ENG 5028 Fall 2019 Graban

This course offers an historical overview of selected landmarks in the formation of 20th and 21st century rhetorical theory, focusing on available ideas of rhetoric. Our emphasis will be on studying the influences of particular rhetoricians and theorists on their own noetic fields—what James Berlin has called “closed system(s) defining what can, and cannot be known” as well as the nature of the relationship between knower, known, and audiences—and on each other.

Rather than try to recreate the whole history of rhetorical theory in the Western (or even non-Western) tradition(s), we will focus on a few areas of theoretical activity—language, philosophy, multiculturalism, media theory, and feminist theory—reading extensively in the primary treatises and secondary texts that signal contours and shifts in these areas. We will also use four monographs to center our study, allowing each monograph to direct our attention to how rhetoric intersects with the above areas of focus. We will give some attention to classical and neoclassical concepts, but most of our attention will ultimately be given to contemporary traditions that have survived various evolutions from rhetorical modernity to postmodernity. By the end of the course, you will have a comprehensive sense of key critical movements in rhetorical theory, and of how vexing a task it is to chart out a (singular) rhetorical theoretical tradition.

Course grades will be based on the following: regular participation in class discussion; a series of shorter assignments that may include topic modeling and intellectual mapping; a midterm exam; and a final project (proposal, critical research paper + genre presentation)