Rhetoric!?! What exactly is rhetoric and why should you care about it?

This course hopes to answer that question.

In this senior capstone, students will receive an overview of rhetorical theory before training their rhetorical lenses on various urban case studies to investigate how people use rhetoric to respond to and intervene in various social issues. We will look to art, public policy, citizen activism, and the media as sites where rhetorical action can be observed.

We’ll begin by dispelling (or at least complicating) rhetoric’s bad rap—as mere ornamentation; as distraction from “real” knowledge; as a dangerous means of obscuring truth; and as empty, meaningless mumbo jumbo.

In the sparest terms, rhetoric is the strategic use of language and symbols to get things done in the world (and the study of these uses). Rhetorical action is the timely, situated, opportunistic, and creative use of discourse (language, symbols, images, words) to discover timely ways to respond to situations that require action or change; to re-describe the terms of an argument in order to establish greater consensus or to galvanize broader support; and to locate and invent ways of understanding social issues and acting within them that are more just, effective, and/or beneficial to specific people living in concrete social spaces. Clearly, there will be no agreement on what a “good” use of rhetoric is, which actions lead to a greater “public good” for all; or what the content of justice might be. Rather than supplying answers for you on these matters, I hope to place you within the nuances, complexities, contradictions, and messiness of everyday situations and ask you to consider for yourselves what it might mean to respond effectively. Ideally, final projects will offer such a response to a social issue that you find salient.

Finally, Senior Capstone courses typically engage students in projects that showcase the culmination of skills, knowledge, and experiences that have been gathered throughout their time at the university. Building on your interests and expertise, this course challenges you to consider how these interests might manifest in a creative and intellectually rigorous project that enacts rhetorical action, “caps” off your time at UW, and launches you into the next phase of your career and life.

Texts:

Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students by Sharon Crowley and Debra Hawhee
A course pack of readings