English 508, Discourse and Rhetoric

Contemporary Rhetorical Theory

Winter 2008

Professor Alisse Portnoy
alisse@umich.edu

3236 Angell Hall
Department of English Language and Literature
University of Michigan
734-763-4279

Introductions, Theory of the Course, Alternative Models, Etc.
Syllabi from other courses, Tables of Contents from collections.
Reading for the Tenor of the Argument, Reading Really Can be Fun.

• Kenneth Burke, Attitudes Towards History (1937/1959): Introduction; from the "Dictionary of Pivotal Terms": Casuistic Stretching (229-32); Control (236); Heads I Win, Tails You Lose (260-63); Identification (263-73); Symbols of Authority (329-36).
• Jacques Derrida, "Declarations of Independence." New Political Science 15 (1986): 7-15.

• Kenneth Burke, Rhetoric of Motives (1950).
• "Definition of Man," Language as Symbolic Action (1966): 3-24.
• "Terministic Screens," Language as Symbolic Action (1966): 44-62.
• "What Are the Signs of What? A Theory of 'Entitlement,'" Language as Symbolic Action (1966): 359-79.

• Jürgen Habermas, Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1962).
• Seyla Benhabib, "Models of Public Space: Hannah Arendt, the Liberal Tradition, and Jürgen Habermas" (73-98), from Craig Calhoun, ed., Habermas and the Public Sphere (1992).
• Nancy Fraser, "Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy" (109-42), from Craig Calhoun, ed., Habermas and the Public Sphere (1992).

Quarterly Journal of Speech Forum: 88.4 (November 2002)
• Dilip Parameshwar Gaonkar, "Introduction." 410-12.
• Michael Warner, "Publics and Counterpublics (Abbreviated Version)." 413-25.
• David Wittenberg, "Going Out in Public: Visibility and Anonymity in Michael Warner's 'Publics and Counterpublics.'" 426-33.
• Ronald Walter Greene, "Rhetorical Pedagogy as a Postal System: Circulating Subjects through Michael Warner's 'Publics and Counterpublics.'" 434-43.
• Melissa Deem, "Stranger Sociability, Public Hope, and the Limits of Political Transformation." 444-54.

• Robert Asen, "Imagining in the Public Sphere." Philosophy and Rhetoric 35.4 (2002): 345-67.
• Phaedra Pezzulo, "Resisting 'National Breast Cancer Awareness Month': The Rhetoric of Counterpublics and their Cultural Performances." Quarterly Journal of Speech 89.4 (2003): 345-65.

Portfolio, Part I Due
• Stephen Toulmin, The Uses of Argument (1958), Introduction (1-10), Chapter 3 (94-145).
• Richard Weaver, The Ethics of Rhetoric (1953), Chapters 3 (55-84) and 4 (85-114).
• Wayne C. Booth, Modern Dogma and the Rhetoric of Assent (1974), Introduction (ix-xvii), Chapters 1 (2-41) and 3 (87-139).
• J. L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words (1955/1962/1975), Lectures 1-5 (1-66), Lectures 9-11 (109-47).
• Jacques Derrida, "Signature Event Context" (1971/1977), rpt. in Limited Inc (1988), 1-23.
• John R. Searle, "Reiterating the Differences: A Reply to Derrida." Glyph 2 (1977): 199-208.
• Jacques Derrida, "Limited Inc a b c . . . " (1971/1977), rpt. in Limited Inc (1988), 29-107.
• Jacques Derrida, "Declarations of Independence." New Political Science 15 (1986): 7-15.
• Sharon Crowley, "When Ideology Motivates Theory: The Case of the Man from Weaverville." Rhetoric Review 20.1/2 (2001): 66-93.

• Stephen Toulmin, Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity (1990), Preface (ix-xii), Chapter 1 (5-44), Chapter 5 (175-201), Epilogue (203-09).
• Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge (1969/1972), Introduction (3-17), Chapters 1-4 (21-55), 7 (71-76), and Appendix (215-37, "Discourse on Language" [1971]).
• Pierre Bourdieu, "The Forms of Capital." 1983. Trans. Richard Nice. Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education . Ed.   John G. Richardson. 1986. 241-58.
• Pierre Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power (1982): Introductions to Parts 1 and 2, Chapters 1-5 (35-136).

• Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990, 1999), Preface 1999 (vii-xxvi), Preface 1990 (xxvii-xxxiii), Chapter 1 (3-44).
• Judith Butler, Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of "Sex" (1993), Preface (ix-xii) and Introduction (1-23).
• Judith Butler, Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative (1997), "Introduction: On Linguistic Vulnerability" (1-41).

•Robert Hariman, editor, Prudence: Classical Virtue, Postmodern Practice (2003): Preface (vii-ix); Robert Hariman, "Theory Without Modernity" (1-32); John S. Nelson, "Prudence as Republican Politics in American Popular Culture" (229-57); Maurice Charland, "Lyotard's Postmodern Prudence" (259-85); Robert Hariman, "Prudence in the Twenty-First Century" (287-321).

Sharon Crowley, A Teacher's Introduction to Deconstruction (1989), Chapters 1 (1-17) and 3 (31-50).

The Rhetorical Situation
• Lloyd F. Bitzer, "The Rhetorical Situation." Philosophy and Rhetoric 1.1 (1968): 1-14.
• Richard E. Vatz, "The Myth of the Rhetorical Situation." Philosophy and Rhetoric 6.3 (1973): 154-61.
• Barbara Biesecker, "Rethinking the Rhetorical Situation from Within the Thematic of Différance." Philosophy and Rhetoric 22.2 (1989): 110-30.

The Feminization of Rhetoric
• Barbara Biesecker, "Coming to Terms with Recent Attempts to Write Women into the History of Rhetoric." Philosophy and Rhetoric 25.2 (1992): 140-61.
• Karlyn Kohrs Campbell, "Biesecker Cannot Speak for Her Either." Philosophy and Rhetoric 26.2 (1993): 153-59.
• Barbara Biesecker, "Negotiating with Our Tradition: Reflecting Again (Without Apologies) on the Feminization of Rhetoric." Philosophy and Rhetoric 26.3 (1993): 236-41.

• Maurice Charland, "Constitutive Rhetoric: The Case of the Peuple Québécois." Quarterly Journal of Speech 73.2 (1987): 133-50.
• Leah Ceccarelli, "Polysemy: Multiple Meanings in Rhetorical Criticism." Quarterly Journal of Speech 84.4 (1998): 395-415.
• Michael Leff, "Tradition and Agency in Humanistic Rhetoric." Philosophy and Rhetoric 36.2 (2003): 135-47.

• Alan G. Gross and William M. Keith, editors, Rhetorical Hermeneutics: Invention and Interpretation in the Age of Science (1996).
• Edward Schiappa, "Second Thoughts on the Critiques of Big Rhetoric." Philosophy and Rhetoric 34.3 (2001): 260-74.

• Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Everything You Think You Know about Politics . . . And Why You're Wrong (2000), TOC, Preface (xi-xxi), Conclusion (211-21).
• George Lakoff, Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservative Think (1996/2002), Preface (ix-xi), Chapters 1 (3-23), 2 (24-37), 20 (335-38), 22 (366-78), Epilogue (384-88), Afterword (389-426).
• George Lakoff, Don't Think of an Elephant! Know Your Values and Frame the Debate: The Essential Guide for Progressives (2004), Front Matter, Forward (ix), Introduction (xi-xiv), Preface (xv-xvi), Chapters 1 (3-34), 3 (46-51), 7 (81-88), 9 (96-110), 10 (111-19).
• Steven Mailloux, Disciplinary Identities: Rhetorical Paths of English, Speech, and Composition, Chapters 5 (101-123) and 6 (124-42).
• Sharon Crowley, Toward a Civil Discourse: Rhetoric and Fundamentalism (2006), Chapters 1-3 (1-101), 7 (189-201).
• Michael Bérubé, Life as We Know It: A Father, A Family, and an Exceptional Child (1998).