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I first taught Contemporary Rhetorical Theory 40 years ago this fall. Our reading material was quite different then. We had earlier editions of Kenneth Burke, Richard Weaver’s Ethics of Rhetoric, Stephen Toulmin, and the just published Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca. Michele Foucault was writing in French and Jürgen Habermas in German, but neither were woven into the fabric of Contemporary Rhetorical Theory. We read a lot of secondary literature that was of the “Let me introduce you to . . .” variety.
Nevertheless, the problem that was compelling the study of CRT was vital. It was the era known typically as the ‘60s. Traditional understandings of rhetoric, rather narrowly based in simple theories of persuasion, were under siege. Systematic study of the voluminous discourse that formed the atmosphere of that time required innovative strategies. We were in search of theories that allowed us to go meaningfully to our world. We were seekers trying to organize a new terrain. And we were trying to do so not by “turning a different way” but by widening our gaze, by seeing additional ways to understand rhetoric.
Here we are 40 years later. We can look back now and see the revolution in rhetorical study that was just underway then. But the danger is that we will see this course as a “History of Rhetorical Theory,” recounting a past as archaic as the Sophists. That would be a mistake. There is a trajectory that has brought us to today, but the path ahead is still one in which we need to work to provide theoretical perspective for innovative approaches. I just returned from the Kenneth Burke Conference. The innovative power of Burke remains stimulative to very smart people. Kenneth Burke was not a moment in the history of rhetorical theory; he was the opening of an innovative way of seeing the world that we are still applying to problems of today that are very different than in 1974. Our problems have changed and our vistas have opened wider. So, our task this semester is to broaden the way you think about rhetoric. We want to be in 2014, standing on the shoulders of those who have widened our gaze, and seeing where their ideas lead us in our time. This task is what makes our reading list so much richer today.
What is the alternative to history? It is trajectory. Your task is to understand the innovative moves that opened new vistas and to project them into the problems of our time. On each, ask: Where is this move going today? What questions compel us to follow its potential?
Having widened your gaze, let me then suggest how to focus it a bit. In the last half of the twentieth century, because of the activity I have just explained, rhetorical study attained an importance it had not enjoyed since classical Greece and Rome. The discovery of that half century was the importance of human symbolic activity in making human action. Often called “the linguistic turn,” the interest in rhetoric was startlingly clear throughout the intellectual estate. Contemporary rhetorical theory became an interdisciplinary activity with people contributing from a dozen academic disciplines. There were a number of problems on which these various scholars were working: the shape of human sociality, the strength of human culture, and the intricate role of the power of human speech in the complex societies of our time.
In the twenty-first century, does that ecumenical interest in rhetorical theory continue? Most assuredly. We live in a time of transition from the mass to dispersed patterns of communication, and a time when the orientation of our problems and opportunities transcends national boundaries all the way to the local. At such a time, the role of symbolic forms in motivating and directing human lives permeates the texture of the world within which we live. Understanding and negotiating this transformation in the modes of communication requires that criticism and invention are working out the possibilities of our underlying theories.
And perhaps that is the key: the work we do – with artifacts, with construal of rhetorical action, with ways of understanding socio-cultural reality, with action to change or defend our world – is framed by the theory with which we encounter it. So, this is why the thrust of contemporary rhetorical theory has been to multiply the ways we understand rhetorical activity. We want to understand those ways more thoroughly to equip you for a more fertile trip through rhetoric. This desire ties contemporary rhetorical theory directly to your specific research interest.
So, our task this semester is to understand the linguistic turn and its influence on how we think about the power of symbolic action. We will read a considerable distance beyond the communication discipline into literature, linguistics, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, and history. But the focus of this course is still on the contributions that communication scholars have made to the dialogue.
The tendency has been to organize the study of rhetorical theory around people, to study one theorist and then the next. (You will notice the Foss, Foss, and Trapp review of contemporary theory still does.) Some time ago, I decided that there were three weaknesses with that approach: (1) it left students unengaged in a disciplinary literature in rhetorical theory; (2) it left students either incapable or unwilling to offer their own contribution to the literature of those disciplines; and (3) it failed to fully communicate the increasingly exciting and radical changes occurring in contemporary rhetorical theory. I sought to remedy this problem by reorganizing the course around problems that motivate contemporary theorists. Such a focus should inject you into developments in the field in such a way that you can identify the leading edge of work.
Hopefully your semester will help you engage the liveliness of the contemporary study of rhetoric.
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About anyone with some basic knowledge of the sorts of things rhetorical theory attempts to do will be able to handle the course. In fact, this is not a bad course for people with little knowledge of rhetorical theory who want to learn more about it. Because of the newness of contemporary theories, those without previous biases are almost in a better position than those with trained incapacities. Perhaps a more important determinant of your affinity for this class than previous training is your comfort with abstraction. The course will be easier for those who are comfortable with theory, with thinking at abstract levels.
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In terms of your knowledge, I expect both breadth and some depth. The breadth comes from knowing the overall landscape of contemporary theory. You should have a knowledge of who the important theorists are and how they relate to the primary projects which structure contemporary theory. I do not expect you will have the opportunity to have depth in the full breadth of the study, but there will be at least one particular theoretical project that you have mastered to the extent necessary to participate in the debate. That includes the ability to read the work, isolate the problems yet to be solved in the theory, the strengths and weaknesses of past efforts to solve these problems, and the ability to propose and work through potential solutions on your own. At the heart of this is the skill of thinking in terms of theoretical problems and their solutions.
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This is a seminar. I expect lots of discussion. That being said there are three forms that discussion will take:
Above all, participate. I want you to master some fairly sophisticated skills of analysis and argument, and you need to have the experience of articulating the problem-solution and question-answer structure of contemporary theory if you are going to master that. So I hope we will have a lively discussion of the issues framed by each of the theoretical projects.
We will organize our study around eight moves that characterize contemporary rhetorical theory. Somewhat arbitrarily these are divided into two groups:
You will become an expert on one move from each group. The groupings are arbitrary in that all eight of these moves have had active research over the last few years. All are currently active and being pursued in research programs and appearing in either journals or university press publishing venues. Any could be moved to the other group. We needed, however, to figure out how to attain some depth of understanding in some of these within the semester. So I divided them into groups.
There will probably be times I talk more than you. After we get going, I will restrict these to explaining systems or concepts that it is more efficient to convey via power point than reading. Do you understand the difference between Hegelian and categorical logic? Maybe not. If so, you won’t hear from me. But knowing that difference will help understand some things going on in CRT. So, if I need to, I will explain precursor concepts or systems.
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In addition, there will be many shorter readings. I will make material available to you and you will be responsible for getting it photocopied for your use.
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