Once again a wave is mounting of calls for alternative rhetorics--alternative, that is, to impersonal, academic making of claims and marshalling arguments and evidence to increase adherence to the claim. This time the rise of new, electronic media provides much of the impetus. The seminar will address these calls for "other ways of arguing" (as Berger might say).

We will begin by characterizing impersonal rhetoric in academic discourse, and then take up personal and visual rhetorics as they supplement or offer to displace traditional sources of authority. We will pursue similar contrasts between impersonal and personal documentary. We will look at hybrid types like autoethnography and ethnobiography and assess self-presentation as argument in issue-oriented weblogs. Finally, we will consider the adequacy of montage/collage/juxtaposition as alternative structures of argument.

Readings will include pieces by Susan Sontag, John Berger, and Clive Scott on images and narrative, Jurgen Habermas on personal expression and argument, David Kolb on argument in hypertext, Bill Nichols on documentary films, and a cluster of readings on identity, ethnicity, and social critique.

Written work will include two or three shorter analyses and comparisons of particular sites and issues and a final seminar paper addressing the issue of authority and persuasiveness in one text or site.