Preparatories, Reading Qs and Quizzes

Preparatory Exercises and Quizzes 
(20% of course grade)
12/5 -- Concept Review

For our second workshop, we'll have a concept review, specifically to help you think through your argument. Please bring back 1 hard copy of your project proposal!

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 12/3 -- Final Project Proposal Workshops

Please bring 2 hard copies of your project proposal to class, for the first of our workshops!

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 11/30 -- Up the Yangtze: Discussion Questions and Quiz Terms
Final quiz today! To wrap up the unit, please take time to familiarize yourselves with the following terms (unless otherwise noted, all of them are in the Bedford Glossary). As always, please bring the Glossary to class:
  • Alterity (in the OED)
  • Cultural Criticism (a.k.a. dialectical materialism) -- see especially pp. 85-87 in Glossary
  • Diaspora (in the OED)
  • Ecriture Feminine -- see especially pp. 172-173 in Glossary
  • Gynocriticism
  • Hegemony
  • Hybridity
  • Identification (in the OED and in background reading on "Identification")
  • Representation

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!

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 11/28 -- Cooper "From A Voice from the South" and Johnson "A Strong Race Opinion"

No discussion questions ahead of time (gasp!). Enjoy the experience of reading these two very early examples of North-American feminist theory. They raise questions at the intersection of identity, identification, (consubstantiation,) gender, and race. 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 ...).

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 11/26 -- Gates, Jr. "Writing 'Race'": Reading Questions 

 Here are some discussion questions in advance of Monday's class:
  1. As you are reading Gates, Jr.'s article, how seamlessly can you substitute "race" for "feminism," "blacks" for "women," "racial" for "feminist," "color" for "sex/gender," "colored" for "gendered"? Would the argument be the same?
  2. In the way that Gates historicizes "race" as something that someone writes, can it be -- or is it -- a terministic screen?
  3. In discussing Gates, Jr., it seems to me the following terms not only relate to each other, but quite possibly need each other: ecriture feminine, gynocriticism, alterity, hegemony. I'll ask our discussion leaders to help us consider how this can be (or why it is).

You'll find helpful context for Gates Jr.'s essay in Rivkin/Ryan background on "English without Shadows" (1071-1074).

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 11/19 -- Butler Gender Trouble and George "Mr. Burke": Reading Questions


We have had such good discussion going on Burke, Benjamin, and de Certeau that I want to carry it over to today, specifically so that we can begin to think about how their arguments reflect our Re/Presentation dilemma. This means that something has to give! Against my greater judgment (and with an almost sickening sense that I am ruining your education and depriving you of an important text), I've decided to drop Butler's chapter for Monday. My sense is that George's essay will help us to synthesize more easily. So, please bring back Benjamin and de Certeau, in addition to reading George. Discussion leaders should still prepare their terms as usual.

In place of Butler, please be sure to scan Rivkin/Ryan background on "Feminist Paradigms" (765-769) and Smith background on "Feminist Critique as Rhetorical Theory" (346-349). Butler's book on Gender Trouble is the quintessential feminist text; as you can imagine, I'm feeling very guilty for dropping her chapter.

 To consider in advance of class: 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 are raised by Re/Presentation? If it helps, think about what makes it a dilemma for our theorists so far.

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 11/16 -- de Certeau "Walking in the City" and Benjamin "Work of Art": 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). If you choose Benjamin, be sure to skim Rivkin/Ryan background on "Starting with Zero" (643-646).
  1. 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 your chosen author would describe or understand ambient context? How necessary is ambient context to learning language, or to Burkean identification?
  2. 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?
  3. 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?

We'll look at a case (<Rome Reborn>) to help us think through these questions.

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11/14 -- Burke "Terministic Screens"
Preparatory Exercise 9 (Road Map) (20 points) 
Yes -- this is the final PE of the semester! 

For Wednesday, we are reading our last essay by Kenneth Burke--this time, a chapter from his book entitled Language as Symbolic Action. I will ask you to construct a road map of Burke's chapter (just pp. 44-55). Surprised? As before, the format for a road map is quite open, as long as it involves your putting ideas into prose and citing passages from Burke's chapter to illuminate those ideas. It should also involve some kind of spatial organization, whether that is an outline, a map, or some other multimodal schema. Think of this as your last great symbolic act! 

Bring to class (word-processed, ~1 page, single-spaced) the results of your roadmap. Please refer to specific passages from Burke's chapter as part of your response. Please include the MLA citation for "Terministic Screens" and use in-text citations throughout your response where needed. 

And now for some tentative discussion questions:
  1. While Burke first devised his concept of "terministic screen" 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?
  2. One assumption undergirding 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? 

You will find helpful context for Burke's essay in Smith background on "Identification" and "Redefinition" (284-289, 292-295).

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11/7 -- Stranger than Fiction 11/9 Good Copy Bad Copy: Discussion Questions
On Monday, we only started to unpack (and test) some of Landow's big bold claims about "hypertext," especially in reference to Spiegelman's print/CD-ROM/DVD Metamaus project. In your blog posts, you began interrogating specific claims about hypertext, and you began considering its definition, value, functionality, possibilities and limitations. Please bring Landow's essay on "Hypertext" to class today, so that we can continue on with it! 

Here is a list of Landow's claims that I have seen reflected in your blog posts, so far, plus one or two claims that I found while reading. These claims are "true" of Landow's hypertext. Are they also "true" of Good Copy Bad Copy? Can the film (or Metamaus, for that matter) challenge some of these claims, or do you see them pretty well reflected?

Landow's Big Bold Claims (So Far ...)
  1. Hypertext isn't an argument for replacing print text--it is a quality that describes the progression of text, so it needs a critical theory in order to evaluate its role as a medium, to determine its strengths and weaknesses, to determine what can only be accomplished through it and not through other media, and to understand what human culture gains or loses by it.
  2. Hypertext puts into practice some qualities of Barthes' ideal text (43-44) by blurring the boundaries between reader/ing and writer/ing. It also blurs boundaries between deep structure and surface structure, i.e., the deep structure isn't necessarily something hidden in the surface that can only be found by doing a close reading of the text.
  3. This kind of intertextuality shifts literary history from evolutionary or diachronic, to structural or synchronic models (per Thais Morgan) (35). In other words, we don't all have to accept that hypertext means the demise of print text or let our arguments about hypertext make us lapse into nostalgia for "simpler times." It's possible that hypertext occurs in various technologies and forms, though it is mostly technologized. We can have a literary history that is based on how those forms morph according to rhetorical exigencies.
  4. As readers move through webs and networks, they continually shift the center of their investigation and experience (36).
  5. Hypertexts might provide a truer, more efficient information technology, not only for how they give access to clusters and sub-clusters, but also for how they demonstrate a "non-western" mindset where users are more comfortable starting in the middle (39).
  6. Hypertexts, like metapictures, show episteme.
  7. Hypertext may fulfill certain claims of structuralist and poststructuralist criticism, but its most important contribution is in providing a "rich[er] means of testing [those claims]" (36).
  8. Hypertext does not permit a tyrannical, univocal voice, or imply the death of any voice; rather, its voice is always distilled from combined experience of momentary focus, present lexia, and continually forming narratives of one's reading path (36).
  9. While the idea of an intellectual or ideological "center" in a hypertext is not necessarily bad or nonproductive, hypertexts promote interpretive processes that are closer to anarchy than to hierarchy (40).
  10. Hypertexts cause us to re/define the "network" in critical theory (44) according to their disruptions of "order" and their promotion of "antimemories (or "nomadic thoughts," to use Deleuze and Guattari) (41).
Keep it up -- we have much ground to cover still, and I was glad to see your posts echo these claims! But I need you to work hard to start synthesizing all of our readings and our cases, so that you know what it is you have discovered in this unit.

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11/5 -- Landow "Hypertext and Critical Theory": Reading Questions

For our discussion of Landow, I'd like you to keep an eye out for what I like to call Landow's "Big Bold Claims." In other words, as you read, keep track of all of the characteristics, qualities, and potentialities of Hypertext that Landow argues for. 
  1. What is hypertext? 
  2. What can hypertext do? 
  3. Why does hypertext require its own critical theory? 
  4. What kinds of processes are involved in the interpretation of hypertexts? 
  5. How does hypertext reflect the various paradoxes we have studied so far?
  6. Can you imagine a world without hypertext (either the concept, or its applications)?

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11/2 -- Case: Metamaus by Art Spiegelman, and Quiz Terms


I'd like to administer a quiz before today's case, to help you feel more grounded in the terms and concepts we have encountered or will still encounter in this unit. All of the following terms are defined in the Bedford Glossary, and we have discussed each one in class at some point. As usual, please bring the Glossary to class:
  • Affective Fallacy
  • Frame and/or Frame Story
  • Hypertext
  • Intentional Fallacy
  • Intertext
  • Marxist Criticism
  • Reader-response Criticism

Aside from Richter background on "Reader Response Theory" (962-965), there is no other preparation for Metamaus except reviewing the articles we have read in this unit so far. Also, please bring to class Killingsworth's, Kinneavy's, Mitchell's and Miller's essays. We will need them for today's activity.

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10/31 -- Mitchell "Metapictures" 
Preparatory Exercise 8 (Road Map) (20 points) 

I truly hope you enjoy Mitchell's essay! For Wednesday, I will ask you to construct a road map of Mitchell's essay. As before, the format for a road map is quite open, as long as it involves your putting ideas into prose and citing passages from Mitchell's chapter to illuminate those ideas. It should also involve some kind of spatial organization, whether that is an outline, a map, or some other multimodal schema. 

Bring to class (word-processed, ~1 page, single-spaced) the results of your roadmap. Please refer to specific passages from Mitchell's chapter as part of your response. Please include the MLA citation for "Metapictures" and use in-text citations throughout your response where needed. 

Here are some discussion questions we will take up in class:
  1. 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?
  2. 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? 
  3. How do some of Mitchell's key terms differ from one another (image, textuality, metapicture, pictorial turn, dialectical image, hyper icon)?

You will find useful context for Mitchell's essay in Richter background on "Marxism" (1198-1201).

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10/29  -- Killingsworth "Appeal Through Tropes": Reading Questions 

When we turn to M. Jimmie Killingsworth's chapter, he may challenge us to think about "trope" in a different way than we are accustomed (or, to think about it at all, if it is a new term for you). In our selections from On the Sublime, you probably came across the concept of "trope," except that Longinus called it "figure [of speech]." Killingsworth will extend this concept into a twentieth-century context. 

As you read, I invite you to just try to understand Killingsworth's typology of four tropes and what he seems to think each trope can do. 
  1. Why do you think he see the trope as a flexible enough concept to argue for its persuasive importance?
  2. Shouldn't tropes simply be treated as forms? Or as art for art's sake?
  3. Does the way he describes "trope" remind you of other concepts in this unit, i.e., "aims" or "mediums" or "genres"?
  4. What's the big deal, after all?

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 10/26 -- Case: "Public Secrets" by Sharon Daniel

Class is on the blog today and we'll be discussing a case: Sharon Daniel's <hypertext essay>! I am asking for one substantial post, and as many comments as you can manage to your classmates' posts. By "as many comments as you can manage," I mean that -- for the space of 50 minutes -- I'd like you to offer engaged responses, and even push the conversation in new directions. Depending on how you engage, this may result in one long comment, or several shorter comments. I cannot dictate how many comments you should write; instead, I will encourage you to have fun with it!

Please let one of these discussion questions prompt your post:
  1. Thinking back to pp. 324-325 in Bakhtin's "Discourse in the Novel," what would be the usefulness of justifying Daniel's essay according to this notion of heteroglossia?
  2. The authors of our Bedford Glossary define langue ("native tongue," or the entire system of signs) and parole (particular utterances or narratives) somewhat in opposition to one another. Without setting up a dichotomy, how can we consider the function of langue and parole in Daniel's hypertext essay? In other words, how do you see the concepts of langue and parole working together in a useful way?
  3. Daniel makes it clear that her project 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), Kinneavy (basic aims of discourse), Bolter/Grusin (ubiquitous computing), or Miller (genre as social action) to make your case.
  4. Thinking back to Miller, what are the possibilities for calling this hypertext essay an example of “situated action”? Can you justify calling it that? Does it seem to act like Miller's genre, or like something else (a medium, a discourse, etc.)?

Please read the essay and write your post before class the begins, so that you can use your full 50 minutes to converse on the blog.

Tips for reading the hypertext essay: 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!

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10/24 -- Miller "Genre as Social Action"
Preparatory Exercise 7 (Unpacking Miller) (20 points)

Folks, this is an important theoretical piece for the concept of genre, but I will not lie--it is difficult, primarily because it involves a very rigorous unpacking of other theorists and texts! As you read, try to keep in mind her goal: Miller claims to build her own, robust theory of genre for rhetorical studies, but she has to cover a lot of disciplinary ground in order to do that. What results is a tightly packed essay where most of the claims are multivocal or multilayered.

I think it makes sense to "unpack" Miller's essay, with the goal of marking major landmarks in her argument while also demonstrating how she came to those landmarks. In other words, try charting out the lineage of her ideas, paying attention to whose ideas she builds on, and whose ideas those ideas build on. To make it more do-able, I'll divide up the task:

  • if your last name begins with letters A through L, please "unpack" pages 151-158
  • if your last name begins with letters M through Z, please "unpack" pages 155-163.

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. How does Miller complicate some of your own assumptions or ideas or preferences about genre (if she does)?

Bring to class (word-processed, ~1 page, single-spaced) the results of your unpacking. Please refer to specific passages from her essay as part of your response. Please include the MLA citation for "Genre as Social Action" and use in-text citations throughout your response where needed.

If there's time during class, I'd like to revisit some trailers 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 are trying to disrupt the genre of the original? In other words, how does each remade trailer either represent or deflect what Miller's new understanding of "rhetorical genre" (pp. 163-165)? What kinds of hierarchies do the remade trailers either uphold or disrupt?

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10/22 -- Bolter and Grusin "Ubiquitous Computing" (chapter 13 from Remediation): Quiz Terms and Reading Questions 

Folks, remember that the library record for the e-Book version of Remediation is linked from our blog (see "Web Links" at right). If you cannot access it because all of the licenses are in use, feel free to read the .pdf version in our Blackboard Library.
  1. If you read the e-Book version, I'll be interested in knowing how easy you found it to navigate, and what it dis/allowed you to do. Also, how does the medium of the e-Book either support or complicate Bolter and Grusin's definition of "ubiquitous"?
  2. Based on our discussions of Longinus and Kinneavy, we are compiling a good list of questions that could help us understand Text/uality as a critical dilemma. How many of these questions are either reflected in -- or answered by -- Bolter and Grusin's chapter?
    • How do we define/determine what is "text"? (Or "discourse"?)
    • When/how does the medium become the message, or vice-versa?
    • How do tastes and preferences bear upon our ability to analyze texts (or discourse)? To receive texts (or discourse)?
    • Does discourse itself change over time, or just how we think about it?
    • Why does discourse change? Why can't we be happy with the same kinds/types?
    • What can/should be the relationship between writers and their genres, between genres and their histories, and between histories and their audiences?
    • How do we determine what is "inside" the text (or discourse) and what is "outside" of it? Can we even determine this? Why would we? (Who cares?)

Remember, we are only reading pp. 212-219, but you are absolutely welcome to read more!

Also, I'd like to administer a quiz before today's discussion, to review some terms that will be helpful for this unit. You will find all the following terms defined in the Bedford Glossary, and most of the terms you have seen or used before. As usual, please bring the Glossary to class:
  • Deconstruction
  • Episteme
  • Genre
  • Heteroglossia
  • Langue and Parole (see the entry on "Semiotics")
  • Logocentrism
  • Metafiction (or, more generally "metatext")
  • Speech-act Theory

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10/19 -- Kinneavy "Basic Aims of Discourse": Quiz Terms and Reading Questions 


I'd like to administer a quiz before today's discussion, to review some terms and concepts that will be helpful for this unit. You will find all the following terms defined in the Bedford Glossary, and most of the terms you have seen or used before. As usual, please bring the Glossary to class:
  • Deconstruction
  • Episteme
  • Genre
  • Heteroglossia
  • Langue and Parole (see the entry on "Semiotics")
  • Logocentrism
  • Metafiction (or, more generally "metatext")
  • Speech-act Theory
Today's quiz is postponed until Monday, 10/22, so as to give us as much time as possible on our case. Here are some discussion questions to help you read Kinneavy's article prior to class:
  1. What are "intentional" and "affective" fallacies, and why does Kinneavy bring them up?
  2. What is an "aim"? What assumptions does Kinneavy make about language, text, rhetoric, or writing that cause him to draw certain conclusion about the "aims" of discourse? 
  3. Does Kinneavy think we could understand language outside of communication, or do you think they are one and the same for him?
  4. In Figure 1, Kinneavy compares other theorists' "systems" of discourse according to what he thinks are their aims, and in Figure 2, Kinneavy draws his own discourse "system." What are some explicit and implicit differences between Figure 1 and Figure 2? 
  5. We have a case: the <Pinepoint Documentary>. Take a few minutes to view it and navigate it. Where would you place this on Kinneavy's "system" (Figure 2), if at all? Or, what makes it difficult to place? 

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10/17 -- Longinus On the Sublime
Preparatory Exercise 6 (Concept "Trace") (20 points)

One more trace! 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!

Bring to class (word-processed, ~1 page, single-spaced) the results of your trace. As before, the format is open. You might provide a fleshy outline to show us how to read these pages for that 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 specific passages from his treatise as part of your response and mediate them accordingly. Please include the MLA citation for On the Sublime and use in-text citations throughout your response where needed.

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10/10 and 10/12

Section 01 / Satrapi Persepolis: Reading Questions
Section 02 / El Rassi Arab in America: Reading Questions

Since we are reading these as "cases," and considering the fact that it may be your first time reading them, I really want you to be free to experience Satrapi's comic-memoir or El Rassi's comic-memoir in any number of ways. So, I don't have a formal set of questions to prepare.

If you are reading Persepolis (10:10 section), we will only be reading the first half of her memoir (pp. 1-153), chronicling her childhood in Iran prior to leaving for Austria at age 14, and we'll take two 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
  • the problem(s) of materiality and place in his memoir
  • how she draws perplexity, coming-of-age, gender-bending, entrapment, liberation, etc. 
  • some benefits or risks of identifying with Marjane, or with Satrapi 

If you are reading Arab in America (11:15 section), we will read it in its entirety (pp. 1-117), which culminates in an epilogue. We will take two class days for discussion and 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 this kind of genre
  • 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
  • some benefits and risks of identifying with Toufic, or with El Rassi

Enjoy the reading!

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10/8 -- McCloud "The Vocabulary of Comics": Reading Questions

Two terms may help you to prepare for today's class discussion:
  • speech-act theory
  • symbol
Both of them have entries in the Bedford Glossary. We will have discussion leaders presenting on these terms, but you might do some investigation of them ahead of class, especially as we try to understand Burke's (and McCloud's) symbolic action.

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10/5 -- Burke "The Rhetoric of Hitler's 'Battle'": Reading Questions

To prepare for our discussion of Burke's essay, I offer several reading questions to help you navigate your way through it:
  1. This is the second essay we will have read from Burke's Philosophy of Literary Form, but it functions differently from the first in that this essay demonstrates a rhetorical analysis of Adolph Hitler's Mein Kampf. 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?
  2. 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?

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10/3 -- Bakhtin "Discourse in the Novel"
Preparatory Exercise 5 (Road Map) (20 points)

Each section of Bakhtin's excerpt deals with (a.k.a., defines, unpacks, and exemplifies) one aspect of "discourse" that Bakhtin says is unique to the genre of novel. Another way to say this is, Bakhtin is arguing for the novel as discourse. 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 page, 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 visual roadmap that is heavy with prose. Whatever you do, please refer to specific passages from his treatise as part of your response and mediate them accordingly. Please include the MLA citation for "Discourse in the Novel" and use in-text citations throughout your response where needed. Your main goal is to understand each of his aspects, and to begin to understand his concept of heteroglossia. 

As you write your road map, consider how each of Bakhtin's aspects 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.

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10/1 -- Richards and Ogden "From The Meaning of Meaning" and Lakoff and Johnson "From Metaphors We Live By": Quiz Terms and Reading Questions

I'd like to administer a quiz before today's discussion, to help provide useful context for Lakoff and Johnson's excerpts. You will find the following terms defined in the Bedford Glossary, with three exceptions. As usual, please bring the Glossary to class:
  • Deconstruction
  • Differance
  • Erasure (in the OED Online) [see our web links]
  • Logocentrism
  • Presence/Absence
  • Sign
  • Signification (in the OED Online) [see our web links]

While reading Lakoff and Johnson's excerpts, I'd like you to try three things:
  1. look up any unfamiliar terms, or familiar terms whose usage is unfamiliar, in the OED Online or in Merriam Webster or another collegiate dictionary;
  2. consider whether/how some of their claims remind you of the theorists we have read so far, in both units;
  3. consider how you might draw, schematize, or spatially demonstrate their argument.
You'll find helpful context in Rivkin/Ryan background on "Structuralism" and "Deconstruction" (53-55, 257-261).

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9/28 -- Derrida "Differance": 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:
  • Try writing in the margins as you follow all of the ways that Derrida defines "differance." 
  • Herrick's background essay should give you a good jump start on comprehending what Derrida writes. 
  • 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).

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9/26 -- Locke Essay Concerning Human Understanding

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 chapter for places where he seems to deal with your concept

Bring to class (word-processed, ~1 page, single-spaced) the results of your trace. As before, the format is open. You might provide a very full outline to show us how to read these pages for that 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 his treatise as part of your response. Please include the MLA citation for Essay Concerning Human Understanding and use in-text citations throughout your response where needed.

Have fun with this, if for no other reason than you have already done it once before!

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9/19 -- Cases: PETA, Banerjee, United Way

I have uploaded a PowerPoint slide show to our Blackboard site, called "agent/cy." This is one of the cases we'll discuss on Wednesday, but I highly recommend that you spend some time viewing it before class. The slide show offers several different genres, although all of the genres were at one time circulated in various public media, and they all represent some kind of public advocacy. Items are clearly labeled for their source, with the exception of the polar bear photograph, which is one of Subhankar Banerjee's.

I would really like to know whether you think any of these examples is justifiable in terms of Barton's or Welling's arguments. In other words, I'm not just asking you to determine whether you think these are legitimate examples of Barton's "disability discourse" or Welling's "ecopornography" (because most of them probably are). Instead, I am asking you to consider the possibilities and limitations of Barton's and Welling's arguments, and how these examples reflect what is possible or limited about their arguments. And of course, you are always invited to consider what this means for our understanding of agent/cy as a paradox (if it is).

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9/17 -- Barton "Textual Practices of Erasure" or Welling "Ecoporn": 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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9/14 -- Campbell "Promiscuous and Protean" (pp. 1-3, 6-14): Reading Questions

Before our discussion of Campbell today, I'd like to administer a brief quiz (about 10 minutes in length), to help us concretize our knowledge of some terms. Ahead of class, please take time to familiarize yourselves with the following terms, even considering how they might be (or have been) used. Bring your Bedford Glossary to class. You can also bring the handout called "Terms of Agent/cy" (I distributed it in class on 9/10). The quiz will include some of the following list:
  • Audience Construction
  • Author Function
  • Dialectic
  • Discourse
  • Episteme
  • Marxism
  • Marxist Criticism
  • New Criticism
  • Phenomenology
  • Power

Because we'll be discussing another brief case, and one that is directly mentioned in Campbell's article, I am not asking you to formally prepare questions in advance. However, I will ask you to consider the following as you read and prepare to join the discussion:
  1. If you were to look back over Burke, Aristotle, Barthes, Foucault, Ong, and Heilbrun, which of these theorists argues the most clearly about how or why agent/cy is a paradox?
  2. How does Campbell's examination of Sojourner Truth's text add a new or different dimension to that paradox (if you think it does)?
You'll find helpful context in Smith background on "Feminism in the Postmodern World" (337-342).

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9/12 -- Campbell Man Cannot Speak and Heilbrun Writing a Woman's Life
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 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
  • 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: Suffragist 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 page, word-processed and single-spaced) your dialogue. You may end up spilling over to a second 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 for both essays and use in-text citations throughout your response where needed. In other words, in the dialogue, they can quote themselves.

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9/10 -- Ong "The Writer's Audience is Always a Fiction": Reading Questions

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 Monday, to prepare for our discussion of Walter Ong's essay, I offer several reading questions to help you navigate your way through it:
  1. Ong's motives for writing are more relevant than you might think. He states it 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 2012, 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?
  2. 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?
  3. 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.") 
  4. If we have time, I may look at some trailers and their remakes, as well as a classic PBS Remix of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, specifically to test some of Ong's theories about audience construction and audience participation: 

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9/7 -- Foucault "What Is An Author?": Reading Questions
Here are some questions in advance of Friday's class. I will not ask you to hand in responses, but I highly encourage you to take some time to prepare:
  1. How does Foucault define “author,” “writer,” “text,” “discourse”? 
  2. For Foucault, writing is “absence” (906). What does this mean? 
  3. 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?
  4. He introduces the idea of “author-function”--do you think you can define it?
  5. Michel Foucault and Roland Barthes are not arguing the same thing, although they are arguing different things from the same phenomenological perspective. What does this mean?
You'll find helpful context in Richter background on "Foucault" (1326-1329) and Herrick background on "Foucault" (246-252).

Part of our class discussion on Friday will involve a case--the <September 11 digital archive>, which has already undergone several revisions since its <first construction>. Before Friday's class, please browse both archives (new and old) and consider some of their differences, especially in terms of authorship according to Barthes' and Foucault's understandings of author-function. Consider also their differences in terms of agency and power. Please bring the Glossary to class.

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9/5 -- Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics
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." When I read Aristotle's treatises, I find that "tracing" them for a specific concept helps me to understand more about the whole of his argument, and helps me to appreciate the various ways I can apply it.

In Nicomachean 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, makes assumptions about, or illustrates one of the following concepts:
  • happiness
  • character
  • Good/goodness
  • choice
  • virtue

Bring to class (~1 page, word-processed and single-spaced) the results of your trace. The format for your response is honestly quite open. You might provide an outline to show us how to read these pages for that 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. Feel free to note your own surprises or contradictions.

Please refer to specific passages from his treatise as part of your response. Please include the MLA citation for Nicomachean Ethics and use in-text citations throughout your response where needed.

Have fun with this -- we are all learning as we read!

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8/31 -- Barthes "The Death of the Author": Reading Questions

Here are some questions in advance of Friday's class. I will not ask you to hand in responses, but I highly encourage you to take some time to prepare:
  1. How does Barthes define "author," "writing," "writer," and "text"?
  2. What does "death" mean in this context--is it a literal death?
  3. What does it mean to be "born simultaneously with the text"?
  4. What impact does the concept of "author-death" have on our critical paradox Agent/cy? In other words, does it help us to more clearly define or obscure Agent/cy? Complicate or clarify? Align or malign?
  5. What five words or terms do you need disambiguated (defined) for you? Be sure to bring them to class.

Please bring the Glossary to class. Also, Friday's "case" will consist of postmodern fairy tales, primarily to help us consider how and when narratives challenge their own frames. How can we discern what is outside the author or text, or whether there is an outside to the author/text at all? If you are supremely interested in the definitive book on postmodern fairy tales, check out <this title> by Cristina Bacchilega!

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8/29 -- Burke "Equipment for Living" and Various Essays
Preparatory Exercise 1 (Schema of Rhetorical Theory) (20 points)

First, read Burke's essay (which I think you will enjoy), then select 1 of 3 options for introductory essays:
  • section 01 - choose between Brummett, Herrick, or Richards
  • section 02 - choose between Herrick, Kennedy, or Richards

Bring to class (in written form, ~1 page, word-processed and single-spaced) a schema of rhetorical theory from the point of view of the introductory essay. 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. 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?

You may construct a visual schema with text, if thinking visually would help you to complete this exercise. Whatever you do, please provide a concise but informative explanation of this hierarchy or organization in your own words, for an unfamiliar reader, and be sure to consider any nuances of the writer's approach. Include the MLA citation for your selected essay, and use in-text citations if you refer to specific passages from the essay in your schema.

Please be prepared to explain your schema during Wednesday's class, and to discuss how it does or does not intersect with Kenneth Burke's essay, "Equipment for Living."

Have fun with it!