C615 -- Rhetoric of Protest in America

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

Description: The study of protest discourse in the United States is characterized by three central dilemmas.  First, we are a nation founded in protest, and we repeatedly affirm that the right to protest is important to our political culture; at the same time, protest often is treated as an aberration.  Second, protest can be an important symptom of cultural crisis, directing attention and resources to issues that might not otherwise emerge into public consciousness; however, this instrumental function of protest discourse too often deflects attention away from the constitutive potential of the discourse itself.  And third, because protest discourse often presents a resistance to established categories, a traditional theoretical vocabulary can sometimes mask its significant characteristics.

Mindful of these dilemmas, this course is intended to provide both a forum in which we may discuss some key exemplars of American protest rhetoric and a critical vocabulary to inform and guide that discussion.  We will consider "public discourse" broadly, as referring to speeches, documents, essays, pamphlets, novels, and documentary films.  Indeed, we will consider "protest" broadly, as referring in some cases to texts not ordinarily considered under the heading.  Of course, the course is not intended to provide an exhaustive survey of American protest -- such as survey would be impossible and, worse, useless.  And neither does the reading list purport to consist of the most influential or widely-studied exemplars.  Rather, we focus our attention on texts that embody and deploy the topics, tropes, figures, and strategies characteristic of American protest.

To discipline a discourse of protest under existing "methods" or "theories" is to eviscerate it, eliding its potential cultural impact rather than evaluating or amplifying it.  Thus, our texts are accompanied by heuristic vocabularies intended function as topoi, or starting places, from which to bring into relief their salient rhetorical characteristics.  The suggested connections are not intended as a set of immutable categories; as we progress through the semester, it should become evident that any of these texts could be considered in relation to any of these analytical terms, and indeed that the analytical vocabularies themselves have a tendency to fade into one another.  This subversive ambiguity and rampant intertextuality characterizes American protest discourse, and we should explore these phenomenon as carefully as we do the individual texts.

Required Books

David Walker, Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World (Hill and Wang, 1995).

Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (any edition will do).

W. E. B. Du Bois, Souls of Black Folk (any edition will do).

Lakoff, George.  Don't Think of an Elephant!: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate: The Essential Guide for Progressives (Chelsea Green, 2004).

Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards, Manifesta (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000).

Ann Coulter, Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism (Crown Forum, 2003).

Linda Hutcheon, Irony's Edge (Routledge, 1994).

Kevin DeLuca, Image Politics (L. Erlbaun Associates, 1999).

Other Materials

Further readings will be placed on Electronic Reserves <http://ereserves.indiana.edu/>.  Access requires a password, which I will give to you on the first day of class. Some materials are available as "html" files over the Internet.  In these cases, a "URL" is provided on the paper version of the syllabus, and a link is provided on E-Reserves.

Assignments

Facilitations:  Each week, members of the class will be assigned the task of facilitating class discussion.  You will work in pairs, and assignments for facilitations will be made on the first day of class.  I encourage inventiveness in these facilitations; your job is to encourage engagement with the text(s) through whatever strategies you deem appropriate.  At minimum, however, these facilitations should make use of course materials to present a "reading" of the text(s) under consideration -- that is, you should present an analysis and argue for its significance.  You also should provide a handout with a half-dozen questions for discussion and a brief list of related resources.

On-Line Discussions:  During the weeks when you are not facilitating discussion, you are required to contribute a reading response to the discussion forum in Oncourse.  These should be posted at least 24 hours before the start of class, so that each member of the class has the opportunity to read and respond to the comments.  These responses may consist of a "reading" of the text(s) or some part thereof, a series of questions, a "dialogue" between two or more of the assigned texts, or any other sort of counterstatement.  The purpose here is to raise provocative issues that the other class members, including the designated facilitators, can come to class prepared to address.

Presentation:  The last scheduled day of the seminar is set aside as a time for each member of the class to present a brief summary of their final project for the course.  The presumption is that the essay will be thoroughly drafted and its arguments well-developed by this point in the semester.

Essay:  This is to be a scholarly engagement with some exemplar of American protest discourse.  In keeping with the spirit of the course, both "discourse" and "protest" may be conceived broadly -- though you are required to meet with me early in the semester to discuss your proposed project.  The essay should be approximately 12-15 pages in length, and should be potentially publishable; at the very least, I expect that essays written for this course will be presented at a scholarly convention.  On Friday, March 9th (the Friday before Spring Break), you are required to turn in a five-page (maximum) prospectus which details the purpose and rationale of your essay.

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.

BACK TO ROBERT TERRILL'S HOMEPAGE