Category Archives: rhetoric

Rhetoric & Gaming – Introduction

Week One / Class One Look, we’re in the news! Let’s go over the syllabus. Let’s talk about video games a bit. And let’s introduce the first project. I will do this by asking something(s) that has nothing to do … Continue reading

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Cooper and Edbauer

My undergrad semniar in rhetorical theory is coming to a close–it has been a great semester, even if it involved more lecturing that I would have wanted. My students are currently working on research projects; the following is a quick … Continue reading

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Messiness as a Virtue

I’m re-reading Weinberger’s Everything is Miscellaneous today for my New Media class and really appreciating his chapter “Messiness as a Virtue.” Two passages worth sharing (i.e., remembering): Simplicity was the only reasonable strategy before we developed machines that can handle … Continue reading

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Question and Answer

On Facebook, someone asks: “Come on people, is it so hard to have manners?” I would say “yes” because having manners rests on a recognition and prioritization of the other person. So much of our contemporary technological life aims at … Continue reading

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Colbert, Citizens United, and Irony

Apparently I live under some kind of rock, because today was the first I heard of Steven Colbert’s PAC. There’s a short article over at Slate documenting Colbert’s attack on the Supreme Court’s Citizen’s United decision. A few random thoughts: … Continue reading

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Web writing, postpedagogy, social expressivism, and Grassi

Leahy and I have been writing an article on web writing. Here’s one of my conclusions (I think I have 3 write now) for the theory section: We began this explication of social expressivism by highlighting Socratic traces in Elbow’s … Continue reading

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Joe Paterno’s Apology

I’ve seen a number of posts dealing with Paterno on Facebook today. I’ll admit my knowledge of the subject is a bit sketchy–coming mostly from a few minutes of Dan Patrick’s radio program the past few days. From what I … Continue reading

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Zakaria and Political Reality

I missed a post yesterday, so two posts today. First, a brief comment on Zakarias’ article “How Conservatism Has Lost Touch with Reality. A friend has a rather scathing response to Zakarias over at his blog, arguing that Zakarias is … Continue reading

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What is Rhetoric?

Our FYC program writes and publishes their own textbook every year. This year, they asked me to write a short introduction addressing what rhetoric is and why one might study it. Here’s my answer (probably rife with errors, it could … Continue reading

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St. Augustine of Hippo

Even in 400 AD people were in too much of a hurry: Careful consideration of many other such things (which can be done by those who are not hard-pressed by the need to finish a book!) reveals that the basic … Continue reading

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