star-tling&dquo; ; it &dquo;astounded&dquo; the scientific community; it was a &dquo;remarkable claim&dquo;(120-8). Thus, episode 2, although it shows the enthusiastic reception ofFleischmann and Pons, nevertheless ends on a suspicious note.
Episode 3: Orthodox Inspection
In the Gospels, members of the orthodoxy, or their representatives, beginto inspect the ministry of John the Baptist and of Jesus very early; they cometo John in the wilderness (John 1) and to Jesus by night when he first startshis work (John 3). In the same way, orthodox scientists begin to inspect thework of Fleischmann and Pons as soon as the announcement is made. Asscientists try to reproduce their work, a theme emerges that holds this episodetogether: communication. The problems encountered by orthodox scientistsare systematically tied back to the unorthodox way in which Pons andFleischmann announced their findings. Because they did not publish in arefereed journal before making their announcement, their peers had to resortto questionable sources to get information-television, newspapers, word ofmouth, second-rate publications, computer networks, and faxes. This episodeis divided into three parts.
After the initial failure of the MIT students to replicate the results, theestablishment at MIT made a serious attempt to do the same. They did nothave the information they needed, so they tried to get it by watching andrewatching a video tape of the news conference that showed clips ofFleischmann and Pons’s laboratory. They wore out a video tape in the process
( 158). A father of one of the team members, however, found a printed diagramin a copy of Financial Times (170), which they tried to use, but ultimately,the MIT team failed. Marcel Gaudreau, the senior plasma fusion scientist atMIT, explained that, &dquo;There were too many degrees of freedom.... Youdidn’t know the voltage, you didn’t know the current, you didn’t know if itwas pulsed&dquo; (186).
The second section of this episode is the story of attempts to replicate theexperiment at Harwell, England. Again, communication is the dominanttheme. Drawing on information given him by Fleischmann before the newsconference, David Williams developed an elaborate apparatus to verify theresults (195). When he was unsuccessful, he tried to talk with his friendFleischmann, but Fleischmann was now too busy to give more information,and besides, he wanted independent confirmation. None of these sources ofinformation-television, newspaper diagram, preliminary information-proved adequate; the results were not being replicated. The announcerintervenes to tell us that this confusion would not have happened if a &dquo;fullpaper had already been published&dquo; (237). He goes on to instruct the audienceabout the ways of scientists: &dquo;The international scientific community has itsown way of doing things. Even the most earth shattering discovery must bereported in a professional journal such as Nature before it is released
publicly&dquo; (238). Refereed science, another phrase for orthodox inspection,was greatly hindered by Fleischmann and Pons’s secrecy.
The sequence of depicted attempts to replicate the experiment has movedup the hierarchy of science: first, there were the MIT students, then the MITteam with no inside information, then the Harwell team with inside informa-tion. Now, having been told how scientists usually publish their findings, theaudience is introduced to no less a symbol of orthodox science than JohnMaddox, the editor of Nature, who sits in front of a wall of bound volumesof Nature, rehearsing the illustrious record of the journal as the forum inwhich many major scientific findings have first been announced (241).Viewers have reached the innermost circle, the holy of holies of science, theapex of the hierarchy. It is as though they have been granted an interviewwith the Jewish High Priest in the Gospel stories or with the Pope in theRoman Catholic Church. During this interview, Maddox recounts Pons andFleischmann’s attempts and failures to produce an article that the referees ofNature would accept. Their failure to publish in Nature, along with theannouncer’s statement that they published instead in a less well knownjournal, the Journal of Electro-Analytical Chemistry, greatly diminishes theviewers’ estimation of Fleischmann and Pons’s work.
The episode of orthodox inspection never really concludes; it mergesgradually into the episode of official rejection. However, running parallel tothis episode is one in which popular reactions are again investigated. As inthe Gospels, reactions tend to polarize: Those supporting Fleischmann andPons become more and more dedicated whereas the rest of the world becomesdisenchanted. This process of polarization is the longest episode in thedocumentary, taking up approximately 230 of the total 687 lines. It consistsof a series of scenes that shift back and forth between public reaction andinsider science reaction. The public reaction is usually symbolized by televi-sion news broadcasts, the insider reaction by seemingly confidential inter-views. As these shifts in focus progress, the conviction that Fleischmann andPons were wrong grows, not only among scientists but also among the public,leaving only a small band of believers at the end. Most of the audienceprobably migrates with the general public from belief to unbelief during thisepisode of the program.
The first focus is on public enthusiasm represented by the CBS EveningNews, which ran a story that scientists at Texas A&M University and atGeorgia Tech had duplicated Fleischmann and Pons’s results. The enthusiasmof the news report stands vicariously for the continued public support ofFleischmann and Pons. This support is then emphasized as administratorsfrom the University of Utah go before Congress to request emergencyfunding to support cold fusion research. Clips of the testimony emphasizethe need for Americans to be competitive with the Japanese and the Koreans,creating the impression that Fleischmann and Pons are almost economicmessiahs who have come to deliver the captive American market from foreignpowers. This first focus ends with a scene in the University of Utah’s campusbookstore, the camera showing football jerseys and T-shirts with fusionslogans, the announcer saying, &dquo;Back in Utah fusion fever took on a kind ofparty atmosphere&dquo; (320).
The second focus is on developments in the scientific community, wherethe enthusiasm seems to be waning. Nathan S. Lewis of the CaliforniaInstitute of Technology (Cal Tech) claims that the experiment &dquo;hasn’t beenreproduced by any national laboratory or any university without a goodfootball team&dquo; (338). Embedded in this focus is the precedent from the 1950sin which the media had given sensational treatment of claims by scientists tohave created thermonuclear fusion. The announcer says, &dquo;The press and
public went wild, but within three weeks of the news story, embarrassedscientists and journalists had to admit that they’d made a mistake&dquo; (347).
Reports of early confirmations of Fleischmann and Pons’s findings thenbegin to unravel. James Mahaffey from Georgia Tech explains in a confiden-tial interview (representing insider science) that their results were not reliablebecause they had misused a neutron counter. The intimate mood of theconfidential interview is then immediately contrasted with scenes of Mahaffeyconfessing in a large room full of reporters, in front of several cameras, thathis results did not support Fleischmann and Pons. This scene, filled as it iswith journalists, represents public reaction, the first indication that the earlybelief is beginning to be shaken. At Harwell Laboratories in England,scientists also find that they cannot replicate the experiment, as DavidWilliams concludes in a confidential interview (representing insider science):&dquo;We were pretty confident actually that we had found nothing&dquo; (407). Theannouncer seems to nail down the conclusion by telling us briefly that theMIT physicists also could find no fusion products (409).
The shifting of focus back and forth between insider science and the publiccontinues with news clips of Pons and Fleischmann displaying their tempers,accusing their fellow scientists of shoddy work and quickly written papers(411-21). Because this section is composed of clips from a news broadcast,the documentary implies that public support is further eroded by the obvi-ously non-scientific ethos displayed. Their ethos is further damaged with aclip of Dan Rather (himself representing something of a high priest injournalism) announcing that an MIT scientist concluded that the Utah claimwas wrong. In this section, the bumbling, unscientific ethos of Fleischmannand Pons is contrasted with the expert status of a specialized scientist, RichardPetrasso, an expert in gamma rays, who points out that one of the graphs usedby Fleischmann and Pons as evidence for fusion processes was wrong (441).
This tactic of comparing Fleischmann and Pons’s incompetent ethos withexpert status is a theme in this section, having occurred earlier as well whenexperts in neutron counters (364) and in calorimeters (399) found problemswith the experiment. Furthermore, Fleishmann and Pons’s ethos is damagedby way of association. The Utah State Legislature, obviously non-scientificand biased, voted five million dollars to support cold fusion; meanwhile, theannouncer tells us that almost no prestigious labs were getting positiveresults. Confirmations were coming from second-class laboratories and fromareas in the world, such as southern and eastern Europe, not known for carefulscience. Thus, Fleischmann and Pons are firmly associated with second-ratescientists. The overall sense of public support and orthodox curiosity, withwhich this episode opened, has thus been changed to public disenchantmentand orthodox disbelief.
Nevertheless, the faithful seem to become even more dedicated. Thebelievers among the laity begin to react against orthodox scientists. Moshe
Gai of Yale University claims in an interview that he has received calls andletters accusing him of obstructing progress because he did not supportFleischmann and Pons (495). The true believers left in the scientific commu-nity formed the Cold Fusion Club, which held its first conference in Salt LakeCity in March 1990. The conference was covered by the news media. Episode4, which focuses on the polarization process leading either to disenchantmentor to dedication, ends on a somewhat optimistic note: It looks as though anemergent subspecialty, research into cold fusion, is beginning to take root-whether as a weed or as a garden plant is not yet completely clear.
Episode 5: Official Rejection
The optimistic note at the end of the previous episode is immediatelychallenged at the beginning of episode 5, a short (509-50) but decisive sectionin which the work of Fleischmann and Pons is officially rejected by orthodoxscience. It begins with the ominous claim that &dquo;a series of damaging devel-opments began to unfold&dquo; (509). In the Gospel narratives, the process oforthodox inspection reaches a climax during Passover week in Jerusalem.During that week, a woman follower of Jesus is accused of squanderingmoney (John 12); Judas betrays Jesus (John 13 and 18); and Jesus is broughtbefore the Sanhedrin, something like the Inquisition, where he is pronouncedguilty of blasphemy. The same sequence of events happens in &dquo;Confusion ina Jar,&dquo; leading to official rejection of Fleischmann and Pons.
This fifth episode of the program creates a sense of being in a courtroomas the prosecution brings forth a battery of charges against the accused.Playing the role of an insider who squanders money, President Chase Petersonof the University of Utah is forced to resign when he admits that a supposedlyanonymous donation of $500,000 to cold fusion research was really takenfrom the university’s own bank account (510). The announcer (now speakingfor the prosecution) reports that Science magazine has raised the possibilitythat Texas A&M University had gotten positive results by spiking their waterwith tritium (515). He then tells us that Utah’s Fusion Advisory Councilconducted a financial review of Fleischmann and Pons and told them &dquo;to
surrender their data for further evaluation&dquo; (525). Playing the part of aninsider who betrays, Fritz Will, who was director of the newly formedNational Cold Fusion Institute (Fleischmann and Pons’s own research group)says, &dquo;Dr. Fleischmann and Pons are not team players&dquo; (526). The announcereven uses the word &dquo;verdict&dquo; when he concedes that the final verdict remains
open (531). This seeming admission that the case is not closed is, however,immediately overturned by a symbolic action in which the aura of theInquisition is evoked. Fleischmann is shown in an interview sheepishly
insisting that some kind of nuclear process is going on in the test tube (541 ).His demeanor is very subdued, and he does not have the confidence or theanger of earlier interviews. In short, he seems to be the accused testifying onhis own behalf. Immediately following Fleischmann’s testimony, Maddox isshown in an interview. His short statement represents the official verdict oforthodox science, and this verdict is rejection:
I think it will turn out after two or three years more of investigation that this isjust spurious and unconnected with anything that you could call nuclear fusion,thermonuclear fusion. Ah, I think that broadly speaking, it’s dead, and it’llremain dead for a long, long time. (537-42)
It is fascinating that the program highlights these particular words from whatwas obviously a much longer interview. When Maddox says, &dquo;it’s dead, andit’ll remain dead for a long, long time,&dquo; the viewer, alerted to the program’saffinities with the Gospel narratives, is reminded that the orthodox religiousauthorities requested that a Roman guard be set at Jesus’ tomb (Matthew27:62) so that they could disprove rumors that Jesus would rise from the dead.
Episode 6: Ritualized Excommunication
After the High Priest declared Jesus guilty of blasphemy, Jesus was takento Pilate, who agreed to carry out the death penalty. Jesus was taken outsidethe city and crucified, thus literally and symbolically being excommunicated.In &dquo;Confusion in a Jar,&dquo; after Maddox’s declaration that Fleischmann andPons’s work is spurious, a final episode, considerably longer than the fifth,occurs. It appears to be an analysis of the whole affair.
The announcer asks, &dquo;So what happened? What went wrong?&dquo; (547). Thecamera, meanwhile, shows the Utah desert once again, but this time glarefrom the sun is refracted down the center of the frame creating the image ofa star pointing to the ground, evoking the viewers’ associations with the starof Bethlehem. The announcer says that a combination of pressures &dquo;led toPons and Fleischmann’s ill-starred announcement&dquo; (550). The implication isclear. Were these prophets from the desert really messiahs, or were they falseprophets? We have just heard the verdict, and now we return to the margins,to the deserts outside the centers of scientific research.
The remainder of this sixth episode is a symbolic excommunication, asseveral scientists censure Fleischmann and Pons and disassociate themselves
from them, setting the heretics outside the camp. The series of disassociationsthat occur in this episode can be mapped to Robert K. Merton’s ([ 1942] 1973)description of the ethos of science, which, he claims, is made up of univer-salism, communism, disinterestedness, and organized skepticism ([1942]
1973, 270-7). Fleischmann and Pons are portrayed as trying to create theirown empire, as reluctant to share their findings with other scientists, asmotivated by self-interest, and as too eager to believe.
The first to reject them is Dr. Steven Jones of the Physics Department atBrigham Young University. A softspoken man with a humble spirit, heappears to be someone who is very precise and careful not to mislead in anyway. He tells a story about some collaborative work that he and Fleischmannand Pons had been doing together and about an agreement they had made tosubmit papers to Nature on March 24. But on the day before that, withoutnotifying Jones, Fleischmann and Pons held their press conference. Thisinformation clearly destroys their ethos, showing that they are not trustwor-thy. Jones says that he and his team watched the press conference and saidmore than once, &dquo;Boy, we’re really glad we didn’t end up working too closelybecause their nuclear physics obviously wasn’t real solid at that stage, andwe hadn’t realized that they were thinking along these grandiose lines&dquo; (582).The documentary seems to want to play fair, and so Jones’s comment isfollowed by Fleischmann trying to insist that their findings could not be keptsecret; they had to publish. Placed directly after Jones’s story, Fleischmann’sinsistence sounds like a lame attempt at self-justification. Not only does theaudience have the impression that he is not trustworthy, they also now seethat he is unwilling to admit his errors, although, of course, this impressionis created by taking statements out of context and placing them in contextswhere they seem to say one thing instead of another. Nevertheless, thissegment, in which Jones is the main speaker, leaves the impression thatFleischmann and Pons are not reliable in their personal relationships.
After a brief discussion explaining that the real cause for the earlyannouncement was the University of Utah’s concern about protecting patents,a second scientist appears to censure Fleischmann and Pons and disassociatehimself from them. Moshe Gai suggests that what motivated this miscarriageof science was the American dream turned into a nightmare. The announcersuggests that both the scientists and the press were to blame. Gai is thenshown giving an extended critique in which he speculates about the press’srole but concludes that the press was not to blame. He then clearly chastisesFleischmann and Pons, although he never uses their names:
It was the scientist who was irresponsible; I think the scientist should have notgone to the press on March 23 and thereafter. It should have been done in the
way science has been done. Science has to do its thing and its thing is workingin publication, going to international meetings, having [sic] a scientific discus-sion, checking, rechecking, double checking, verifying everything, and once,once it’s true, then you can go to the press, IF it has any interest to the press.(635-40)
This segment adds to the indictment. Not only have Fleischmann and Ponsbeen unreliable in their personal relationships, they have also broken solidar-ity with the scientific community, a charge that echoes Fritz Will’s earliercharge that they are not &dquo;team players&dquo; (526).
The third scientist is Maddox, who explains that Pons and Fleischmannsuffered from a delusion brought on by dreams of great fortune. They kepttheir findings secret, and so, says Maddox, &dquo;as a consequence they wereentirely isolated from the natural day-to-day skepticism of the scientificcommunity and they didn’t get the help from the scientific community thatthey would have gotten&dquo; (651). There appears to be poetic justice in hisstatement: They wanted to work secretly; let them work by themselvesoutside the walls. Even David Williams, of Harwell Laboratory andFleischmann’s personal friend, appears to give them a mild rebuke for nothaving shared information and for having given in to intense commercialpressure (656).
Altogether then, four scientists come forward ritually to excommunicatePons and Fleischmann in the sixth and final episode of &dquo;Confusion in a Jar.&dquo;Looking back over the narrative, we see this familiar pattern: Like Jesus,Fleischmann and Pons were proclaimed from the deserts, followed by thecrowds, inspected by the orthodox, forsaken by the unfaithful, rejected byauthorities, and set outside the walls.
Conclusions
Exclusionary epideictic, such as &dquo;Confusion in a Jar,&dquo; marginalizes peo-ple, creates schisms, and attempts to close off discussion of an issue. Al-though the program appears to be an instance of forensic rhetoric that asksthe audience to give their verdict, the program is really a social drama thatreinforces the supposed values of modern American science (Slaughter 1993,287). By ritually excluding Fleischmann and Pons, the program demonstratesthat orthodox science is capable of cleaning its own house. As observers orspectators, the viewers (if they believe the program) learn that these two men,for whatever reasons, erred badly and are not representative of science;indeed, viewers come to understand that orthodox scientists agree that coldfusion is not happening in Utah. The social drama reinforces respect forestablished boundaries, especially the boundary between autonomous sci-ence and public interference. As Moshe Gai puts it in the last lines of theprogram before the credits:
[I]f the public will understand that if we want to save our planet, if we want toget a solution to our energy problem, those solutions will not come overnight.Science is not something that occurs overnight. It’s very hard to do an
experiment, a good experiment. I think the public should realize it.... Sciencehas to be allowed to do its thing and it takes time to do good science. (665-71)
Ironically, the public seem to be insiders, expected to agree with the verdicton cold fusion, and yet the public are excluded from science, told not tointerfere with science policy.
Despite this exclusionary language, the program also establishes a com-munity based on the hegemony of science; the basis for community is that(1) scientists can and should share with each other their specialized knowl-edge, and (2) the general public should be content to live in submission tothe present hierarchical structure that places science at the top. It lays out theconditions for harmonious relationships both within orthodox science andwithin the larger society.
By laying out these conditions in narrative form, the program creates asense of consubstantiality, one of the primary functions of epideictic (Mackin1991, 251), but because of its exclusionary rhetoric, it also defines who is notpart of the communion. Mackin identifies this process as &dquo;schismogenesis,&dquo;a type of interaction that pollutes our social ecosystems (251 ). Just as Periclescreated consubstantiality by defining the &dquo;we&dquo; as idealized Athenians and the&dquo;they&dquo; as vilified Spartans (253), so too does &dquo;Confusion in a Jar&dquo; createidealized images of orthodox, competent scientists and stereotypical imagesof bungling scientists. These overt images, which Goran Therbom ( 1980, 27)names &dquo;ego ideologies&dquo; and &dquo;alter ideologies,&dquo; respectively, are supple-mented by implied images of a complacent, well-informed laity and, con-versely, of a meddling, uniformed public, the audience presumably beingmembers of the first group.
But perhaps more interesting than its exclusionary and schismatic charac-teristics is the program’s epideictic function of attempting to close thediscussion. Gieryn (1992, 217) points out that cold fusion was dismissed inthe scientific community long before it was dismissed in the public mind,causing the public to be suspicious of orthodox science. Frank Close (1991,214) says that many scientists considered the case closed as early as theAmerican Physical Society Conference held in Baltimore (1-4 May), just a littleover a month after the original announcement. Although scientific refutationmay close a subject for scientists, it takes a narrative to close the subject forthe general public (Gieryn 1992, 218). Frank Close’s Too Hot to Handle isone such closing narrative. &dquo;Confusion in a Jar&dquo; is another. The televisionprogram probably had a larger initial audience than the book, so the NOVA
program is probably the mostdefinitive closing narrative of the affair in mostpeople’s minds. By carrying the audience through the six episodes of anexcommunication narrative, the program removes Fleischmann and Ponsfrom within science and transforms the uninformed believer into a (some-what) informed unbeliever. It is significant that the very last words on thesound track are spoken as the last credit rolls off the screen. Those words,spoken by an anonymous voice but meant to represent someone reading aBitnet message, are, &dquo;I guess it is time to close down this forum. Anyobjections?&dquo;
Notes
1. The program transcript that I am working from was written by Diana Risdon, a doctoralstudent in rhetoric and technical communication at Michigan Technological University. It
contains 687 lines. References to the program in this article are taken from this transcript; thenumbers in the parenthetical citations refer to line numbers.
2. This study is similar to Collins’s (1987) "Certainty and the Public Understanding ofScience," but it largely brackets the questions of the relationship between the media and science.There is a problem of legitimacy connected with television programs: Who has the right to passjudgment, and how does one know whether a program like NOVA has the legitimacy to speakfor science? It is sometimes dangerous for the media to attempt to do the job of excluding.Hilgartner (1990, 531) points out that scientists can claim that popularized accounts of scienceare distortions when it is to their advantage. Another possibility is that the media will be accusedof stepping beyond their bounds. In the case of Cyril Burt, one line of defense was that a scientistis entitled to a jury of his or her peers and that Oliver Gillie, who had first reported the scandalin a popular newspaper, was not the person to be making the case (Gieryn and Figert 1986, 75).Thus, the media may be accused of being outsiders invading territory that is not their own, orthey may even be accused of being hostile toward science, of being "muckraking" journalists(Chubin and Hackett 1990, 133). "Confusion in a Jar" has escaped such accusations, partlybecause it reported the dominant, orthodox verdict of the scientific community, and partlybecause it featured taped segments of powerful scientists declaring their verdicts. In the rest ofthis article, I assume that "Confusion in a Jar" is a legitimized voice, speaking on behalf oforthodox science.
3. Another way of describing the rhetoric involved in this program is to say that it is aninstance of what Gieryn and Figert (1986, 82) call a "de-legitimation" and what Harold Garfinkel(1956, 420) calls a "status degradation ceremony."
4. The boundaries of concern in this case are not those between science and engineering asin Gieryn’s (1983) "Boundary-Work and the Demarcation of Science from Non-Science," norare they between disciplines as in Fisher’s (1990) "Boundary Work and Science." Rather, thereare three boundaries in this case: (1) the line between autonomous science and public policy, aboundary explored by Jasanoff (1987); (2) the line between orthodox science and deviantscience, a boundary explored by Gieryn and Figert (1986) in the case of Cyril Burt; and (3) theline between internal scientific discourse and the popular media, a boundary described byHilgartner (1990) as lying between "genuine" and "popularized" science. Because cold fusionwould have had a tremendous affect on our economic system, the U.S. Department of Energy
became intensely interested from the beginning, thus endangering the boundary between scienceand public policy (Close 1991, 102). Because it turned out that the results could not be verified,the case seems to be an instance of deviant science, calling for boundary work between orthodoxand weird science. Because the original announcement was made at a news conference insteadof at a scientific conference, developments in the case were covered closely by the media forover a year, blurring the boundary between peer-review science and popular science.
5. Major works surveying epideictic theory include Burgess’s (1902) study of epideictic inclassical times; Russell and Wilson’s (1981) introduction to Menander Rhetor, which covers lateantiquity; and Hardison’s (1962) The Enduring Monument and O’Malley’s (1979) Praise andBlame in Renaissance Rome, both devoted to the Renaissance. Sullivan’s (1988) dissertation onchildren’s literature as epideictic surveys the history of epideictic theory in chapter 2.
6. Dennis Mumby says, "[N]arrative functions monolithically to create a stable, structured, socialorder" (1993, 5). Contributions to his book, Narrative and Social Control, explore the waysnarratives create definitions of family, race, work relationships, and so on. Although the authorsdo not link narrative with epideictic theory, the book could be described from the perspective ofepideictic theory as a study of the epideictic functions of a variety of narratives. For an articlethat explicitly draws parallels between epideictic and narrative, see Poulakos (1987).
7. Maurice Finocchiaro points out that during Galileo’s time, the church acknowledged threelevels of heresy: the least serious was "slight suspicion of heresy"; the second was "vehementsuspicion of heresy"; and the most severe was "formal heresy" (1989, 14-5). All three are formsof heresy, despite the word "suspicion," but they are punished with different types of censure,the most severe being complete excommunication. Like an insult, a censure is a "subversion ofone’s status," a consigning of someone to the margins (Hariman 1986, 44).
8. Although I will use the New Testament Gospels as the template for an excommunicationnarrative, other stories share the same pattern. We are not used to calling them excommunicationnarratives, so they do not immediately come to mind, but the stories of Joan of Arc, Galileo, orthe Salem witch trials share some of the essential characteristics of this narrative pattern.
9. Biblical texts are all quoted according to The New International Version of the Holy Bible(1978).
References
Aristotle. 1954. The rhetoric and poetics of Aristotle. New York: The Modern Library.Beale, Walter H.1978. Rhetorical performative discourse: A new theory of epideictic. Philosophy
and Rhetoric 11:221-46.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1979. Symbolic power. Critique of Anthropology 4:77-85.—. 1980. The production of belief: Contribution to an economy of symbolic goods. Media,
Culture and Society 2:261-93.Burgess, Theodore Chalon. 1902. Epideictic literature. In Studies in classical philology, vol. 3,
89-254. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Burke, Kenneth. 1969. A rhetoric of motives. Berkeley: University of California Press.Carter, Michael F. 1991. The ritual functions of epideictic rhetoric: The case of Socrates’ funeral
oration. Rhetorica 9:209-32.
Chase, Richard. 1961. The classical conception of epideictic. Quarterly Journal of Speech47:293-300.
Chubin, Daryl E., and Edward J. Hackett. 1990. Peerless science: Peer review and U.S. science
policy. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Clark, Gregory. 1985. Timothy Dwight’s Travels in New England and New York and the rhetoricof Puritan public discourse. Ph.D. diss., Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Troy, New York.
Close, Frank. 1991. Too hot to handle: The race for cold fusion. Princeton, NJ: PrincetonUniversity Press.
Collins, H. M. 1987. Certainty and the public understanding of science: Science on television.Social Studies of Science 17:689-713.
Consigny, Scott. 1992. Gorgias’s use of epideictic. Philosophy and Rhetoric 25:281-97.Duffy, Bernard K. 1983. The platonic functions of epideictic rhetoric. Philosophy and Rhetoric
16:70-93.
Finocchiaro, Maurice A. 1989. The Galileo affair: A documentary history. Berkeley: Universityof California Press.
Fisher, Donald. 1990. Boundary work and science: The relation between power and knowledge.In Theories of science in society, edited by Susan E. Cozzens and Thomas F. Gieryn, 98-119.Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Fisher, Walter R. 1987. Human communication as narration: Toward a philosophy of reason,value, and action. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press.
Garfinkel, Harold. 1956. Conditions of successful degradation ceremonies. American Journalof Sociology 61:420-4.
Gieryn, Thomas F. 1983. Boundary-work and the demarcation of science from non-science:Strains and interests in professional ideologies of scientists. American Sociological Review48:781-95.
—. 1992. The ballad of Pons and Fleischmann: Experiment and narrative in the (un)makingof cold fusion. In The social dimensions of science, edited by Ernan McMullin, 217-43. NotreDame: University of Notre Dame Press.
Gieryn, Thomas F., and Anne E. Figert. 1986. Scientists protect their cognitive authority: Thestatus degradation ceremony of Sir Cyril Burt. In The knowledge society, edited by G. Böhmeand N. Stehr, 67-86. Dordrecht: D. Reidel.
Hardison, O. B., Jr. 1962.The enduring monument: A study of the idea of praise in Renaissanceliterary theory and practice. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Hariman, Robert. 1986. Status, marginality, and rhetorical theory. Quarterly Journal of Speech72:38-54.
Hilgartner, Stephen. 1990. The dominant view of popularization: Conceptual problems, politicaluses. Social Studies of Science 20:519-39.
Jasanoff, Sheila S. 1987. Contested boundaries in policy-relevant science. Social Studies ofScience 17:195-230.
Kerferd, G. B. 1981. The sophistic movement. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Kermode, Frank. 1981. Secrets and narrative sequence. In On narrative, edited by W.J.T.
Mitchell, 79-97. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Kettle, Arnold. 1951. Introduction to the English novel, vol. 1. London: Hutchinson University
Library.Lyotard, Jean-Francois. 1984. The postmodern condition: A report on knowledge. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press.MacIntyre, Alasdair. 1984. After virtue: A study in moral theory. 2d ed. Notre Dame: University
of Notre Dame Press.
Mackin, James A., Jr. 1991. Schismogenesis and community: Pericles’ funeral oration. QuarterlyJournal of Speech 77:251-62.
Merton, Robert K. [1942] 1973. The normative structure of science. In The sociology of science:Theoretical and empirical investigations, edited by Norman W. Storer, 267-78. Chicago:University of Chicago Press.
Miller, Carolyn R. 1984. Genre as social action. Quarterly Journal of Speech 70:151-67.Mumby, Dennis K. 1993. Introduction. In Narrative and social control, edited by Dennis
Mumby, 1-12. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.Nelkin, Dorothy. 1987 Selling science: How the press covers science and technology. New York:
W. H. Freeman.
The new international version of the Holy Bible. 1978. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Bible.O’Malley, John W.1979. Praise and blame in renaissance Rome. Durham, NC: Duke Univeristy
Press.
Oravec, Christine. 1976. "Observation" in Aristotle’s theory of epideictic. Philosophy andRhetoric 9:162-74.
Perelman, Chaim, and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca. 1969. The new rhetoric: A treatise on argumentation.Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.
Pinch, Trevor J. 1992. Opening black boxes: Science, technology and society. Social Studies ofScience 22:487-510.
Poulakos, Takis. 1987 Isocrates’s use of narrative in the Evagoras: Epideictic rhetoric and moralaction. Quarterly Journal of Speech 73:317-28.
Procter, David E. 1990. The dynamic spectacle: Transforming experience into social forms ofcommunity. Quarterly Journal of Speech 76:117-33.
Rosenfield, Lawrence W 1971. An autopsy of the rhetorical tradition. In The prospect of rhetoric,edited by Lloyd F. Bitzer and Edwin Black, 64-77. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Russell, D. A., and N. G. Wilson. 1981. Introduction: Epideictic practice and theory. In Menander
rhetor, edited by D. A. Russell and N. G. Wilson, xi-xxxix. Oxford: Clarendon.Slaughter, Sheila. 1993. Beyond basic science: Research university presidents’ narratives of
science policy. Science, Technology, & Human Values 18:278-302.
Sullivan, Dale L. 1988. A rhetoric of children’s literature as epideictic discourse. Ph.D. diss.,Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
—. 1991. The epideictic rhetoric of science. Journal of Business and Technical Communi-cation 5:229-45.
—. 1992. Establishing orthodoxy: The letters of Ignatius of Antioch as epideictic rhetoric.Journal of Communication and Religion 15:71-86.
—. 1993. The ethos of epideictic encounter. Philosophy and Rhetoric 26:113-33.Therborn, Goran. 1980. The ideology of power and the power of ideology. London: Verso.Turner, Victor. 1981. Social dramas and stories about them. In On narrative, edited by W.J.T.
Mitchell, 137-64. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.White, Hayden. 1981. The value of narrativity in the representation of reality. In On narrative,
edited by W.J.T. Mitchell, 1-23. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Whitley, Richard. 1985. Knowledge producers and knowledge acquirers: Popularisation as a
relation between scientific fields and their publics. In Expository science: Forms andfunctions of popularisation, Sociology of the Sciences, vol. 9, edited by Terry Shinn andRichard Whitley, 3-28. Dordrecht: D. Reidel.
Zuckerman, Harriet. 1977. Deviant behavior and social control in science. In Deviance and social
change, edited by Edward Sagarin, 87-138. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Dale L. Sullivan is an assistant professor of English at the University of Nebraska atKearney where he directs the writing center and teaches writing courses. Before movingto Nebraska, he received his Ph.D. in communication and rhetoric at Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute in 1988, was Director of Writing at Gorden College in Wenham,
Massachusetts, taught courses in the history of rhetoric, rhetorical criticism, and therhetoric of science at Michigan Technical University Other of his publications haveappeared in Philosophy and Rhetoric, the Quarterly Journal of Speech, Rhetoric Review,and the Journal for Advanced Composition.
