ENG 640: Contemporary Rhetorics

ENG 640 | Fall 2020 |
Dr. Marc C. Santos
Assistant Prof. of English
Office: Ross 1140B
Email: marc.santos@unco.edu
Twitter: @Oisin16
Discord: dr-santosis#1837

Catalogue Course Description

This course surveys 20th and 21st century rhetorical theory, paying particular attention to how postmodern theory resonates with ancient sophistry (or, at least, 20th century interpretations of ancient sophistry) and how ecological and (new) materialist theories expand rhetoric’s scope beyond the semantic/discursive and into realms of affect, embodiment, and network relations.

Introductory Riffs

Three words I have carried with me for sometime: righting, writing, and riting. In rhetorical theory we more commonly signify them as “epistemology,” “language,” and “praxis.” The University is the scene where students come to engage the right rites, which often include writing. They are subjected to the proper subjects, which in terms subjects them as subjects of their subject. Especially all of you, since the subject of your subject is writing, and the rites of writing right. And so on.

I would call attention to two articles on the syllabus. The first is Vitanza’s “Abandoned to Writing: Notes Toward Several Provocations.” Vitanza argues that as a discipline Rhetoric and Composition is afraid of W-R-I-T-I-N-G as so chooses to teach writing. Writing, as opposed to W-R-I-T-I-N-G, can be ontologized, commodified, packaged, and exchanged. You can sell it in a textbook, and assess it with a test. In Levinas’s language, writing can be said (whereas writing’s other remains in the realm of saying, an action/entity/other/alterity that cannot be known/objectified/signified). In Foucault’s language, writing can be disciplined in ways W-R-I-T-I-N-G cannot. Writing, in other words, can be righted and rited-or, better yet, writing can be righted through the right written rites. Rites that can be commodified. Rites that can be used to maintain racist power discrepancies. Etc. Point: in examining how institutions art.I.cul(c)ate writing (subjects), we gain insight into how they conceptualize the relationship between same/other, how they recognize or suppress their logocentric power, how they conceptualize human relation to truth/power, logos/ethos.

The second article I would point to is Muckelbauer’s “Through Foucault’s Resistance.” In response over academic debates (rites, language games, to anticipate Lyotard) attempting to write the right Foucault, Muckelbauer urges us to use Foucault productively (to move beyond the limiting epistemological boundary of right/wrong). Ultimately, the goal is not to reproduce the right, proper, True Foucault (and thus render him an ontological, commodified, packaged thing ready for exchange, aligning the speaker with the proper constellation of epistemological power, to maintain the system-of-meanings as they exist) but rather to turn my experience with Foucault into something new (“to speak is to fight”). Again, in thinking through Levinas’s language, the point is not to say what Foucault said, but to unsay it through an idiosyncratic, emergent (act of) saying. The ultimate value isn’t as a true/right representation of Foucault, but rather as a productive purposing–using a possible (mis)understanding of Foucault in order to productively (mis)understand something else. And recognize that Foucault will always be–no matter the intensity of our epistemological desire to control–F-O-U-C-A-U-L-T.

To Kristeva:

“To worry or to smile, such is the choice when we are assailed by the strange; our decision depends on how familiar we are with our own ghosts.” (Strangers to Ourselves, 191).

The way we treat words correlates to the way we treat humans, trees, and pandemics.

This is my approach to reading complicated theory. To many, it will matter that you get the theory “right.” But this need not be the only way we evaluate encounters with dense, theoretical texts. We can also ask: what did this struggle produce? What has it allowed me to see? Regardless of whether that is what you were “supposed” to see.

This course stems from my attempt to (mis)understand these two articles, and a few more, while showing how the ethos of contemporary rhetoric is caught up in rejecting the Platonic and Modern notions of ethos grounded in and subservient to logos. And highlighting how institutions/systems/networks/spaces dear to us, English departments, writing classrooms, the United States of America, etc, are drifting in this shift.

Let’s imagine, for a moment, that the course has a few other goals. Those might include:

• Surveying the history of postmodern theory and its integrations into Rhetoric and Composition. This is particularly important since R/C “came” to PoMo via Cultural Studies and the work of James Berlin. What complications does both PoMo and Berlin introduce for the teaching of writing? In what ways did Berlin’s (un)saying of postmodern theory, influenced by his own particular investments in a particular approach to cultural studies, impact the way(s) Rhetoric and Composition inherited postmodern questions and ideas (particularly ideas about agency and subjectivity)?
• Acknowledging that we are moving past postmodern theory into new avenues of investigation. What do these new avenues borrow from the last half of the 20th century? What are their new, particular concerns? As rhetorical theory becomes more influenced by posthumanism and new materialism, enmeshed in mapping, location, emergence, kairos, and context, then we should pay particular attention to the values of the contexts in which we operate (both the University and the discipline).
• Arguing that postmodernity has been overdetermined according to poststructuralism. Not everything in postmodern theory can be reduced to language (a common critique leveled against it by new materialist and object-oriented theorists)-nor is postmodern theory in any way “a-political,” concerned only with abstract ontological and epistemological questions. In fact, I want to argue that strains of this theory are dedicated to ethics, that the shift into the postmodern (and into whatever is now replacing it?) is rooted in supplanting the primacy of epistemology (logos) with ethics (ethos, in a sophistic sense).
• Recognizing the role a post-post modern rhetoric is playing and might play in our ever inclusive, expanding and shrinking (the internet brings us together? Or pushes us apart–does the world feel bigger or smaller, etc) world. Specifically: how can rhetoric help us “fix” our political divisiveness before we start killing each other (this is not hyperbole). How can it help us “fix” our racial, gender, sexual, economic, and physical inequalities?

But what of the term “postmodern?” I was careful-and rhetorical-in my choice to exclude it from this course’s title. The term feels like it has overstayed its welcome, even if its questions to us continue to go either unanswered or unattended, or both. Some, like Bruno Latour and Graham Harman, are openly hostile to the term (though for almost entirely antithetical reasons, reasons we will explore this semester). How can we understand their hostilities? Twin goals for this course: both to introduce you to postmodernism and to explore how contemporary theorists are shifting to new problems and methods. That is, to recognize postmodern theory as an intellectual inheritance (and no longer as an active project). This is not to say that I think postmodern theory has exhausted itself, or is no longer relevant to our world. I’m trying to walk a tricky line here–acknowledging how our contemporary academic landscape has moved into new areas while also highlighting the affordances and relevance of our not-too-distant past.

In Archive Fever Derrida sums up what he perceives as the impact of deconstruction in a simple sentence. Writing immediately of the instability surrounding the ontological classifications and categories used to sort Freud’s numerous writings in a new Freudian archive, Derrida writes:

In each of these cases, the limits, the borders, and the distinctions have been shaken by an earthquake from which no classificational concept and no implementation of the archive can be sheltered. Order is no longer assured.

The former sentence echoes the much younger Derrida of “Sign, Structure and Play”-a brazen Derrida who duplicitously discloses his “shock” at the terrible, monstrous progeny to which his essay gives birth. No truth, muha, ha, ha. That Derrida loves the destruction in deconstruction. But it is the latter sentence, I believe, that speaks to an older, wiser, more cautious Derrida. It is a simple sentence made all the more powerful by what it doesn’t say. It doesn’t say we can live without order. It doesn’t say we no longer desire order. It only says-and this, I believe, is the unifying thread of all the readings we will encounter this semester–that there is no absolute foundation upon which one can construct an order (let alone the order). We are without a transcendental right, without the comfort of unquestionable assurance. But this does not mean we live without right, only without assurance. We must–to emphasize the construction in deconstruction–ever rebuild the Jenga tower. Rhetoric has always identified itself with chance, risk, the probable. Rhetoric has (always?) embrace chaotic, unpredictable construction (often in opposition to a world of immutable, idealist, truths). Rhetoric asks how we can write rites that do not necessarily aim to be Right.

Latour writes (har har) in “Why Has Critique Run Out of Steam” that he hopes to cultivate

[…] an entirely different attitude than the critical [destructive postmodern] one, not a flight into the conditions of possibility of a given matter of fact [can order be assured? Why can’t it? The ontological/epistemological angels dancing on the end of a pin], not the addition of something more human that the inhumane matters of fact would have missed, but, rather, a multifarious inquiry launched with the tools of anthropology, philosophy, metaphysics, history, sociology to detect how many participants are gathered in a thing to make it exist and maintain its existence [and that, friends, might be the most sophistic-ated definition of ethos I’ve read]. (2004b, 245-46)

This, I believe is a critical passage to understand how materialist theories (Latour, Harman, Bennett, Haraway) prioritize ethos: to understand that existence is produced/maintained/predicated upon relations. Contemporary rhetorics are grounded in the study of our relations, in the ways in which discursivity, praxis, and/or materiality play in maintaining an ethos that precedes and shapes logos. Networks are/as/and ethos all the way down.

Let me jump ahead to where I will hope to end this course: I want to propose that, without a transcendental right (but, contra Latour in light of Levinas, in the shadow of transcendence), rhetoric becomes the art of attuning oneself to our responsibility for others. It is a recognition of the role others (human and non) play in our constitution. It is recognizing the chance relations that sustain us. It is growing comfortable with ambiguity, alterity, and possibility.

I want to believe in the possibility of a rhetorical ethics. In the Phaedrus, Plato argues that to be a rhetorician is to master one’s audience, to know their souls better than they do themselves. I find this troubling, the very idea that we would believe we can know the other so totally. It sets a dangerous path–one that ends with demagoguery and, ultimately, justifies the most horrific symbolic and physical violences. But I ask optimistically: Is it possible to take the analytical arts once dedicated to changing the other, persuading her and apply them to altering the disposition of the self toward the other (or toward the Other?)? Can we come to recognize, or maybe prioritize, reliance, responsibility, and caring?

Course Materials

Here’s the books you will need.

• Readings, Bill. 1996. University in Ruins
• Latour, Bruno. Pandora’s Hope
• Levinas, Emmanuel. 1995. Ethics and Infinity
• Lyotard, Jean-Francois. 1984. The Postmodern Condition
• Roberts-Miller, Patricia. 2019. Rhetoric and Demagoguery
• Ore, Ersula J. 2019. Lynching: Violence, Rhetoric, and American Identity
• Kendi. 2019. How to be an Anti-Racist
• Blankenship. 2019. Changing the Subject: A Theory of Rhetorical Empathy
• Glenn, Cheryl. 2018. Rhetorical Feminism and This Thing Called Hope

Additional Readings

Additionally, you will select and read one 21st century text. Every time I teach this course, I conclude with 3-5 recently published books that pick up the course themes and promise to move rhetoric in productive directions. I’d like you to select one of these texts (if you would like to read a different text, let me know):

• Bennett, Vibrant Matter (exploring why we need to and how we can interrupt humanism’s monopoly on agency)
• Bogost, Persuasive Games (Bogost’s procedural rhetoric builds on rhetorics of interpellation and performativity)
• Brooke, Colin. Lingua Fracta (how digital technology might reshape the traditional canons of rhetoric)
• Bryant, The Democracy of Objects (for anyone interested in new materialism, object-oriented ontology, speculative realism, Latour)
• Butler, Judith. Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly. (performativity, public rhetorics, and materiality)
• Cavarero, 2005. For More than One Voice: Toward a Philosophy of Vocal Expression (articulating a feminist/rhetorical/ethical project by reorienting philosophy around lisenting rather than speaking)
• Davis, D. Diane. 2010. Innessential Solidarity (Developing a Levinasian rhetoric)
• Harman, Graham. Prince of Networks: Bruno Latour and Metaphysics (Harman offers an interpretation of Latour in stark opposition to postmodern theory–an interpretation that Latour has debated)
• Hawk, Byron. A Counter-History of Composition (a reconsideration of vitalism that applies complexity theory to the composition classroom
• Rice, Jeff. Digital Detroit (for anyone interested in place/space, affect, the role of the personal in research and writing)
• Rice, Jenny. Distant Publics (developing a material and ecological practice for public engagement, “social inquiry as public action”)
• Rickert, Thomas. Acts of Enjoyment (analyzing the problematics of Cultural Studies pedagogy via Lacan and Zizek; highly recommended for those interested in critical pedagogy))
• Rickert, Thomas. Ambient Rhetoric (a Heideggerian spin on new materialist/ecological/contextual rhetorical theory)
• Ulmer, Gregory. Electronic Monuments (how Derridean poststructuralism can ground digital heuristics/rhetoric )

Major Assignments

Paper Day Papers
Compose and deliver 3 papers to the class. Papers will be one page, single-spaced legal size paper (yes, I know how inconvenient this is. I wrote around 12 of these papers while in grad school; I will fill the office printer with paper for you). Beyond providing summary, these papers will focus on putting course readings into conversation, tracing out relationships between the various thinkers and commentaries studied in class. Students will provide a copy of their paper to each of their classmates. These papers are expected to be at least 1200 words each. Font size must be nine or higher. Your second paper will incorporate your 20th century selection from above. Your third paper will incorporate your 21st century selection.

Forum Participation

I will post a weekly forum question by Friday. Forum posts are due at 3:00 before Tuesday night’s class (that way I can read them before class starts and use them to develop discussion prompts).

Post approximately 500 words to our online forum each week. I expect two posts–a 300 or so word post focusing on a specific passage in the readings and a 200 or so word response to someone else’s post.

Class Participation

I will expect everyone to participate in weekly discussions. Come to class prepared with both 1) a comment to make regarding a specific passage in the reading and 2) a question regarding a specific passage in the reading. I will evaluate participation after every class session and email you if I believe you need to be more involved in class discussion.

Grading

• Paper One: 12%
• Paper Two: 20%
• Paper Three: 30%
• Forum Posts: 15%
• Class Participation: 15%

Late Work

Of course, while I expect all work to be turned in on time, I recognize that life happens. I will accept paper day papers up to one week after their due date with a letter grade penalty. I will accept papers up to 30 days late for a two grade penalty. Papers more than 8 days late will be graded and returned without feedback.

Attendance

Let’s talk COVID. Obviously, attendance is critical to a graduate course. But, more than ever, things are out of our control this semester. If you feel you are unable to make class, please stay home. We can Zoom / conference call you into class.

We will discuss this further on our first night of class.

I will excuse any absences for major religious observances provided I am notified of them within the first two weeks of the semester.

Disability Resources

It is the policy and practice of the University of Northern Colorado to create inclusive learning environments. If there are aspects of the instruction or design of this course that present barriers to your inclusion or to an accurate assessment of your achievement (e.g. time-limited exams, inaccessible web content, use of videos without captions), please communicate this with your professor and contact Disability Resource Center (DRC) to request accommodations. 
Office: (970) 351-2289, Michener Library L-80. Students can learn more here: www.unco.edu/disability-resource-center

Food Insecurity and Basic Needs

Research shows that college students experience food insecurity at higher rates than the American household rate, and that food insecurity can negatively impact academic performance and persistence. In recognition of this problem, UNC offers assistance to students facing food insecurity through an on- campus food pantry. The Bear Pantry is located in University Center 2166A, and is open for regular hours throughout the semester. Please visit www.unco.edu/bear-pantry for more information.

Any student who faces challenges securing their food or housing and believes this may affect their performance in the course is also urged to contact Student Outreach and Support (SOS) for assistance. SOS can assist students during difficult circumstances which may include medical, mental health, personal or family crisis, illness or injury. SOS can be reached at sos@unco.edu or via phone at 970-351-2796.

Academic Integrity

You are expected to practice academic honesty in every aspect of this course. Students who engage in academic misconduct are subject to grading consequences with regard to this course and/or university disciplinary procedures through the Office of Community Standards and Conflict Resolution.

Title IX

The University of Northern Colorado is committed to providing a safe learning environment for all students that is free of all forms of discrimination and sexual harassment, including sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence, and stalking. If you (or someone you know) has experienced or experiences any of these incidents, know that you are not alone. UNC has staff members trained to support you in navigating campus life, accessing health and counseling services, providing academic and housing accommodations, helping with legal protective orders, and more.

Please be aware all UNC faculty and most staff members are “responsible employees,” which means that if you tell a faculty member about a situation involving sexual harassment, sexual assault, dating violence, domestic violence, or stalking, they must share that information with the Title IX Coordinator, Larry Loften. Larry or a trained staff member in the Office of Institutional Equity and Compliance (OIEC) will contact you to let you know about accommodations and support services at UNC as well as your options for pursuing a process to hold accountable the person who harmed you. You are not required to speak with OIEC staff regarding the incident; your participation in OIEC processes are entirely voluntary.

If you do not want the Title IX Coordinator notified, instead of disclosing this information to your instructor, you can speak confidentially with the following people on campus and in the community. They can connect you with support services and help explore your options now, or in the future.

• UNC’s Assault Survivors Advocacy Program (ASAP): 24 Hr. Hotline 970-35-4040 or www.unco.edu/asap
• UNC Counseling Center: 970-351-2496 or www.unco.edu/counseling
• UNC Psychological Services: 970-351-1645 or www.unco.edu/cebs/psych_clinic
• If you are a survivor or someone concerned about a survivor, or if you would like to learn more about sexual misconduct or report an incident, please visit www.unco.edu/sexual-misconduct or contact the Office of Institutional Equity and Compliance (970-351-4899). OIEC is located on the third floor of the University Center in room 3060.
  

  Equity and Inclusion Statement

  The University of Northern Colorado embraces the diversity of students, faculty, and staff, honors the inherent dignity of each individual, and welcomes their unique perspectives, behaviors, and world views. In this course, people of all races, religions, national origins, sexual orientations, ethnicities, genders and gender identities, cognitive, physical, and behavioral abilities, socioeconomic backgrounds, regions, immigrant statuses, military or veteran statuses, size and/or shapes are strongly encouraged to share their rich array of perspectives and experiences. Course content and campus discussions will heighten your awareness to each other’s individual and intersecting identities. If you would like to report an incident or learn more about identity-based discrimination/harassment, please visit www.unco.edu/institutional-equity-compliance

  Calendar

  This is less subject to change than most of my other course calendars.

  Section One: Past Foundations (Epistemology and Ethics)
  Week One: Instituting Modernity
  Herrick, “What is Rhetoric”?
  Kant, “An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?”
  Readings, University in Ruins, chapters 4 and 5
  Lanham, “The Q Question”

  Week Two: Instituting Postmodernity
  Lyotard, Postmodern Condition
  Readings, UiR chapters 8 and 11

  Week Three: Heidegger’s Poetics and Technics
  Heidegger, “Question Concerning Technology”
  Worsham, “Question Concerning Invention”

  Week Four: Levinas’s (ethical) Response to Heidegger (‘s logos)
  Levinas, Ethics and Infinity
  Levinas, “Philosophy, Justice, Love” from Entre Nous
  Levinas “Seperation and Discourse” from Totality and Infinity
  Jim Corder, “Argument as Emergence, Rhetoric as Love”

  Week Five: First Paper Day
  Hi ho, hi ho, it is off to listen we go.

  Section Two: The Postmodern Legacy
  Week Six: Postmodern Freedom Rock
  Read three of the following, at least one marked by an *. Feel free to suggest additions to the list by email prior to week five. I’ve read the texts below and have a working knowledge of their arguments and significance. I need some time to read anything you want to add.

  Barthes “Death of the Author”*
  Burke “Terministic Screens”
  Burke “Definition of Man”
  Cixous “Laugh of the Medusa”
  Derrida “Sign, Structure and Play”*
  Derrida “Signature, Event, Context”
  Foucault “What is an Author”*
  Foucault “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History”
  Foucault “Intellectuals and Power”
  Foucault “Essay on Discourse”*
  Haraway, “Cyborg Manifesto”*
  Heidegger, “Letter on Humanism”
  Heidegger, “Building Dwelling Thinking”
  Heidegger, “The Way to Language”*
  Irigaray, “The Question of the Other”
  Irigaray, “The Wandering of Man”
  Irigaray, “Women’s Exile”
  hooks “Postmodern Blackness”
  Horkheimer & Adorno “The Culture Industry as Mass Deception”
  Kristeva, “Women’s Time”
  Levinas, “The Thinking of Being and the Question of the Other”
  Rorty “The Contingency of Language”
  Spivak, “Can the Sub-Altern Speak?”*
  West “Black Culture and Postmodernism”

  Week Seven: Berlin and Vitanza; Or, Two Competing Postmodernisms
  Berlin, Rhetoric, Poetics, Cultures
  Vitanza, Negation, Subjectivity, and the History of Rhetoric (1-24).
  Vitanza, “Abandoned to Writing: Notes Toward Several Provocations”

  Week Eight: A Small Canon of (Postmodern?) Rhetorical Theory
  Edbauer, “Unframing Models of Public Distribution: From Rhetorical Situation to Rhetorical Ecologies”
  Hawhee, “Rhetoric, Bodies, and Everyday Life”
  Jarratt “The First Sophists and Feminism: Discourses of the ‘Other’”
  Mucklebauer, “On Reading Differently: Through Foucault’s Resistance”
  Sullivan and Porter, selections from Opening Spaces on feminist research practices
  http://eng5010.pbworks.com/f/jp4.pdf (affective vs. social)

  Week Nine: Postmodern / Rhetorical Teaching
  Royster, “When the First Voice You Hear Is Not Your Own”
  Rickert, “Hands Up, You’re Free”
  Sirc, “Writing Classrooms as A&P Parking Lot”
  Kopelson, “Rhetoric on the Edge of Cunning”

  Week Ten: Paper Day #2
  Happy, happy. Joy, joy.

  Section Three: Contemporary Directions
  Over the next 5 weeks we will read 4 new books to see how they resonate with the traditions and tensions I have laid out over the first ⅔’s of our course.

  Week Eleven: Bruno Latour’s Materialism
  Selections from Pandora’s Hope, We Have Never Been Modern, and “Why Has Critique Run Out of Steam”?

  Week Twelve: Blankenship
  Blankenship, Changing the Subject: A Theory of Rhetorical Empathy

  Week Thirteen: Glenn
  Glenn, Rhetorical Feminism and This Thing Called Hope

  Week Fourteen: Ore
  Ore, Lynching: Violence, Rhetoric, and American Identity
  Kendi, How to be Anti-Racist

  Week Fifteen: Roberts-Miller
  Roberts-Miller, Rhetoric and Demagoguery

  Week Sixteen: Discussion Week
  Finals Week: Paper Day #3
  Parting is such sweet sorrow.