Rhetoric often is cast as a productive art, empowering individuals as
articulate participants in public culture.  But rhetoric is studied
today primarily as an interpretive art.  And the domain of rhetorical
interpretation has been expanded well beyond a primary concern with
persuasive oratory to include popular and documentary film, public
performances, and scientific discourse.

Of course, this globalization of rhetoric raises the question:  if
rhetoric is everywhere, then can it mean anything?  Our purpose in
this course is to begin to develop an answer to this question by
contextualizing the practical art of rhetorical criticism with and
against other modes of critical interpretation.  We will discuss the
ways that rhetorical interpretation differs from and contributes to
that practiced by film scholars, ethnographers, historians, or
literary critics, and the ways that critical practice in general can
be enriched by a rhetorical perspective.

The course will follow two intersecting and closely related
organizational schemes, as key moments in the continually developing
history of rhetorical criticism are juxtaposed against exemplars from
other critical traditions.

Our goal will be to hone and complexify skills in textual analysis,
and thus to contribute to interpretive density and flexibility.
Regardless of our preferred area of study, we all engage in textual
analysis at one level or another, so the course is designed to
accommodate students with a relatively broad range of interests and
backgrounds.  (In other words, it ain’t just for rhetoricians.)

Students will engage the critical attitudes presented during the
semester as they compose and revise a well-developed critical essay.
The object of study may be almost any artifact of public discourse —
film, speech, performance, novel, legal decision, autobiography,
television broadcast, etc. — but the finished essay should represent
an integral part of the student’s overall research program.