English 705

English 705, Fall 2003

MODERN RHETORICAL THEORY:
Intellectual Sources for Contemporary Composition Studies, II

University of Wisconsin-Madison

INSTRUCTOR: David Fleming, PhD

CLASS MEETINGS: F 10:00 - 12:30, 7109 H. C. White Hall

CLASS EMAIL LIST: modern-rhetoric@lists.students.wisc.edu

OFFICE: 6187D H. C. White Hall

OFFICE HOURS: W 1:00 - 3:00 & gladly by appt.

PHONE: 263-3367 (o)

EMAIL: jdfleming@wisc.edu

1. DESCRIPTION

English 705 is the second part of the English Department's two-semester historical survey of rhetorical theory for graduate students. Where the first half of that sequence, English 704, focuses mostly on ancient Greek and Latin rhetorical theory (in translation), this one looks at modern rhetoric, with a special emphasis on theoretical developments in Great Britain and the United States from the 16th Century until today. English 704 is not a prerequisite for 705.

The course will be divided into four parts, each treating a particular historical period and the figures and texts, theories and practices, and intellectual and educational problems central to it. We'll look first at the early modern revival of classical rhetoric in the European Renaissance of the 15th – 17th Cs.; second, the rise of anti-rhetorical middle modernism in the 18th- 19th Cs (here, we'll use Bender and Wellbery’s list of the five features of modernism which supposedly contravened traditional rhetoric: print, science, the nation-state, liberalism, and romanticism); third, the late modern rise of the "New Rhetorics" in the early- and mid-20th C; and, fourth, the advent of postmodernism (along with the latest "revival" of classical rhetoric) in the late 20th and early 21st Cs.

I see this as a fast-paced, reading-intensive course, with active class discussion, frequent student presentations, and a substantial independent research/teaching project due at the end of the semester.

2. TEXTS

Readings in the class will come from the following texts, all on sale at University Book Store and listed here in the order in which we will read them (prices are approximate):

Erasmus, Desiderius, On Copia of Words and Ideas (trans. Donald King & David Rix), 1963 (Marquette, paper, 0-87462-212-3, $15)
Rebhorn, Wayne, Renaissance Debates on Rhetoric, 1999 (Cornell, paper, 0-8014-8206-2, $20)
Descartes, Rene, Discourse on the Method and Meditations on First Philosophy (ed. David Weissman), 1997 (Yale, paper, 0-300-06773-9, $17)
Habermas, Jürgen, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, 1991 (MIT, paper, 0-262-58108-6, $23)
The Rhetoric of Blair, Campbell, and Whately: With Updated Bibliographies (ed. James L. Golden & Edward P. J. Corbett), 1990 (Southern Illinois, paper, 0-8093-1602-1, $22)
Pragmatism: A Reader (ed. Louis Menand), 1997 (Random House, paper, 0-679-77544-7, $16)
Burke, Kenneth, A Rhetoric of Motives, 1969 (California, paper, 0-520-01546-0, $25)
Perelman, Chaïm, & Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation (trans. John Wilkinson & Purcell Weaver), 1969 (Notre Dame, 0-268-00446-3, $23)

3. ASSIGNMENTS & GRADES

Besides regular attendance, coursework will include:

Reading and discussion. There will be some lecture from me, but most of the class will be centered on active discussion of class readings and the issues and problems raised therein. To that end, I ask that you prepare for class by reading assigned texts carefully and doing your own voluntary background reading.
Book report. Each student will be responsible for one 20-30 minute book report on an "outside" reading relevant to the course; these reports will be scheduled at appropriate times during the semester. I will suggest suitable texts (e.g., Cmiel's Democratic Eloquence; Bazerman's Shaping Written Knowledge; Black's Rhetorical Criticism) during our first meeting but am open to your own ideas as well.
Lecture. Sometime during the last month of the semester, you will be responsible for "lecturing" to the class for approximately 40-60 minutes on a topic chosen from a list of broad theoretical "problems" in contemporary rhetorical theory (e.g., metaphor, science, technology, race, gender, class, colonialism, the body, the university, etc.). We will talk about how to organize this lecture, but it will likely include both formal and informal sections: background to the topic, summary of recent research, definition and exploration of key terms, survey of outstanding problems and questions, discussion of implications for teaching and research, etc. Some handouts will be expected.

Final grades will be based on the following rough formula:

Reading & discussion 30%
Book report 20%
Lecture 50%
Final Grade = 100%

4. CALENDAR (tentative)

			Unit I: The Renaissance
Sept	05	F	Introduction
	12	F	Rebhorn
	19	F	Erasmus
			Unit II: The Enlightenment
	26	F	Descartes
Oct	03	F	Habermas
	10	F	Blair Campbell Whately
			Unit III: High Modernism
	17	F	Nietzsche
	24	F	Pragmatism
	31	F	Burke
Nov	07	F	Perelman
			Unit IV: Postmodernism
	14	F	presentations
	21	F	presentations
	28	F	Thanksgiving: no class
Dec	05	F	presentations
	12	F	presentations
	14 - 20		exam period
	26		grades due