Syllabus for Rhetoric 1B: "Argument Against Violence and As Violence"

University of California at Berkeley, Department of Rhetoric
Summer Session D, 2011; Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday 3-5.30pm, 79 Dwinelle, July 5-August 12

Instructor: Dale Carrico dcarrico@sfai.edu, Office Hours, before and after class.

Course Blog: http://arguere.blogspot.com/

Provisional Calculation of Final Grade:

Attendance/Participation/In-Class Assignments: 15%; First (Diagnostic) Essay, 2-3pp.: 10%; Co-facilitation and Online Precis, 2-3pp: 10% ; Second Essay 5-6pp.: 20%; Peer Editing: 10%; Final Report, 2-3pp.: 5%; Final Essay, 9-10pp.: 30%

Course Description:

This is a course in critical reading and argumentative writing. More specifically, this course will teach you how to write a research essay in the form of an argument based on textual close readings. We will work on the elements of such an argument early on in the term. But from the beginning of the course to the end our efforts will not be confined to the reading and writing of arguments from a rhetorical vantage, but also to an extended meditation on rhetoric conceived as a space for the nonviolent adjudication of disputes. We will think about persuasion not only as practices that would repudiate violence, but as practices haunted by violence, complicit in violence, responsive to violence, and responsible for violence as well. The texts with which we will be grappling provide us with exemplary arguments and incite us to generate arguments of our own. We will be examining texts that range widely in form -- a Platonic dialogue, a play, a manifesto, an open letter, essays and editorials, a novel, a graphic novel, a film. Over the course of our discussions and through a series of written assignments and workshop exercises you will slowly accumulate useful strategies for reading and writing arguments. By the end of the term you will have mastered the skills it takes to produce a first-rate research paper, and to prove it to me you'll produce one.

Provisional Schedule of Meetings

July

Week One

5 Administrivial Introductions; Arguere; Argument Defined (a claim supported by reasons and evidence); Conviction Persuasion-Interrogation-Reconciliation

6 Personal Introductions, 2-3mins; Logos-Pathos-Ethos; Logical-Tropological-Topical; Literal-Figural

7 Plato, Apology; 2-3pp. Diagnostic Essay Due; Four Habits of Argumentative Writing

Week Two

12 Euripides, "Hecuba"; Ink-Shedding Exercise

13 Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence; Toulmin Schema, "Rising to the Occasion of Our Death," Toulmin Exercise

14 King, "Letter from the Birmingham City Jail"; Rogerian Synthesis.

Week Three

19 Spiegelman, Maus I; Thesis Workshop; Hand in Drafts of Second Paper for Peer Editors.

20 Spiegelman, Maus II.

21 Peer Editing Workshop for Second Paper; Discussion of Peer-Editing and Review of Writing Workshops and Handouts to This Point.

Week Four

26 Butler, Kindred; Second Paper Due, 5-6pp.

27 Butler, Kindred; Thesis Workshop

28 Roy, "War Is Peace"; Hedges, "Evidence of Things Not Seen"

August

Week Five

2 Gandhi, "Swaraj"

3 Fanon, "Concerning Violence"

4 Arendt, "On Violence," "Must Eichmann Hang?"

Week Six

9 Screening and Discussion of Cronenberg, dir. "A History of Violence," Hand in Drafts of Final Paper for Peer Editors

10 Peer Editing for Final Paper

11 Concluding Remarks on Violence, Figurative Language, and Rhetoric; Course Evaluations; Final Report Due, 2-3pp.; Final Paper Due, 9-10pp.