Week One: Before the “origins” of western rhetoric Wednesday, April 3 Where does rhetoric come from? Female precursors to the western tradition: Enheduanna and Sappho (also Alcaeus) Gorgias, Helen, and the Sophists Week Two: Origins, continued Monday, April 8 CLASS TO BE RESCHEDULED Read and respond to Gorgias, “Encomium of Helen” Wednesday, April 10 Plato and Isocrates’s response to Gorgias Plato, Phaedrus; from Isocrates, Against the Sophists (Loeb ed.) Begin choosing presentation dates Week Three: Greek and Roman rhetoric / Invention (inventio) Monday, April 15: Aspasia, Pericles, Plato, and arts of invention “Pericles’s Funeral Oration,” from Plato’s Menexenus 20-minute presentation Wednesday, April 17: Hortensia, “Speech to the Triumvirs” Cicero, from De Oratore, Book One, I-VIII Class choice: a contemporary work for end of term Week Four: Medieval and Renaissance rhetoric / Style (elocutio) Monday, April 22 St. Augustine, Book 4 of On Christian Doctrine Sei Shonagon, from The Pillow Book Christine de Pizan, from The Book of the City of Ladies and The Treasure of the City of Ladies 20-minute presentation Wednesday, April 24 Francis Bacon, from The Advancement of Learning Queen Elizabeth I, Letter to the Troops at Tilbury Margaret Cavendish, from The Worlds Olio Week Five: “Enlightenment” rhetoric Monday, April 29 Giambattista Vico, from On the Study Methods of Our Time Mary Astell, from A Serious Proposal to the Ladies 20-minute presentation Wednesday, May 1: Delivery (pronunciatio) Thomas Sheridan, from A Course of Lectures on Elocution (Lecture VI) Gilbert Austin, from Chironomi Week Six / Organization (dispositio) Monday, May 6 Hugh Blair, from Lectures on Rhetoric and Belle Lettres (Lectures 1 and 2) Hannah More, “The Bas Bleu, or Conversation” 20-minute presentation Wednesday, May 8 Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, “Letter to Lady Bute” Belinda, “Petition of an African Slave” Week Seven: Nineteenth-century rhetoric / Memory (memoria) Monday, May 13 Richard Whately, from Elements of Rhetoric (Introduction) Maria Stewart, “Lecture Delivered at Franklin Hall” “Cherokee Women Address the Nation” 20-minute presentation Wednesday, May 15 Frederick Douglass, from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and My Bondage and My Freedom Nietzsche, from On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense Week Eight: Twentieth-century rhetoric Monday, May 20 I. A. Richards, “The Interinanimation of Words” from The Philosophy of Rhetoric Kenneth Burke, “Terministic Screens” from Language as Symbolic Action Wednesday, May 22 Richard Weaver, “Language is Sermonic” Zora Neale Hurston, “Crazy for This Democracy” Draft of term project due Week Nine: Memory, cont. Monday, May 27 (Memorial Day NO CLASS) Wednesday, May 29 Toni Morrison, “Memory, Creation, and Writing” Gloria Anzaldúa, “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” Audre Lorde, “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action” 20-minute presentation Week Ten: Rhetoric at work (and play) today Monday, June 5 Anna Deavere Smith, “Performing for the President,” from Talk to Me, and a screening of excerpts from Twilight, Los Angeles Leslie Marmon Silko, from Ceremony George Bush, Sept. 20, 2001 speech to joint session of Congress Ruth Ozeki, from My Year of Meats Term Project Due Wednesday, June 7 Class choice TBA
This page was last modified on April 3, 2002