This course compares the devalued role of rhetoric in liberal and
deliberative models of democracy, which conceptualize democracy as a
diseased and dangerous practice that needs to be disciplined by elites
and contained by universal reason, to the privileged role of rhetoric
in participatory and agonistic models of a robust democratic culture
in which differences are respected and divisions are bridged
sufficiently to accommodate a pluralistic polity of consubstantial
rivals.

Readings compare the Athenian experience of direct democracy to the
American experience of representative democracy, discuss the
relationship of liberalism to democracy in U.S. political culture,
contrast strong and weak models of democracy, examine the rise of the
rhetorical republic and the role of rhetoric in public deliberation,
probe the radical democratic imaginary, and critique theories of
democratization and universal peace that serve to suppress difference
and rationalize empire.

The course emphasizes discussion of assigned readings.  The major
writing assignment for the term is a grounded theory paper which draws
on the assigned readings and the course bibliography to advance an
original thesis on the potential of rhetorical discourse for enriching
democratic culture.

A basic outline for the course, including the kinds of readings that
will be assigned, is a available at  http://www.indiana.edu/~ivieweb/
demrhet.htm.  This outline will be revised over the summer and,
therefore, should NOT be considered as the actual syllabus for the
course nor as an exact listing of the books that will be ordered