ENG 5933 Fall 2018 Fleckenstein

In this course we will explore the ever-evolving realm of visual rhetoric as it plays out in our visually bedazzled Western culture. Addressing what W. J. T. Mitchell calls the “visual turn,” we will investigate the following questions:

1. What constitutes visual rhetoric as an area of study? To trope Aristotle, it is theoretical knowledge? Productive knowledge? Practical knowledge?
2. What are the issues impinging on visual rhetoric as an area of study? In Bruce Gronbeck’s terms, what are its “gnarly problematics”?
3. What constitutes visual rhetoric as an activity? Or what does it mean to “do” visual rhetoric?
4. How are issues of alterity inextricably interwoven with both the theory and activity of visual rhetoric?

Texts include selected articles and book chapters available as PDFs in the course library of our Canvas site.

Grades will be based on the following: 3 response journals, 2 mini projects, and one final seminar paper