English 306: Introduction to Rhetoric
Professor Candice Rai
Rhetoric!?! What exactly is rhetoric and why should anyone care to study it? This course hopes to answer that question by exploring contested definitions, histories, theories and practices of rhetoric across various cultures, places, and times. This course overviews some core issues, vocabularies, and concepts in rhetorical theory; introduces methods for studying and practicing rhetoric ethically; and encourages us to consider the value of studying rhetoric in the contemporary moment.
This course also taps into rhetoric's longstanding civic role of preparing individuals and communities to respond nimbly, creatively, effectively, and ethically to our most urgent public problems. Rhetoric is an interdisciplinary public art that facilitates capacities for resilience, problem solving, and collective action. We will explore ways that rhetoric as language and as ways of relating & being (including discourse, symbols, performances, images, ideas, genres, ideologies, dynamics of built and natural environments, public forces and affects, flows of collective energy) becomes emplaced and entangled in the world and how rhetoric as capacities of communication, connection, and action can help us engage in just and ethical placemaking (or worldmaking) practices. Rhetoric in this sense always evokes place and capacities of placemaking.
Course Goals and Learning Outcomes:
This course aims to help you:
- develop an understanding of and engagement with various histories, theories, methods, definitions, and practices of rhetoric from across different cultures, places, and times
- deepen your rhetorical knowledge and commitments to the ethical practice of studying, responding to, and crafting rhetoric
- build capacity for collaboration, problem-solving, and collective social action across difference, within various communities and situations, and in response to urgent, complex public problems;
- explore the relevance of rhetoric and rhetorical practice in academic and public contexts and in relation to your personal goals and experiences.