Heee....he was telling us about how cataloguing certain subjects together, like say 19th century English drama alongside 18th century English drama, but quite a distance from 19th century French drama, creates a certain "rhetorical space". Basically, but cataloguing all English writing together, we imply that there is a rhetorical space for a conversation about that as a subject, we imply that that IS a legitimate subject. Like, you can compare all that stuff together, there is, as my professor said, "a space of implied permission". Comparing English literature with Croatian literature means you're going against the grain, creating a subject where there isn't one.

So I took the term "rhetorical space" and "space of implied permission" and came up with this. I'm not sure that helps much, really.