ENC 4218 - Fall 2025 - Neal

Fall
2025
ENC 4218
Visual Rhetoric in the Digital World
Michael Neal

Visual rhetoric surrounds us in everything from museum exhibitions to social media feeds, from corporate branding to street art, from Instagram to the architecture and design of campus buildings. This course begins with the premise that visual rhetoric represents a distinct yet interconnected mode of discourse that deserves thoughtful attention. Rather than treating the visual as supplemental to written or oral rhetoric, we will investigate how visual rhetoric operates according to its own principles while simultaneously engaging with other modalities. Students will analyze visual texts across various disciplines and contexts, undertaking projects such as investigative photo essays, a study on visual representations of identities, and the examination of visuals related to public memory.