Preparatory Exercises (PEs) & Quizzes
(20% of course grade)
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for 12/5 -- Concept Review and Quiz
Folks, by majority consent, here is how we will conduct our final class day:
- Quiz (deferred from 12/3 to 12/5 -- see below), and it will count as two quizzes, 20 pts.
- Concept Review (send me via e-mail in advance of class the texts, terms, theorists, or concepts you'd like to review)
- Final questions on the LCD assignment, including logistics of submission, evaluation criteria for the multimodal components
- We might even view a few more multimodal components, or give a couple of people an opportunity to brainstorm their own
All of these activities -- including the quiz -- will be intended to help you think through your arguments and multimodal components for the final project.
Looking forward to it!
-Prof. Graban
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for 12/3 -- Discussion of Up the Yangtze and Project Proposal Peer Review
and Quiz (!)
Folks, there are three things going on today! First, in preparation for our film discussion, feel free to look at a PBS interview with Yung Chang, information about the humanitarian aid project that grew from the film, and Chang's blog documentary on Cindy's family. I will distribute discussion questions in class. Enjoy!
Second and most importantly, please bring 2 hard copies of your project proposal to class, for this peer review workshop (which is most likely unlike other peer review workshops you have done ...).
Finally, we will have our final quiz of the semester -- a double header -- to help you feel more grounded in the terms and concepts we have studied in this unit. Many of the following terms are defined in the Bedford Glossary, but if they are not defined there, they are accessible through our online resources on the "Discussion Leading" page. As well, we have discussed each one in class at some point. So, please study your notes ahead of time, and as usual, please bring your Glossary to class:
In addition to these terms, there will likely be a question about the film (Up the Yangtze), primarily to help us synthesize the terms with what we watched or discussed from the film.
Added on 12/3/13: the quiz has been postponed to 12/5!
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Finally, we will have our final quiz of the semester -- a double header -- to help you feel more grounded in the terms and concepts we have studied in this unit. Many of the following terms are defined in the Bedford Glossary, but if they are not defined there, they are accessible through our online resources on the "Discussion Leading" page. As well, we have discussed each one in class at some point. So, please study your notes ahead of time, and as usual, please bring your Glossary to class:
- alterity (in the OED; see also the entry on cultural criticism in the Glossary)
- dialectical materialism, or cultural materialism (in the Glossary, but see also the Benjamin "Backgrounder" for this term)
- diaspora
- ecriture féminine
- gynocriticism
- hegemony
- hybridity
- identification (see also our background readings for "Terministic Screens")
- representation
In addition to these terms, there will likely be a question about the film (Up the Yangtze), primarily to help us synthesize the terms with what we watched or discussed from the film.
Added on 12/3/13: the quiz has been postponed to 12/5!
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No blog post is due on Monday 12/2. We have finished blogging! However, I will offer 10 points extra credit if anyone wants to blog, by Tuesday 12/3 at 11:00 a.m. Obviously, guidelines are the same as always.
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This is a reminder that our film screening of Up the Yangtze is in WMS 013 (the Common Room) from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. on Monday, 12/2!
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This is a reminder that your final project proposal is due to Blackboard by noon (12:00 p.m.) on Monday, 12/2!
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for 11/26 -- Gates, Jr. "Writing 'Race'" (via weblink with FSU login), Cooper "From A Voice from the South" (in CP) and Johnson "A Strong Race Opinion" (in CP)
Discussion Questions
I think you will enjoy our final set of readings: Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s argument for re/inscribing race in American literature; and two examples of (very early North-American) feminist theory -- E. Pauline Johnson and Anna Julia Cooper. All three theorists raise questions at the intersection of identity, identification, and representation that you may find useful for your final projects. In fact, in some ways, these are my favorite readings of the entire semester (but don't quote me on that, since it is often difficult to choose ...)!
For reading Gates:
- How seamlessly do you think we can substitute "feminism" for "race," "women" for "blacks," "feminist" for "racial," "sex/gender" for "color," "gendered" for "colored"? Would Gates's argument be the same? Is it the same argument?
- In the way that Gates historicizes "race" as something that someone writes, can it be -- or is it -- a terministic screen?
- In discussing Gates, Jr., it seems to me the following terms not only relate to each other, but quite possibly need each other: alterity, hegemony, identification, diaspora. I'll ask our discussion leaders to help us consider how this can be (or why it is).
For reading Johnson and Cooper:
- Knowing all that you know about feminist rhetorical theory, feminist critical perspective, and race (as terministic screen or trope), can you make an argument for Johnson or Cooper -- or both of them -- to be considered protofeminists? Early race theorists?
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for 11/21 -- Butler Gender Trouble (in CP) and George "Mr. Burke: Meet Helen Keller" (in CP) (in Bb!)
Preparatory Exercise #9 (Dialogue) (20 points)
For our discussion of Judith Butler, consider the following:
- What is at stake in Butler's argument? What aspects of identity or identification do you see her trying to disrupt -- aside from "gender" (which we know is an obvious focus because of her title)?
- In each of our prior units, we generated a list of questions we thought were raised (or could be raised) by the critical dilemmas of Agent/cy, Anti/Signification, and Text/uality. What questions does Butler raise for Re/Presentation as a rhetorical practice? If it helps, you might think about the various ways you will encounter critical representational challenges in your own life, either beyond this class, or beyond FSU.
For our final (yes!) preparatory exercise, as with PE #3, I invite you to write in a creative format, because I fully expect that you can write creatively and with critical distance at the same time. Please note that I'm asking you to put Burke (from 11/19) and George (from 11/21) into dialogue, although you are perfectly welcome to include Butler if she fits! Please put Burke and George into a dialogue on one of the following problems:
- the limitations of history on women's rhetorical theory
- the limitations of terministic screens on women's rhetorical practices
- how writing/telling their own experiences gives women rhetoricians discursive power
- how writing/telling their own experiences removes discursive power
- how language is ideological
- another problem of your own choosing that you think is obvious in both texts (as long as you identify it in the PE ...).
My goal for this final (yes!) PE is that you would better understand George's dilemma--especially in how she argues for Burke's "terministic screens" as simultaneously productive and constraining. However, Burke's essay and George's dilemma are nuanced, rather than simple. So, whether you choose to write this like a screenplay, a summarized dialogue, a scene from a novel, or etc., just know that I'll be looking for your ability to demonstrate the nuances between them. You should end up with much more than simply a conversation where they agree or disagree with each other on each point they make.
Bring to class (~1-2 pages, word-processed and single-spaced) your dialogue. You may end up spilling over to a third page if you're enjoying the task! Please refer to specific passages from each essay as part of your response.
Please include the MLA citation and use in-text (parenthetical) citations throughout your dialogue where needed. In other words, in the dialogue, they can actually quote themselves from the articles.
You'll find useful context for Butler's chapter in Rivkin/Ryan background on "Feminist Paradigms" (765-769) and Smith background on "Feminist Critique" (346-349).
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for 11/19 -- Burke "Terministic Screens" (in CP)
Reading and Discussion Questions
This week, we are reading our last essay by Kenneth Burke--a chapter from his book entitled Language as Symbolic Action. Here are some tentative discussion questions to help you approach his text:
This week, we are reading our last essay by Kenneth Burke--a chapter from his book entitled Language as Symbolic Action. Here are some tentative discussion questions to help you approach his text:
- While Burke first devised his concept of "terministic screens" as a way of understanding the relationship between language and ideology, it has been taken up in a variety of other contexts, including visual rhetoric, race theory, cultural studies, and picture theory. How would you (or how should we) apply it differently in these various contexts?
- One assumption guiding Burke's chapter is the idea that language does not simply "reflect" reality, it "deflects" reality. What does this mean, and what evidence does Burke provide to convince us of this idea?
- In figuring out "terministic screens," the best question to ask isn't "What are they?" but rather, "How do they work?" How do they work, according to Burke?
- This Indian legend (which in turn has its roots in a similar Chinese legend) provides a useful enactment of Burke's terministic screens. Can you explain how the legend enacts "terministic screens" in Burke's understanding of the concept?
You will find helpful context for Burke's essay in Smith background on "Strategies of Identification" and "Redefinition" (284-289, 292-295).
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Reading Questions
In preparation for today's class, please choose one of the readings (de Certeau or Benjamin) on which to focus. As always, you are welcome to read both, but I am inviting you to identify with just one of the theorists and to try to empathize with what he is arguing. In past semesters, students interested in history, philosophy, architecture, or design have gravitated more toward de Certeau, while students interested in art, photography, and film have gravitated toward Benjamin. However, you should choose the essay you find most interesting.
If you choose de Certeau, be sure to skim Richter background on "New Historicism" (1320-1326).
- For de Certeau, the "concept-city" is the optimal space for theorizing power(lessness) and representation. What do you think he means by "concept-city"?
- What does his "concept-city" allow you to see or not see?
- How necessary is ambient context to writing history?
If you choose Benjamin, be sure to skim Rivkin/Ryan background on "Starting with Zero" (643-646).
- According to the history that Rivkin and Ryan present in "Starting with Zero," American Marxist criticism has traditionally been concerned with the complexity of relationships between texts and their ambient context (645). How do you think Benjamin would describe or understand ambient context?
- How necessary is ambient context to determining authenticity?
- For Benjamin, the reproduction of a work of art is not only a complicated process, it is also historically fragile. What do you think this means? What do you and he already believe or think about artistic reproduction?
Added note on 11/7: Folks, I realize you need some time to synthesize the many discussion threads we have taken up in Text/uality that keep giving birth to new discussion threads (rather than wrapping themselves up), so I'm making an executive decision to change Tuesday's reading assignment! Also, please BRING BACK Mitchell's "Metapictures," Miller's "Genre As Social Action," Longinus's "On the Sublime," and Landow's "Hypertext"!
Reading Questions and Quiz
As we near the end of this unit, it would be interesting to determine whether our questions about Text/uality are either reflected in -- or answered by -- Bolter and Grusin's article
- How do we define/determine what is "text"? (Or "discourse"?)
- What differentiates "text" from "genre" from "medium" from "mode"?
- What differentiates "hypertext" from "context" from "inter text" from "metatext"? From metapicture, for that matter?
- Can any of these things cause erasure?
- What factors contribute to a text's interpretability?
- How do we determine what is "inside" the text (or discourse) and what is "outside" of it?
- How do we determine what is "real" vs. what is "simulated," or "remediated" for that matter?
- When/how does the medium become the message, or vice-versa?
- What makes a text/discourse/genre/picture "meta"?
- Does discourse itself change over time, or just how we think about it?
- What can/should be the relationship between writers and their genres, between genres and their histories, and between histories and their audiences?
Also, I'd like to administer a quiz before today's class, to help you feel more grounded in the terms and concepts we have studied in this unit. Unless otherwise noted, all of the following terms are defined in the Bedford Glossary, and we have discussed each one in class at some point. So, please study your notes ahead of time, and as usual, please bring your Glossary to class:
- Affective Fallacy
- Dialogic Criticism
- Hypertext
- Intentional Fallacy
- Intertext
- Marxist Criticism
- Media/Medium (see the OED Online and our other resources for looking up terms)
- Meiosis
- Metatext (see the OED Online and our other resources for looking up terms)
- Reader-response Criticism
- Structuralism
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Folks, since Monday 11/11 is an FSU holiday (Veterans Day), your blog post is not due at 11:00 p.m. Instead, I will extend it until Tuesday 11/12, before the beginning of class (so, posted and finished by 11:00 a.m.). Obviously, guidelines are the same as always.
For 11/7 -- Mitchell "Metapictures"
Preparatory Exercise #8 (Schema of Mitchell's chapter) (20 points)
I truly hope you enjoy Mitchell's essay! For Thursday, I will ask you to bring to class a schema of Mitchell's chapter. In other words, like you did at the beginning of the semester, try showing on paper what you
understand to be the hierarchy of concepts presented in his discussion of metapictures. A "schema" is more commonly known as a formal structure, which shows how
things are organized in relation to one another or are arranged in
relation to the world. What is Mitchell's logic? Which concepts
build on other concepts? How does he present and organize "metapictures"
(i.e., by scenarios, by terms, by historical moments, by schools of
thought, by rhetorical questions, by theoretical approaches, by
something else)?
Most schemas innovatively combine the visual and the verbal, employing images/shapes alongside words. Sometimes they look like trees, database structures, charts, or architectural drawings. You have creative license in terms of how you will compose your schema, but please make it thorough and detailed! It should also contain some prose, since it will likely be impossible to communicate how you think Mitchell discusses "metapictures" without using any words at all. So, please refer to specific passages from Mitchell's chapter in your schema.
Finally, somewhere in the schema, please include the MLA citation and use in-text (parenthetical) citations for Mitchell's chapter (see the full Works Cited list at the back of your syllabus).
Now, here are some discussion questions we may take up in class:
- For Mitchell, rather than thinking of images as texts, it is more advantageous to think about textuality as an approach to reading images. What can he mean?
- How do some of Mitchell's key terms differ from one another (image, textuality, metapicture, pictorial turn, dialectical image, hyper icon)?
- What was the most interesting part of his chapter for you? The most difficult (or obscure) part?
- Take a look at Scott Garner's "still life": Metapicture? Dialectical image? Intertext? Something altogether new ... ?
You'll find useful context for Mitchell's essay in Richter background on "Marxism" (1198-1201).
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for 11/5 -- Killingsworth "Appeal Through Tropes" (in CP) and Daniel "Public Secrets" (via weblink)
Reading Questions (today's class is on the blog)
Reading Questions (today's class is on the blog)
Tips for reading Daniel's hypertext essay “Public Secrets”: Before you post on Monday night, allow yourself about 30 minutes to skim the Editor's Introduction and the author's statement, and then to "VIEW PROJECT." Give yourself time to view the various nodes and explore the different pathways. Because there are audio files, you will need to use earbuds or speakers so that you can hear them. This essay has a number of different components, and you'll want to discover as many of them as you can!
Here’s how we will handle Tuesday’s class on the blog:
- 1 post by Monday 11:00 p.m. (as usual). The post still needs to be of good quality, as usual, but this time, I’m offering you questions (below) to guide you.
- 2 thorough, thoughtful responses to other classmates’ posts during Tuesday’s class hour (11:00 a.m – 12:15 p.m.). Your attendance on the blog will be your attendance for that day, and I'm looking for serious depth and length in your responses.
As a reminder, I will still open up our classroom (WMS 319) at 11:00 on Tuesday if anyone wants to just sit in that space and work on the blog. But you are free to participate from anywhere else in the world, and even in your pajamas.
Here are the questions to guide your response:
- What is at stake in our understanding Killingsworth's typology of four tropes? Why do you think he see the trope as a flexible enough concept to argue for its persuasive importance? Shouldn't tropes simply be treated as forms? Or as art for art's sake? Does the way Killingsworth describes "trope" remind you of other concepts in this unit, i.e., "discourse" or "text" or "genre"? What's the big deal, after all?
- Of the tropes that Killingsworth discusses, do you think any of them are at work in Daniel’s hypertext essay? If so, which ones, and how? Be sure to cite from Killingsworth’s text for justification.
- Daniel makes it clear that her hypertext essay offers a critique of the corporatized prison system, both in her author's statement and in the introductory node to her hypertext. We get that this is a critique. However, I'm interested in what we think about the interpretability of her critique. In other words, what are the characteristics or qualities of her hypertext essay that make it especially interpretable as a critique? Draw on Bakhtin (heteroglossia in the novel), Longinus (sublime), Landow (hypertext), or Miller (genre as social action) to make your case. Be sure to cite from Bakhtin, Longinus, Landow, or Miller’s texts for justification.
Note: Folks, the trick is to respond to all three questions but to thread or connect your responses together into a single coherent post, so that your post doesn’t act like a list of answers to three separate questions. Yes, you can do this, and I very much look forward to it!
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for 10/31 -- Landow "Hypertext and Critical Theory" (in CP)
Reading Questions
Reading Questions
- What is hypertext (or what is it not)?
- What can hypertext do?
- Why does hypertext require its own critical theory?
- What kinds of processes are involved in the interpretation of hypertexts?
- How does hypertext reflect the various paradoxes we have studied so far?
- Can you imagine a world without hypertext (either the concept, or its applications)?
You'll find helpful context in Richter background on "Reader Response Theory" (962-965).
We will also look at Art Spiegelman's Metamaus as a case, and I think you'll find it engaging! Metamaus is a hybrid project -- a book with interactive DVD. While I wasn't able to upload the entire DVD to Blackboard, you can browse through some of the book's spreads online. You can also watch a trailer. Yes -- a trailer for a book! Give yourself 15 minutes, or so, to get as complete a sense as possible of what Metamaus is, and then I'll show the interactive DVD in Thursday's class, when we will consider its impact as a hypertext.
--------------------We will also look at Art Spiegelman's Metamaus as a case, and I think you'll find it engaging! Metamaus is a hybrid project -- a book with interactive DVD. While I wasn't able to upload the entire DVD to Blackboard, you can browse through some of the book's spreads online. You can also watch a trailer. Yes -- a trailer for a book! Give yourself 15 minutes, or so, to get as complete a sense as possible of what Metamaus is, and then I'll show the interactive DVD in Thursday's class, when we will consider its impact as a hypertext.
for 10/29 -- Miller "Genre as Social Action" (in CP) (in Bb!)
Preparatory Exercise #7 (Unpacking Road Map) (20 points)
I will ask everyone to read pages 163-165, since those pages contain her conclusions! As you read, try to consider how Miller's theory of "genre as situated action" challenges other theorists we have read so far. Also, how does Miller complicate some of your own assumptions about genre (if she does)?
Then, I think it makes sense to try to "road map" her essay, with the goal of marking major landmarks in her argument while also demonstrating how she came to those landmarks. Try to pay attention to whose ideas she builds on, and whose ideas those ideas build on. Here's how I'll divide up the task:
- if your last name begins with letters A through L, please "road map" pages 151-158
- if your last name begins with letters M through Z, please "road map" pages 155-163.
Bring to class (word-processed, ~1-2 pages, single-spaced) the results of your road map. You can do this much like I did in my road map of Burke's chapter on "Equipment for Living," or you can make it a fleshy outline, or you can construct a more visual road map that has some explanation interspersed. So, just like PE #5, this PE may absolutely combine the visual and the verbal!
Whatever
you do, please refer to specific passages from Miller's article as
part of your response and set them up them accordingly. Please include the MLA citation and use in-text (parenthetical) citations throughout your response where needed.
Finally, if there's time during class, I'd like to revisit some trailers/clips and their remakes from earlier in the semester, specifically to test some of Miller's ideas about genre:
In
what ways do you think the remade trailers/clips are trying to disrupt the
genre of the original? Or not disrupting it? In other words, how does each remade trailer
either represent or deflect Miller's new understanding of
"rhetorical genre" (pp. 163-165)? One dilemma taken up by the
theorists in our Text/uality unit is whether and how texts are
interpretable on their own. What is or becomes involved in
interpretability, and how does interpretability affect genre, or vice
versa?
Added note on 10/24: Oh, yes -- we're bringing back Shoebridge and Simons' Welcome to Pinepoint. (You'll find the website that inspired the project here.) If we have time to get to the trailers/clips below, then great. But on Tuesday, we'll start with Pinepoint!
Finally, if there's time during class, I'd like to revisit some trailers/clips and their remakes from earlier in the semester, specifically to test some of Miller's ideas about genre:
- The Shining Original [disturbing images] and Remade
- Mary Poppins Original and Remade
- Lord of the Rings Original and Remade
- Axis of Awesome's 4 Chord Wonder
- Enchanted and Princess and the Frog
- Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood Remix
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Today's discussion of Ridolfo and DeVoss will center around our case: Shoebridge and Simons' Welcome to Pinepoint. (You'll find the website that inspired the project here.)
Notice
that Ridolfo and DeVoss include their table of contents across the top,
so be sure to read their entire text! After reading, please allow
yourselves about 20 minutes to view and navigate the Pinepoint
Documentary, since there are multiple starting points, and multiple
components to the project. Here are some questions that may guide our
class discussion:
- Ridolfo and DeVoss compose an argument that is somewhat embodied. What does this mean, and what are the ways that this embodied argument manifests itself?
- What do you notice about the genre(s) in which they argue? How would you classify their text -- if you had to -- according to genre, type, form, discourse, or style? Or, if it is difficult to classify, what makes it difficult?
- Based on how they composed their argument (i.e., the style, form, and function), what do you think are Ridolfo and DeVoss's main assumptions about writers, readers, mediums, and texts? Note: While their claims will likely be explicit, their assumptions will be implicit, so ask yourself what their principal claims assume to be true about writers, readers, mediums, or texts.
- How many of their assumptions do you think carry over to the Pinepoint Documentary? In other words, how do Shoebridge and Simons follow similar principles to Ridolfo and DeVoss? Alternatively, what assumptions don't carry over?
- As you were viewing the Pinepoint Documentary, when did you feel included or excluded as a reader or participant? How much or little did it construct you as an audience in a way that made sense to you?
- Some viewers have called this Documentary idyllic and, hence, problematic -- probably because they think memory and reality are being obscured. How would you respond to such a critique, especially in light of what Shoebridge and Simons tried to achieve?
- What is "rhetorical velocity" (the concept that Ridolfo and DeVoss write about and define)? In what ways can we say that the Documentary demonstrates it? Or not?
Have fun with the reading and with the case!
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for 10/22 -- Longinus "From On the Sublime" (in CP)
One more trace -- only one more! As you have done before for Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and for our excerpts from Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, please pay attention to how Longinus discusses, makes assumptions about, or illustrates one of the following concepts:
This may be the most challenging trace because I am asking you to look for terms he discusses implicitly. Please look all throughout his chapter for places where he seems to deal with your concept. Be as thorough as possible, looking for textual clues, even if you are not certain you understand what you are reading. It's okay to take risks!
Bring to class (~1-2 pages, word-processed and single-spaced) the results of your trace. As before, the format is open. You might provide an outline to show us how to read these pages for that one particular concept, or you might write several paragraphs where you comment on how Longinus deals with your concept throughout his treatise, or you might do something else.
Please include the MLA citation and use in-text (parenthetical) citations throughout your response where needed.
I hope you enjoy our cases this week!
This
week, we'll be reading two graphic novels as case studies for
anti/signification. Since it may be your first time reading them, I want
you to be free to experience Marjane Satrapi's comic-memoir in any
number of ways. So, I do not have a formal set of questions to prepare,
though I offer some thoughts below.
We will essentially be reading the first half of Satrapi's memoir (pp. 1-153), chronicling her childhood in Iran prior to leaving for Austria at age 14, and we'll take a couple of class days for discussion. We may discuss some of the following (or we may not, depending upon your own list of curiosities and questions):
We
are not reading the full essay -- only pp. 191-211 -- but it will be
enough to help us understand that Kenneth Burke is actually conducting a
complex rhetorical analysis of a much longer and historically
significant text: Adolf Hitler's biographical manifesto, entitled Mein Kampf.
You might want to skim Williams' short essay before reading Bakhtin, just to give you some useful background. Each section of Bakhtin's excerpted chapter deals with (a.k.a., defines, unpacks, and exemplifies) one aspect of "discourse" that he says is unique to the genre of novel. Another way to say this is, Bakhtin is arguing for the novel as discourse.
Our main goal is to understand how and why he does this, and to begin to understand his concept of heteroglossia. To help us follow his argument, I'll ask you to create a road map of his essay. The format for a road map is quite open, as long as it involves your putting ideas into prose and citing passages from his essay to provide evidence.
Bring to class (word-processed, ~1-2 pages, single-spaced)
the results of your road map. You can do this much like I did in my
road map of Burke's chapter on "Equipment for Living," or you can make
it a fleshy outline, or you can construct a more visual roadmap that is
has some explanation interspersed. So in other words, this PE may
absolutely combine the visual and the verbal.
Preparatory Exercise #6 (Concept Trace) (20 points)
One more trace -- only one more! As you have done before for Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and for our excerpts from Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, please pay attention to how Longinus discusses, makes assumptions about, or illustrates one of the following concepts:
- the role(s) of the reader, writer, critic (What are their respective responsibilities in terms of either creating or noting the sublime? Where do their roles seem to diverge or converge? Does Longinus address them as if they were or could be the same?)
- the uses of language (What does Longinus have to say about the importance of words or verbal expression to the text? What can/do words achieve? What variations on language does he seem to consider, i.e., figurative language, metaphors, particular expressions, etc.?)
- genres and style (What types of genres does he discuss, and/or what styles of writing does he want his readers to consider? Alternatively, what unique features of writing does he describe, i.e., large, small, structural, linguistic, etc.? What properties should writing have or not have?)
This may be the most challenging trace because I am asking you to look for terms he discusses implicitly. Please look all throughout his chapter for places where he seems to deal with your concept. Be as thorough as possible, looking for textual clues, even if you are not certain you understand what you are reading. It's okay to take risks!
Bring to class (~1-2 pages, word-processed and single-spaced) the results of your trace. As before, the format is open. You might provide an outline to show us how to read these pages for that one particular concept, or you might write several paragraphs where you comment on how Longinus deals with your concept throughout his treatise, or you might do something else.
Whatever you do, please refer to and quote from specific passages from the Sublime.
Try to strike a balance between representing him in his own words and
representing him in your own words. Feel free to note your own surprises
or contradictions in what you read.
Please include the MLA citation and use in-text (parenthetical) citations throughout your response where needed.
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No blog post is due on Monday 10/21! This is a "week off" the blog to give you time to recover from SCD #2. However, I will offer 10 points extra credit if anyone wants to blog, by Monday 10/21/13 at 11:00 p.m. Obviously, guidelines are the same as always.
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for 10/17 -- Satrapi Persepolis (135-153) and El Rassi Arab in America (1-117)
Reading Questions
Today, we will finish discussing Satrapi's Persepolis, while also putting it into conversation with a comic-memoir of a very different tenor, tone, and style: Toufic El Rassi's Arab in America.
We'll
read El Rassi's memoir in its entirety, which culminates in an
epilogue. As before, we may discuss some of the following (or we may
not, depending upon your own list of curiosities and questions):
- the limitations of comic identification
- the challenges of theorizing agency in his text
- the differences within his illustration style (i.e., can we notice a logic guiding why he draws certain people or groups the way that he does?)
- heteroglossia in the memoir
- the problem(s) of materiality and place in his memoir
- some benefits and risks of identifying with Toufic, or with El Rassi
I hope you enjoy our cases this week!
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for 10/15 -- Satrapi Persepolis (Introduction, 1-134)
Reading Questions and Quiz
We will essentially be reading the first half of Satrapi's memoir (pp. 1-153), chronicling her childhood in Iran prior to leaving for Austria at age 14, and we'll take a couple of class days for discussion. We may discuss some of the following (or we may not, depending upon your own list of curiosities and questions):
- how much we should (or even can) extend our signification theories into this kind of genre
- the challenges of theorizing agency in her text
- her most provocative use of drawn symbols
- the role(s) of narration in her memoir
- how she draws perplexity, coming-of-age, gender-bending, entrapment, liberation, etc.
- some benefits or risks of identifying with Marjane, or with Satrapi
Before our discussion of this case, I will administer a brief quiz (about
10-12 minutes in length), to help us concretize our knowledge of some
critical terms. Ahead of class, please take time to familiarize
yourselves with the following terms, even considering how they might be
(or have been) used:
- Deconstruction (also check out the background pages on "Deconstruction" in Rivkin/Ryan)
Dialogic Criticism- Differance
- Erasure (see the OED Online and our other resources for looking up terms)
- Heteroglossia
Langue and Parole (see the Glossary entry on "Semiotics")- Logocentrism
- Sign and/or Signification (also see the OED Online)
- Speech-Act Theory
- Stylistics
- Symbol
Bring your Bedford Glossary to class.
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for 10/10 -- Burke "The Rhetoric of Hitler's 'Battle'" (in CP)
Reading Questions
To prepare for our discussion of Burke's essay, I offer several reading questions to help you navigate your way through it:
- This is the second essay we will have read from Burke's Philosophy of Literary Form, but it functions differently from the first ("Equipment for Living"). It is a bit complex, but what are the kinds of things that Burke analyzes for? What pattern seems to emerge from his analysis? How does he organize his analysis?
- In class, I plan to demonstrate a "case" drawing from well-circulated (iconic) representations of flag-raising at Iwo Jima. If you're curious, before class, check out this linked image. How do you think Burke would analyze this image, based on his discussion of strategies in "Equipment for Living," and based on his argument in "The Rhetoric of Hitler's 'Battle'"?
Added note on 10/8: Folks,
please bring back McCloud's "Vocabulary of Comics"! We'll unpack it for
his provocative claims, his basic argument, and his division between
different types of icons, so as to better understand how Burke argues
for Hitler's Mein Kampf as a symbolic act. Obviously, two very different notions of "symbol"!
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for 10/8 -- Lakoff and Johnson "From Metaphors We Live By" (via weblink) and McCloud "The Vocabulary of Comics" (in CP) (in Bb!)
Reading Tasks
Two great readings for today!
While reading Lakoff and Johnson's excerpts, I'd like you to try three things:
- look up any unfamiliar terms, or familiar terms whose usage is unfamiliar, in the OED Online or in Merriam Webster or another collegiate dictionary;
- consider whether/how some of their claims remind you of the theorists we have read so far, in both units;
- consider how you might draw, schematize, or spatially demonstrate their argument.
While reading McCloud's chapter, I'd like you to take note
of what you think is his most provocative (or troubling) claim about how
symbols function.
You'll find helpful context in Rivkin/Ryan background on "Structuralism" and "Deconstruction" (53-55, 257-261).
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for 10/3 -- Bakhtin "Discourse in the Novel" (in CP) and Williams "Bakhtin on Teaching Style" (via weblink with FSU login, or in Bb)
Preparatory Exercise #5 (Road Map) (20 points)
Preparatory Exercise #5 (Road Map) (20 points)
You might want to skim Williams' short essay before reading Bakhtin, just to give you some useful background. Each section of Bakhtin's excerpted chapter deals with (a.k.a., defines, unpacks, and exemplifies) one aspect of "discourse" that he says is unique to the genre of novel. Another way to say this is, Bakhtin is arguing for the novel as discourse.
Our main goal is to understand how and why he does this, and to begin to understand his concept of heteroglossia. To help us follow his argument, I'll ask you to create a road map of his essay. The format for a road map is quite open, as long as it involves your putting ideas into prose and citing passages from his essay to provide evidence.
Whatever
you do, please refer to specific passages from Bakhtin's chapter as
part of your response and mediate them accordingly. Please include the MLA citation and use in-text (parenthetical) citations throughout your response where needed.
As you construct your road map, consider how each of Bakhtin's aspects of discourse could be applied to a novel that you have read. You don't have to write this into your road map, but I'll probably ask you to discuss it in class. It's important for us to try on his theory to see if it describes our own experiences of reading.
As you construct your road map, consider how each of Bakhtin's aspects of discourse could be applied to a novel that you have read. You don't have to write this into your road map, but I'll probably ask you to discuss it in class. It's important for us to try on his theory to see if it describes our own experiences of reading.
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for 10/1 -- Derrida "Differance" (in CP)
Reading Questions
After reading Locke, I think you will find Derrida's arguments to be especially relevant; however, Derrida plays with language, even as he writes, and this will make it challenging to follow his argument. As well, we are reading an English translation of an essay that was originally written in French. Because it is a good translation, we can still grasp the tenor and tone of his message, but it will seem as if his sentences are formed using very complex clauses, and sometimes the subjects and predicates are separated by a string of metaphors. Do the best you can with it!
Some advice on how to read this text:
You'll find helpful context in Herrick background on "Derrida" (253-256).
After reading Locke, I think you will find Derrida's arguments to be especially relevant; however, Derrida plays with language, even as he writes, and this will make it challenging to follow his argument. As well, we are reading an English translation of an essay that was originally written in French. Because it is a good translation, we can still grasp the tenor and tone of his message, but it will seem as if his sentences are formed using very complex clauses, and sometimes the subjects and predicates are separated by a string of metaphors. Do the best you can with it!
Some advice on how to read this text:
- Herrick's background essay should give you a good jump start on comprehending what Derrida writes.
- Try writing in the margins as you follow all of the ways that Derrida defines "differance."
- Annotate or highlight some of the most interesting phrases throughout his essay. We'll take some time to discuss them in class.
- Also, as you struggle to think about examples of this concept, remember that the word itself -- differance -- is the best example of what Derrida tries to argue!
You'll find helpful context in Herrick background on "Derrida" (253-256).
Added note on 9/24: Folks, please bring back Locke's Essay!
We'll revisit a few things before transitioning to Derrida, mostly to
review Locke's stance as an Enlightenment theorist, before considering
what it means to read Derrida as a post-structuralist. And, we'll
consider the performances of Carrie Rodzinski (esp. "Dreams" and "Elbows")
as things that potentially illuminate -- while also complicating --
Locke's simple theory of signs! (Maybe we can even convince Tracy to
slam for us ... )
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for 9/26 -- Locke "From Essay Concerning Human Understanding" (in CP)
Preparatory Exercise #4 (Concept "Trace") (20 points)
As you have done before for Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, complete a trace through our excerpts from John Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.
Editors Patricia Bizzell and Bruce Herzberg tell us that, although
Locke was not widely thought of as a rhetorical theorist at the time he
wrote this, his discussions of how language related to knowledge were
pervasive in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century thought (at least in
England and Scotland, and--by way of trans-Atlantic travel--in America)
(815).
We are trying to figure out what makes this relationship between language and knowledge so complex for Locke.
As you read the Essay, please pay attention to how Locke discusses, makes assumptions about, or illustrates one of the following concepts:
- the origins of language (Does the mind precede language, or does it emerge with language? Do there seem to be other causes or predecessors of language? Does language have a mysterious origin?)
- the imperfections of language (In what ways does language or communication "fail"? What does Locke mean by "failure"? How is language limited or inadequate for doing certain things? What things?)
- the uses of language (What can language or communication achieve? Are there particular uses that are more moral/ethical, or less moral/ethical? What determines that?)
- the nature of ideas (What are "ideas" and how are they reached? What are their origins? Can they emerge without language? What other ways do they emerge?)
Please do not limit yourself only to looking for explicit uses of the terms you are tracing. Instead, look all throughout his Essay for places where he seems to deal with your concept
By 12:00 noon, please upload to Blackboard the results of your trace (~1-2 pages, word-processed and single-spaced). Remember that there is no class today, so it is important that you upload to Blackboard on time.
As before, the format is open. You might provide an outline to show us how to read these pages for that one particular
concept, or you might write several paragraphs where you comment on how
Locke deals with your concept throughout his treatise, or you might do
something else. Whatever you do, please refer to specific passages from
the Essay where Locke seems to deal with your selected
concept, either implicitly or explicitly. Try to strike a balance
between representing Locke in his own words and representing him in your
own words. Feel free to note your own surprises or contradictions in
what you read.
Please include the MLA citation and use in-text (parenthetical) citations throughout your response where needed.
Enjoy the challenge!
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for 9/24 -- Locke "From Essay Concerning Human Understanding" (in CP)
Reading Task
Our first reading in the Anti/Signification unit is excerpted from a work of linguistic philosophy by John Locke, as he strives to describe what he sees as the principal "problem" of language. This is a challenging text that we will unpack together, so in preparation for our discussion day, I will ask you to read it through, looking for passages where Locke treats words as "signs" or "symbols." Even if he doesn't use those terms, he begins to unfold this theory of language and we want to try to understand how he helps it to unfold.
We will begin our discussion by sharing those passages.
You'll find helpful context in Bizzell/Herzberg background on "Enlightenment" (793-799).
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for 9/19 -- Concept and Unit Review and Quiz
We will focus today on a review of key concepts in some of our theoretical articles (including Ong!) and an application of the concepts to some cases -- postmodern fairy tales, the September 11 archive (again), disability campaigns and ecoporn. Be sure to bring your essays by Campbell, Heilbrun, Ong, Foucault, and Barthes, so that you can pose specific follow-up questions. If you have additional questions about Burke and Aristotle, bring those readings as well.
Finally, before our discussion of these cases, I will administer a brief quiz (about
10 minutes in length), to help us concretize our knowledge of some
critical terms. Ahead of class, please take time to familiarize
yourselves with the following terms, even considering how they might be
(or have been) used:
- Audience Construction
- Author Function
- Dialectic
- Discourse
- Episteme
- Feminist Criticism
- Marxism
- New Criticism
- Phenomenology
- Power
Bring your Bedford Glossary to class, as well as the handout called “Terms of Agent/cy” that I distributed on 9/10
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for 9/17 -- Barton "Textual Practices of Erasure" or Welling "Ecoporn" (in CP)
Reading Task
For our discussion of Barton and Welling, I will invite you to read one article or the other--you do not need to read both. Barton defines what she calls a “discourse of disability,” and discusses the causes, effects, and theoretical impact of this discourse in United Way campaign posters. Welling defines what he calls “ecopornography” based on actual and abstract challenges of visualizing nonhuman subjects. Both theorists are making arguments about agency that will be worthwhile for us to consider.
Please bring your selected article to class and be prepared to share 1 or 2 passages from the article that you would deem most significant or important for discussion.
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for 9/12 -- Campbell "Agency: Promiscuous and Protean" (via weblink with FSU login) and Heilbrun Writing a Woman's Life (in CP)
Preparatory Exercise #3 (Dialogue) (20 points)
Folks,
I dedicate this PE #3 to those of you who are inspired to write in more
creative formats, because I fully expect that you can write creatively
and with critical distance at the same time. For our discussion of
Campbell and Heilbrun, I invite you to put both theorists into a
dialogue on one of the following problems:
- how writing/telling their own experiences gives women writers discursive power
- how writing/telling their own experiences removes discursive power
- how writing/telling their own experiences complicates the division between public and private
- the limitations of history on women's rhetorical practices
- the limitations of memory on women's rhetorical practices
- the role of historical interpreters, mediators, and agents
- another problem of your own choosing that you think is obvious in both texts.
My goal for this PE is simply that you would understand the dilemma that each of them writes about, as Campbell and Heilbrun situate these dilemmas in specific kinds of rhetorical performances: Suffrage discourse and autobiography. However, their dilemmas are nuanced, rather than simple. So, whether you choose to write this like a screenplay, a summarized dialogue, a scene from a novel, or etc., just know that I'll be looking for your ability to demonstrate the nuances between them. You should end up with much more than simply a conversation where they agree with each other on each point they make.
Bring to class (~1-2 pages, word-processed and single-spaced)
your dialogue. You may end up spilling over to a third page if you're
enjoying the task! Please refer to specific passages from each essay as
part of your response.
Please include the MLA citation and use in-text (parenthetical) citations throughout your dialogue where needed. In other words, in the dialogue, they can actually quote themselves from the articles.
You'll find helpful context in Smith background on "Feminism in the Postmodern World" (337-342).
Added note on 9/10: Folks, we WILL focus on Campbell and Heilbrun (yes -- I promise), but please BRING BACK ONG to class on 9/12. We'll be forming a kind of discursive triangle between Campbell, Heilbrun, and Ong!
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Added note on 9/10: Folks, we WILL focus on Campbell and Heilbrun (yes -- I promise), but please BRING BACK ONG to class on 9/12. We'll be forming a kind of discursive triangle between Campbell, Heilbrun, and Ong!
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for 9/10 -- Ong "The Writer's Audience is Always a Fiction" (via weblink with FSU login)
Reading Questions
Folks, please be sure to annotate and look up any unfamiliar terms so that we can resolve those early in our discussion (e.g., circumambient, antecedent genre, etc.). While there is no formal PE due on Tueday, to prepare for our discussion of Walter Ong's essay, I offer several reading questions to help you navigate your way through it:
Folks, please be sure to annotate and look up any unfamiliar terms so that we can resolve those early in our discussion (e.g., circumambient, antecedent genre, etc.). While there is no formal PE due on Tueday, to prepare for our discussion of Walter Ong's essay, I offer several reading questions to help you navigate your way through it:
- Ong's motives for writing are more salient than you might think. He states them in his first paragraph, but then he devotes Section 1 to unpacking, explaining, and justifying why the notion of audience was a problematic term at the time in which he wrote (circa 1975). If Ong were to rewrite this article in 2013, how many of these reasons or problems do you think would still hold? In other words, what reasons do you think he might provide for why the concept of “audience” is complicated today?
- Ong builds his argument through history--that is, sections 2, 3, and 4 describe what Ong sees as major periods of “audience adjustment” according to how literary genres were constructed, disseminated and used. How have some of these historical periods contributed to the audience “problems” that he experiences in 1975?
- Ultimately, Ong takes his own position on audience in section 5. There is some debate about whether Ong could be classified as a Reader-Response Critic based on the position he takes; we can decide that on our own. (See the Bedford Glossary for definition of “Reader-Response Criticism.”)
- If there is time, we may look at the following trailers and their remakes, a well-circulated music remix, film clips that reflect reversals of trope, and a classic PBS Remix of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, specifically to test some of Ong's theories about audience construction, audience participation, and circumambient realities:
- The Shining Original [disturbing images] and Remade
- Mary Poppins Original and Remade
- Lord of the Rings Original and Remade
- Axis of Awesome's 4 Chord Wonder
- Enchanted and Princess and the Frog
- Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood Remix
Added note on 9/5: Folks, we're going to continue our discussion of Barthes and Foucault before moving to Ong, so instead of these media clips above, I'd like to focus on the September 11 Digital Archive--which has already undergone several revisions since its first construction. Before Tuesday's class, please browse both archives (new and old) and consider some of their differences, especially in terms of how Foucault and Barthes define authorship. Consider also their differences in terms of agency and power. Please bring the Glossary to class. This will be another big day for us in terms of critical vocabulary!
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Remember that first blog posts are due Monday 9/9/13 by 11:00 p.m.!
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for 9/5 -- Foucault "What Is An Author?" and Barthes "Death of The Author" (in CP)
Reading Questions
Here are some questions in advance of Thursday's class. I will not ask you to hand in responses, but I highly encourage you to take some time to prepare:
- How do Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault define “author,” “writer,” “text,” “discourse”?
- For Foucault, writing is “absence” (906) and the writer is best replaced by an “author-function.” What does this mean?
- For Foucault, texts are discursive practices (910-912). Why is this important for him? In fact, what can you get from the background readings (Richter 1326-1329 and Herrick 246-252) that helps explain this concept?
- For Barthes, what does “death” mean in this context--is it a literal death?
- For Barthes, what does it mean to be “born simultaneously with the text”?
- Foucault and Barthes are not arguing the same thing, although they are arguing different things from the same phenomenological perspective. What does this mean?
- What impact could the concepts of “author-function” or “author-death” have on our critical paradox of Agent/cy? In other words, how could these terms help us to more clearly define--or perhaps, to further complicate--what we know of rhetorical Agent/cy?
If there is time on Thursday, I'll show you a case--the September 11 Digital Archive--which has already undergone several revisions since its first construction. Before Thursday's class, please browse both archives (new and old) and consider some of their differences, especially in terms of how Foucault and Barthes define authorship. Consider also their differences in terms of agency and power. Please bring the Glossary to class. This will be a big day for us in terms of critical vocabulary!
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for 9/3 -- Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics (in Bb)
Preparatory Exercise #2 (Concept "Trace") (20 points)
Translator H. Rackham tells us that Aristotle's writings generally fell into two groups: (1) philosophical (theoretical) dialogues, which have all been lost; and (2) scientific (practical) treatises, which have been recovered and constitute what we now understand to be Aristotle's "systems of rhetoric."
Nicomachean Ethics is encompassed by the second group. When I read Aristotle's treatises, I find that tracing the path of a specific concept throughout the treatise helps me to understand more about the whole of his argument, and helps me to appreciate the various ways I can apply it.
In the Ethics, our challenge is to try to understand Aristotle's "Idea of the Good" and to begin thinking about what bearing that goodness has on acts of writing and reading. Is "goodness" inherent? Learned? Acquired through social or political activity? Does it represent a way of living or a way of being? Does it lead to opportunities for citizens, or does it serve to close them off from opportunities, or something else? As you read the Ethics, please pay attention to how Aristotle discusses, defines, makes assumptions about, or illustrates one of the following concepts:
- happiness
- character
- Good/goodness
- choice
- virtue
Look for both explicit and implicit uses of your term. Bring to class (~1-2 pages, word-processed and single-spaced) the results of your trace. The format for your trace is honestly quite open. You might provide an outline to show us how to read these pages for that one particular concept, or you might write several paragraphs where you comment on how Aristotle deals with your concept throughout his treatise, or you might do something else. I simply need you to show us the most important parts in Nicomachean Ethics where Aristotle seems to deal with your selected concept, either implicitly or explicitly, and I need you to strike a balance between representing Aristotle in his own words and representing him in your own words. Feel free to note your own surprises or contradictions in what you read.
You will most likely refer to specific passages from his Nicomachean Ethics as part of your response, so please include the MLA citation and use in-text (parenthetical) citations throughout your response where needed.
Enjoy the challenge!
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for 8/29 -- Burke "Equipment for Living" and Various Essays
Preparatory Exercise #1 (Schema of Rhetorical Theory) (20 points)
First, read Kenneth Burke's essay entitled "Equipment for Living" (which I think you will enjoy), then select only 1 of 3 options for introductory essays, all of which are located in our Blackboard Course Library:
- Brummett "Rhetorical Theory as Heuristic and Moral"
- Herrick "Contemporary Rhetoric"
- Kennedy "A Hoot in the Dark"
Please note that these are the "red" introductory readings in our Blackboard Course Library. Choose the one that interests you -- not what you think others are reading.
Bring to class a schema of rhetorical theory from the point of view of the introductory essay you have selected. A "schema" is more commonly known as a formal structure, which shows how things are organized in relation to one another or are arranged in relation to the world. In other words, try showing on paper what you understand to be the hierarchy of concepts presented in the introductory essay you chose to read. What is the writer's logic? How does the writer of your essay present and organize "rhetorical theory" (i.e., by historical moments, by schools of thought, by disciplinary problems, by rhetorical questions, by theoretical approaches, by something else) and what led him/her to do so?
Most schemas innovatively combine the visual and the textual, employing images/shapes alongside words. Sometimes they look like trees, database structures, charts, or architectural drawings. You have creative license in terms of how you will compose your schema, but please make it thorough and detailed! It should also contain some prose, since it will likely be impossible to communicate how you think Brummett, Herrick or Kennedy would schematize rhetoric without using any words at all. Somewhere in that schema, I need you to provide a concise but informative explanation of their hierarchy or organization in your own words, for an unfamiliar reader.
Finally, somewhere in the schema, please include the MLA citation and use in-text (parenthetical) citations for the introductory essay that you chose (see the full Works Cited list at the back of your syllabus).
Please be prepared to explain your schema during Thursday's class, and to discuss how it does or does not intersect with Kenneth Burke's essay, "Equipment for Living." I will collect them after class discussion.
Have fun with it!
