Alternative Rhetoric(s): Intersecting History, Culture, and Gender

English 5365

Spring, 2001

Dr. Rebecca Rickly

Schedule***English 309 *** 742-2500, ext. 268 *** Office Hours: Tues/Thur, 10-2; Wed, 12-4***TOPIC

NEW: Click HERE to view our Class Presentation Schedule. You should be able to see part/most of the presentations from this page. Enjoy!

Introduction:

The term "Rhetoric" has come to have a culturally accepted history, theory, and culture, one which spans only the Western world, begins with Aristotle and ends with current political applications, and is populated and theorized primarily by men. This course seeks to explore, problematize, and re-envision Rhetoric as it is created by, understood by, and applied by non-traditional sources: women, non-Western thinkers, and those without "cultural capital". We will begin with a historical investigation into the origins of Western rhetoric, looking at how our histories are representations which privilege certain voices (even in the re-envisioning). This historical situating will lead to theoretical questions about how re-envisioning rhetoric in terms of "reclaimed" history and culture might relate to (or conflict with) our pre-existing definitions of the rhetorical tradition. We will explore whether or not there is/should an alternative rhetoric or rhetorics, what difference this categorization might make, and how this new idea might affect the application of rhetoric, particularly in terms of teaching, theorizing, and administering writing. Is there, for instance, a women's praxis? How might this affect our reading, writing, our daily activities? We will look at non-Western rhetoric, but also attempt to see how non-traditional thinkers have used and accommodated to traditional methods of argument and exposition, but also how they resisted and subverted tradition and, in the process, invented new rhetoric(s) to argue for and enact a changed culture.

Our exploration will be guided by the following questions:

• How have those not represented by the dominant rhetorical traditions accommodated their writing? How have they resisted/altered what we know of the rhetorical tradition? Or, have they instead adhered to a different, culturally-derived rhetoric?
• Is there a "rhetoric"? How can we define it? Or are there "rhetorics"? Is it useful or dangerous to expand the rhetorical tradition as we have come to know it?
• What can we learn about our own rhetoric(s) in action by studying alternative rhetorics?
• How can praxis resulting from alternative rhetoric(s) inform our practice: our teaching, our scholarship, our administration?

This course will, I hope, also be framed with questions about our own rhetorical practice, as it is now, and as it might be. Since it's my belief that the very exigency of non-traditional rhetorical situations leaves little room for leisurely theorizing, unconnected to practical action, I hope that in our discussions, our reading, and our writing we will discover new perspectives from which to understand our own rhetorical actions in various communities (and in our larger culture), including the classrooms in which we learn and teach.

Click HERE for the course schedule.

Required Reading:

• Glenn, Cheryl. Rhetoric Retold: Regendering the Tradition from Antiquity through the Renaissance. Southern Illinois UP, 1997.
• Kennedy, George. Comparative Rhetoric: An Historical and Cross-Cultural Introduction. Oxford UP, 1997
• Welch, Kathleen. Electric Rhetoric: Classical Rhetoric, Oralism, and a New Literacy. MIT P, 1999.
• A few readings I’ll hand out in class

Suggested Reading:

• Ratcliffe, Krista. Anglo-American Feminist Challenges to the Rhetorical Tradition: Virginia Woolf, Mary Daly, Adrienne Rich. Southern Illinois UP, 1995.
• Jarratt, Susan and Lynn Worsham, Eds. In Other Words: Feminism and Composition Studies. MLA, 1998.
• Jarratt, Susan. ReReading the Sophists: Classical Rhetoric Refigured. Southern Illinois UP, 1991.
• Lunsford, Andrea. Ed. Reclaiming Rhetorica: Women in the Rhetorical Tradition. U of Pittsburgh P, 1995.
• Bridwell-Bowles, Lillian, Kathleen Sheerin Devore, holly Littlefield. Identity Matters: Rhetorics of Difference. Prentice Hall, 1997.
• Logan, Shirley Wilson. With Pen and Voice: A Critical Anthology of Nineteenth Century African American Women. Sourthern Illinois UP, 1995.
• Foss, Karen A., Sonja K. Foss and Cindy L. Griffin. Feminist Rhetorical Theories. SAGE, 1999.
• McPhail, Mark Lawrence. Zen and the Art of Rhetoric: An Inquiry into Coherence. (Suny Series in Speech Communication) SUNY, 1996.
• Varela, Francisco, Eleanor Rosch and Evan Thompson. The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience. MIT, 1993.
• Olson, Gary, and Lynn Worsham, Eds. Race, Rhetoric, and the Postcolonial. SUNY UP, 1998.
• Kalamaras, George. Reclaiming the Tacit Dimension: Symbolic Form in the Rhetoric of Silence. (Suny Series, Literacy, Culture, and Learning). SUNY, 1994.
• Rosteck, Thomas (Editor). At the Intersection : Cultural Studies and Rhetorical Studies (Revisioning Rhetoric). Guilford Press, 1998.
• Kastely, James L. Rethinking the Rhetorical Tradition : From Plato to Postmodernism. Yale UP, 1997
• Cohen, Sande. Passive Nihilism : Cultural Historiography and the Rhetorics of Scholarship. St. Martin's Press, 1999.

Required Participation:

Since we will be looking at the relationship between language, knowledge and application, I ask that you participate in a variety of ways so that you might reflect on (and perhaps even model) alternative rhetorics. In this class, you will do the following:

1. Online Reading/Writing/Rhetorical Reflective Discussion Questions. This twice-a-week online response should be an ongoing record of and reflection on your own reading and writing in this seminar, on connections to classes you are taking, teaching, or hope to teach, and connections to your own evolving thinking process and the application of it. The questions you pose will provide a framework for discussion issues raised by the reading we do as a class and as individuals. Each response should be about 500 words long, and it should include a primary question in response to the readings for this seminar, to our class discussions, as well as to your own developing rhetorical research. You should submit each response to TOPIC as a draft on or before Monday at 5:00 and Wednesday at 5:00 so that we may have time to read and reflect on your responses before class time. If you have questions, or desire some hints on responding, click here.
2. Leading the Seminar. Each of you will have an opportunity to present to the class your own thinking about the questions raised in the readings each week or on your own reading. Plan on speaking to us, first, for about ten minutes, highlighting the issues most provocative or important for you from your readings. Be prepared: This is public delivery, and you are the expert in the class for this time. Then, we will ask you questions for about ten minutes. Finally, you will prepare an activity, a hand out, a series of questions, or some other pedagogical starting point for engaging the class in discussion. You will lead this section as part of the class once again. You can write up your "lecture" in lieu of your responses for that week—about 3-5 pages.
3. Annotated Bibliography. Because so much of the reading you'll be doing for this course will be outside the assigned reading and in conjunction with your major project, I'd like for you to create an annotated bibliography so that others in the class who are doing similar work (or who are simply interested in your topic) may share ideas and sources. We'll either put these on TOPIC, on the web, or both.
4. Major Project. I am open to your suggestions for a major project, but I'm thinking of two particular themes: I think it's important that we are able to articulate the theories of rhetoric that we have known and that we are re-envisioning, but I also think we should be able to discuss the application of the rhetorical principles we study. I'm leaning towards a major paper (15-25 pages) that demonstrates how the study of alternative rhetorics can help us to re-see (and re-articulate) current rhetorical practices (in much the same way that Ratcliffe and Welch have done), or that demonstrates how these re-articulated rhetorics can influence practice: research, pedagogy, or administration, for example. I expect you to work out the paper topic with me as you work on your annotated bibliography. You will submit an "in progress" draft to be critiqued on April 12, so that you'll have some time to work on the suggestions. Make sure you have a draft by that date.

Policies:

I expect lively, honest, prepared discussion in the seminar based on thorough, close reading and reflective writing. I also expect that you will read beyond the required texts to find more primary works by authors we're studying, more theoretical treatments and other examples of alternative rhetorics as you explore the topic you've chosen for your final project. You will be evaluated accordingly:

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