Since no one can engage in discourse without discovery, so the system of discourse is the system of discovery
--Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 11:30-12:20
Roy Coutts Engineering Lecture Hall, 206
Course conductor: Allen of Harris, cleped "Randy"
Office hours: 8:00-9:20, Mondays, Wednesdays; 10:00-11:00, Tuesdays
Quoth the calendar:"A study of rhetorical theories and practices from late Antiquity, Medieval, Renaissance, and the Enlightenment periods, with an emphasis on how those theories and practices reflect changing attitudes towards language, society, and the self."
Well, yes, there's that. More specifically, though, we will see rhetoric in middle age, mature, reflective, strong and hitting its stride. But also a little grey at the temples, a bit soft around the middle, undergoing a crisis of identity and looking for a hot little red sports car to maintain its vigour: theology, poetics, psychology, whatever.
Rhetoric in the Middle Ages, Jerry Murphy. Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 2001 (University of California Press, 1974).
Course reader; other readings will be required, as listed on the schedule below; follow the links (on the online version of this syllabus.
Also, it will be very useful get your hands on a decent introtohistoryandtheoryofrhetoric textbook and read the suitable passages (roughly, Greek, Roman, Medieval, Rennaisance, and Enlightenment, as we cover those periods). Alternatively, web searches can uncover bits and pieces of this material, in partially reliable ways.
For the DieHards: Three Medieval Rhetorical Arts, Jerry Murphy. Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 2001 (University of California Press, 1971).
Style guide: The Little, Brown Compact Handbook. First Canadian edition. Aaron and McArthur. Toronto: Addison Wesley Longman, 1997.
Requirement |
Grade |
Date |
Midterm |
20% |
29 October |
Final |
30% |
when and where we are told |
Essay |
30% |
6 December |
Being Rhetorical |
20% |
all the livelong day |
Midterm. You will have to know both "facts" and "ideas" for this course. The midterm will test mostly the former, with multiplechoice, truefalse, shortanswer questions. It will cover material up to and including the 27 October class.
Final. More of the same, but with some essay questions thrown in to chart the "ideas" quotient of the course. It will cover the entire course.
Come to class, contribute to discussions, participate in the development of the course. Your clearest opportunities for contributions will be on our Disputin' Fridays, but you need to be engaged in the course every time you're in class (and you need to be in class).
Ways to get a good grade: ask relevant questions, make salient observations, look for and point out connections in the material, complain about the unbelievable pressure of having to be rhetorical on demand, ...
Ways to get a mediocre grade: sit in your seat; avoid eye contact with the professor.
Ways to get a poor grade: stay away from class, make long irrelevant commentaries, treat your fellow students with extravagant disrespect, ...
Start thinking about your essay immediately. I'm not kidding. It will not have to be very long (1,500 2, 000 words), but it will have to be very good. This is a thirdyear RPW course; you should be writing and thinking about rhetorical issues at an advanced level, and you should know how to write and research an academic essay.
You can do a critical analysis of some text (very broadly construeda pamphlet or a movie can be a text in this sense), or you can write a more strictly theoretical paper.
Critical analysis. Start with a concept (ethos, figuration, faith, ...) and watch it develop through the course (indeed, help it develop through the course; see "Being rhetorical" above). Do some outside reading on it (a.k.a. library research). Collect original data illustrating it (a.k.a. empirical research): find an appropriate text to analyze, and find appropriate secondary research, on both the concept and the text. Write a paper which shows (1) awareness of how that concept is rhetorical, especially in the terms of the period we are studying; and (2) original thought on how that notion operates in the text of your choice.
Theoretical. Alternately, you might do a more purely theoretical paper,say, comparing Cicero and Augustine on the notions of value in discourse, or discussing the role of sermons on the development of rhetoric. Again, you would need to demonstrate (1) awareness of the rhetorical dimensions of the concepts under discussion, and (2) original thought on its function in the context you examine. But your focus should be on rhetorical theory or general practices, not on a specific text.
Evaluation
My evaluation will depend on the cogency, conceptual sophistication, research depth, and rhetorical appropriateness of the paperstandard issue academic criteria.
Do the readings before the assigned class.
If you have any questions, please make sure you ask them.
Familiarize yourself with Policy #71, especially as to plagiarism and other forms of cheating.
Schedule |
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Date |
Topics |
Readings |
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Monologia |
Disputatio |
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13 September |
Hello; how art thou? |
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15 September |
Rhetoricin general |
Plato's Phaedrus |
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17 September |
Rhetoricclassical |
Murphy I |
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20 September |
Augustine |
Augie (De doctrina Book 4) |
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22 September |
Murphy II |
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24 September |
Faith and rhetoric |
|
||
27 September |
Boethius Labeo |
Murphy III |
Three rhetorical arts |
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29 September |
Agricola |
ReaderAgricola |
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1 October |
Philosophy and rhetoric |
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4 October |
Three rhetorical arts |
Murphy IV |
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6 October |
Murphy V, VI |
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8 October |
Figures of speech |
ReaderPeacham; Murphy Appendix |
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11 October |
Give ye thanks |
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13 October |
Three rhetorical arts |
MurphyVI |
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15 October |
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18 October |
Humanism |
ReaderMelanchthon |
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20 October |
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22 October |
The rhetorical life |
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25 October |
Ramus and the dialectical backlash |
ReaderRamus |
||
27 October |
||||
29 October |
Midterm |
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1 November |
Bacon and the rise of empiricism |
ReaderBacon |
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3 November |
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5 November |
Dialectic, logic, rhetoric |
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8 November |
The Enlightenment |
Intro textEnlightenment; Sprat, History, Sect. XX |
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10 November |
Classes cancelled: read, write, think; get your essays in gear
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12 November |
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15 November |
Vico |
Intro textVico |
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17 November |
Blair |
Intro textBlair |
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19 November |
Ideology and rhetoric |
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22 November |
Campbell |
Campbell, Philosophy of Rhetoric Chpt 1 |
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24 November |
Intro textWhately |
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26 November |
Psychology and rhetoric |
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29 November |
Aristotle/Whately |
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1 December |
Nietzsche |
ReaderNietzsche |
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3 November |
Truth and rhetoric |
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6 December |
Course review, exam preparation, thanks for all the fish |
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