C511 -- Pre-Modern Rhetorical Theory

[note: this description is for general information only; students enrolled in the class should download a current course syllabus from Oncourse]

Description:  It is a well-worn assertion that much contemporary critical theory finds its roots in pre-modern rhetorical theory.  Perhaps a contemporary theorist was well-acquainted with pre-modern theory, or perhaps the contemporary theorist happens to be addressing problematics that parallel those addressed by the pre-moderns.  In any case, however, whatever confluences might be said to exist between contemporary and pre-modern theory are best understood as argumentative claims that are asserted, supported, critiqued, revised, accepted, and rejected.  And such connections are useful to the extent that they aid our ability to understand, critique, and intervene in contemporary public discourse in all of its multiple mediated forms.

In short, connections between contemporary critical theory and pre-modern rhetorical theory are, themselves, rhetorical artifacts, and they have value only insofar as they aid our own critical rhetorical production.  This course is intended to invite you to explore some of the parallels, confluences, and overlaps between contemporary critical theory and pre-modern rhetorical theory.  More specifically, this course invites you to assert such connections, argue in support of them, and demonstrate their value.

We will concentrate on the ancient texts, both in our readings and in our discussions.  These readings are supplemented on the syllabus by commentaries, analyses, and applications, but always the focuses of our discussions will be on the primary texts thoroughly.  I expect you to come to class prepared to discuss these texts; that is, I expect you to have formed some opinion about them that you are willing to support through detailed and direct evidence drawn from the reading itself.

The more provocative and speculative your assertions are and the more detailed and convincing your evidence is, the more stimulating and productive our discussions will be.  Always bear in mind, however, that our purpose in exploring these theoretical interconnections is to enhance our ability to make productive critical and rhetorical contributions to contemporary public culture.

Required Texts:

Josiah Ober, Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989).

John Poulakos, Sophistical Rhetoric in Classical Greece (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1995).

Rosamond Kent Sprague, ed., The Older Sophists (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2001).

Susan C. Jarratt, Rereading the Sophists: Classical Rhetoric Refigured (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1991).

Isocrates I, ed. M. Gagarin, trans. D. C. Mirhady and Y. L. Too, vol. 4, The Oratory of Classical Greece (Austin: University of Texas, 2000).

Aristotle, On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse, trans. G. A. Kennedy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991).

Cicero, De Oratore, Books I-II, trans. E. W. Sutton and H. Rackham, vol. 348, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1942).

Cicero, De Oratore, Book III, trans. H. Rackham, vol. 349, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1942).

Plato, Gorgias, trans. T. Irwin, Clarendon Plato Series (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979).

Plato, Phaedrus, trans. W. C. Helmbold and W. G. Rabinowitz (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1956).

Aristotle, Poetics, trans. S. Halliwell, vol. 199, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995) / Longinus, On the Sublime, trans. W. H. Fyfe, vol. 199, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995).  [both of these works appear in the same volume]

Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, trans. D. W. Robertson, Jr. (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1958).

 

Assignments:For the first four weeks of the semester, each class member will post to the Oncourse discussion forum a brief reaction to the readings.  These should be posted no later than 2:00pm on Monday afternoons (24 hours before the start of class).  All members of the class are responsible for reading all of these postings before class begins, and these postings will serve as the basis for our discussion.

Beginning on February 7, one class member each session will be required to make a brief presentation linking the pre-modern rhetorician on the syllabus to a contemporary (20th century or later) critical theorist.  This critical theorist may be associated with any academic field of study and any intellectual tradition, but should be generally familiar to the members of the class.  Naturally, the greater the apparent intellectual distance between the two theorists being compared the more stimulating the presentation will be.  These presentations should be substantive arguments that direct our reading of the text, illustrate the value of making such a connection, and stimulate our discussion.

The paper due at the end of the semester should be an elaboration and application of the ideas developed during the in-class presentation, though it may be a similar exercise linking the pre-modern and the contemporary on a topic different than the in-class presentation.  These papers should be between 10 and 15 pages in length, and should be submitted for presentation at an academic conference.

In any case, these papers must be motivated by an intention to improve, critique, alter, or intervene in some aspect of contemporary public rhetorical practice.  A project that fails to do so, as Cicero reminds us, eviscerates rhetoric by separating the tongue from the brain (De Oratore III xvi).  These papers, in other words, are not to be a merely academic exercise of comparison and contrast, but must instead make use of generative frictions between the ancient and the (post)modern as a ground from which to engage contemporary public culture rhetorically.

Grading:  Your grade for the semester depends upon the quality of this final essay and your participation in class discussion.

Incompletes: A grade of incomplete can be assigned only after the student and instructor have mutually agreed that this is the best course of action under the circumstances.

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