ENGL 564: CONTEMPORARY RHETORICAL THEORY
Rhetoric of the Disciplines
Gail Stygall Office: Padelford A305
Autumn 1994 Hours: Wed 2:30-3:30
Savery 131 Thurs 4-5
T-Th 1:30-3:20 Phone: 685-2384
stygall.washington.edu 3294218
TEXTS:
Bakhtin, Speech Genres and Other Late Essays (Texas)
Bazerman and Paradis, Textual Dynamics of the Professions (Wisconsin)
Dillon, Contending Rhetorics (Indiana)
Faigley, Fragments of Rationality (Pittsburgh)
Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (Vintage)
Shumway, Creating American Civilization: A Genealogy of American Literature
as an Academic Discipline (Minnesota)
Readings packet (Bring your checkbook on the 2nd day of class; packet is $10.01;
make checks payable to Professional Copy)
THE COURSE:
While traditional approaches to rhetoric focus broadly on abstractions such as audience,
purpose, and message, more recently rhetoric has been understood as disciplinary in nature; that
is, rhetoric constructs, regulates, and reconstructs subjects within specific, localized discourse
communities. In order to understand the disciplinary context of rhetoric, we will begin with
Foucault's Discipline and Punish and excerpts from several other works by Foucault, Bakhtin's
Speech Genres, selections from the work of Jurgen Habermas, and selections from Toulmin's
Human Understanding Using these theorists for theoretical framing, we will examine recent
work in disciplinarity of academic and professional rhetorics in the Bazerman and Paradis
collection and Dillon's Contending Rhetorics. We will close by moving toward the rhetoric of
English studies, first by reading Fish on rhetoric and Scholes on English departments, then moving
to two subdisciplines of English, composition and rhetoric in Faigley's Fragments of Rahonality
and the rhetoric of American literature in Shumway's Creahng American Gvilization.
Each seminar participant will be responsible for providing a discussion statement for at least one
reading assignment, a statement to be distributed to the seminar participants in advance. Each
participant will also provide the seminar with a critical evaluation of a scholarly work in
disciplinary rhetoric from a supplemental reading list. And, of course, each participant will write
the usual seminar paper. Participants should leave the seminar with an understanding of
disciplinary rhetorics, and, more specifically, a perspective on the rhetoric of English studies.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS:
1. I will expect that you have done the assigned readings for each class session and in order
to enhance that reading, I am asking that you keep a reading journal, writing after (or during)
your reading of each assignment. Please bring your journal to class each time as an enhancement
for discussion, though I will collect the journal only irregularly.
2. You will complete a critical evaluation of the work of one of the scholars on the reserve
reading list. These reports will be given both orally (on November 1st and 3rd) and in written
form as a midterm paper. Each report will describe the work of the scholar in question, explain
how it fits into "rhetoric of the disciplines" and how the scholar theorizes his or her disciplinary
perspective. For the in-class report, to be no longer than 10 minutes, you will provide your
classmates with a one-page summary and a brief, annotated bibliography of the scholar's other
works. The genre I have in mind for the midterm paper is "review-essay," something beyond a
mere book review, something more like an assessment of the scholar's larger work, but focused
on this particular work.
3. Your final evaluation is the standard seminar paper. The subject matter of this seminar
paper is your analysis of the rhetoric of a particular discipline, subdiscipline, or even an
"interdisciplinary" discipline. But this time, I have something a little different in mind. Though
some of you have probably heard that seminar papers are supposed to be publishable, I want you
to start with that idea in mind and target a particular journal for your paper. That means when
you turn the paper in, you will also include a cover letter to the journal you have targeted. I will
collect and bring to class various reader evaluation forms from various academic journals. In the
last week of class meetings, I will expect you to secure one peer reading of your draft via the
expected journal reader evaluation form. That means that each of you also has the obligation of
doing a serious, thoughtful reading of someone else's draft at the same time you are in the midst
of redrafting your own paper (welcome to the ongoing work of the academy). This may sound
quite formidable at this point, but we are not joking when we say that publishing is the most
certain path to an academic job. Most successful assistant professor applicants, in the current
market, either have some publications (yes, before they leave graduate school) or a record of
conference presentations. I hope to make that idea more plausible by walking you through some
of the less visible elements of the process.
TENTATIVE SCHEDULE (It may be adjusted; that's why it's tentative)
Sept 27 Introduction/Housekeeping
Sept 29 Overview; History and Philosophy of Science perspectives
Oct 4 Toulmin
Oct 6 Foucault
Oct 11 Foucault
Oct 13 Habermas
Oct 18 Bakhtin
Oct 20 Articles by Bazerman, Dillon, Elshtain, Sarat
Oct 25 Bazerman and Paradis
Oct 27 Bazerman and Paradis
Nov 1 Reports
Nov 3 Reports
Nov 8 Dillon
Nov 10 Dillon
Nov 15 English Studies (JIL); Articles by Brodkey, Fish, Hernaldi, Scholes
Nov 17 Shumway
Nov 22 Shumway
Nov 24 THANKSGIVING
Nov 29 Faigley
Dec 1 Faigley
Dec 6 Target Journals; Reader Evaluation Forms; Draft Exchange
Dec 8 NO CLASS
Dec 13 SEMINAR PAPERS DUE
Dec 15 Lunch at the Faculty Club
Readings Packet Contents
THEORY
Habermas, Jurgen. "Introduction: Approaches to the Problem of Rationality."
In Reason and the RationalizaTIon of Society. Vol. 1. The Theory of
Communicative Achon. Trans. Thomas McCarthy. Boston: Beacon Press,
1984. 1-42.
"Intermediate Reflections: System and Lifeworld." In Lifeworld and
System: A Critique of Functionalist Reason. Vol. 2. The Theory of
Communicative Achon. Trans. Thomas McCarthy. Boston: Beacon Press,
1984. 113-152.
Toulmin, Stephen. "The Variety of Rational Enterprises." In Human Understanding
The Collective Use and Evolution of Concepts. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP,
1972. 357-410.
APPLICATIONS
Bazerman, Charles. "Codifying the Social Scientific Style: The APA Publication
Manual as a Behaviorist Rhetoric." In The Rhetoric of the Human Sciences.
Eds. John S. Nelson, Allan Megill, and Donald N. McCloskey. Madison, WI:
Wisconsin, 1987. 125-144.
Brodkey, Linda. "The Value of Theory in the Academic Marketplace: The Reception
of Structuralist Poetics." In Rhetoric of the Human Sciences. Ed. Herbert W.
Simons. London: Sage, 1989. 164-182.
Dillon, George L. "Insider Reading and Linguistic Form: Contextual Knowledge and
the Reading of Linguistic Discourse." In Language, Text and Context: Essays
in Stylistics. Ed. Michael Toolan. London: Routledge, 1992. 39-52.
Elshtain, Jean Bethke. "Feminist Political Rhetoric and Women's Studies." In
The Rhetoric of the Human Sciences Eds. John S. Nelson, Allan Megill, and Donald
N. McCloskey. Madison, WI: Wisconsin, 1987. 319-340.
Fish, Stanley. "Critical Self-Consciousness" and "Rhetoric." In Doing What Comes Naturally:
Change, Rhetoric, and the Prachce of Theory in Literary and Legal Studies. Durham, NC:
Duke, 1989. 436-502.
Hernaldi, Paul. "Literary Interpretation and the Rhetoric of the Human Sciences."
In The Rhetoric of the Human Sciences. Eds. John S. Nelson, Allan Megill, and Donald N.
McCloskey. Madison, WI: Wisconsin, 1987. 263-275.
Sarat, Austin. "Speaking of Death: Narratives of Violence in Capital Trials." In
The Rhetoric of Law. Eds. Austin Sarat and Thomas R. Kearns. Ann Arbor,
MI: U Michigan P, 1994. 135-183.
Scholes, Robert. "The English Apparatus." In Textual Power: Literary Theory and
the Teaching of English. New Haven: Yale, 1985. 1-17.
ENGL 564: SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS LIST
Stygall, Autumn 1994
BOOKS ON RESERVE AT ODEGAARD
Bazerman, Charles. Shaping Written Knowledge: The Genre and Activity of the Experimental
Article in Science. Madison, WI: Wisconsin, 1988.
Engineering T11.B375 1988
Billig, Michael. Ideology and Opinions: Studies in Rhetorical Psychology.
London: Sage, 1991.
Suzzallo HM251 .B4744 1991
Thinking and Arguing A Rhetorical Approach to Social Psychology. Cambridge:
Cambridge UP, 1987.
Suzzallo HM251 .B47458 1987
Bourdieu, Pierre, Jean-Claude Passeron, and Monique de Saint Martin. Academic Discourse:
Linguistic Misunderstanding and Professorial Power. Cambridge: Polity, 1994.
Suzzallo LB1034 .B5813 1994
Brodkey, Linda. Academic Writing as Social Prachce. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 1987.
Suzzallo PN151 .B76 1987
Doheny-Farina, Stephen. Rhetoric, Innovahon, Technology: Case Studies of
Technical Communicahon in Technology Transfers. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 1992.
Engineering T10.5 .D64 1992
Edmondson, Ricca. Rhetoric in Sociology. London: Macmillan, 1984.
Suzzallo PN187 .E36 1984
Geertz, Clifford. Works and Lives: The Anthropologist as Author. Stanford, CA:
Stanford, 1988.
Suzzallo GN307.7 .G44 1988
Graff, Gerald. Professing Literature: An Instituhonal History. Chicago:
Chicago, 1987.
Suzzallo PN99.U5 G7 1987
Halliday, M.A.K. and J.R. Martin. Wrihng Science: Literacy and Discursive Power.
Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh, 1993.
Suzzallo T11 .H35 1993
Harre, Rom, and Grant Gillet. The Discursive Mind. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1994.
Suzzallo BF201.3 .H37 1994
Killingsworth, M. Jimmie and Jacqueline S. Palmer. Ecospeak: Rhetoric and
Environmental Polihcs in America. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois,1992.
Political Science HC110.E5 K5 1992
Kirk, Stuart A. The Selling of DSM: The Rhetoric of Science in Psychiatry.
New York: A. de Gruyter, 1992.
Social Work WM 141 K59s 1992
LaTour, Bruno and Steve Woolgar. Laboratory I ~fe: The Social Construchon of
Scientific Facts. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1979.
Political Science QH315 .L315
McCloskey, Donald. If You're So Smart: The Narrahve of Economic Experhse.
Chicago: Chicago, 1990.
Suzzallo HB199 .M385 1990
The Rhetoric of Economics. Madison, WI: Wisconsin, 1985.
Suzzallo HB71 .M38 1985
Miller, Susan. Textual Carnivals: The Polihcs of Composition. Carbondale, IL:
Southern Illinois, 1991.
Suzzallo PE1405.U6 M55 1991
Mishler, Elliot G. The Discourse of Medicine: A Dialechcs of Medical
Interviews. Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1984.
Health Sciences WB 290 M678d 1984
Myers, Greg. Wrihng Biology: Texts in the Social Construction of Scienhfic
Knowledge. Madison, WI: Wisconsin, 1990.
No UW Library Holding
Ohmann, Richard M. English in America: A Radical View of the Profession.
New York: Oxford, 1976.
Suzzallo PE68.U5 036
--. Politics of Letters. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan, 1987.
Suzzallo PS228.P6 036 1987
Russell, David A. Writing in the Acadernic Disciplines, 1970-1990: A
Curricular History. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois, 1991.
Suzzallo PE1405.U6 R8 1991
Shapiro, Michael J. The Polihcs of Representahon: Writing Prachces
in Biography, Photography, and Policy Analysis. Madison, WI:
Wisconsin, 1988.
Political Science P95.8 .S54 1988
White, Hayden V. The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical
Representation. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins, 1987.
Suzzallo D13 .W564 1987
Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism. Baltimore, MD:
Johns Hopkins, 1978.
Suzzallo D13 .W566 (2 copies; also Philosophy)
White, James Boyd. Justice as Translation: An Essay in Cultural and Legal
Criticism. Chicago: Chicago, 1990.
Political Science K213 .W49 1990 (Suzzallo copy missing)
COLLECTIONS (Not on Reserve)
Anderson, Paul V., R. John Brockmann, and Carolyn Miller, eds. New Essays in Scientific and
Technical Communication. Farmington, NY: Baywood, 1983.
Engineering & Natural Sciences T11 .N46 1983
Brown, Richard Harvey, ed. Writing the Social Text: Poehcs and Polihcs in Social Science
Discourse. New York: A. de Gruyter, 1992.
Suzzallo H61 .W68 1992
Hernaldi, Paul, ed. The Rhetoric of Interpretation and the Interpretation of Rhetoric
Durham, NC: Duke, 1989
Suzzallo PN81 .R45 1989 (Missing)
Hunter, Albert, ed. The Rhetoric of Social Research: Understood and Believed.
New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers, 1990.
Suzzallo HM24 .R483 1990
Joliffe, David, ed. Wrihng in Academic Discplines. Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1988.
Suzzallo PE1404 .W724 1988
Nelson, John S., Allan Megill, and Donald N. McCloskey, eds. The Rhetoric of the
Human Sciences: Language and Argument in Scholarship and Public Affairs.
Madison: Wisconsin, 1987.
Suzzallo P301 .R465 1987
Odell, Lee and Dixie Goswami. Writing in Nonacademic Settings. New York: Guilford, 1985.
Business PE1404 .W726 1985
Roberts, R.H., and J.M.M. Good, eds. The Recovery of Rhetoric: Persuasive Discourse and
Disciplinarity in the Human Sciences. Charlottesville, VA: Virginia, 1993.
Odegaard P301 .R347 1993
Schuster, John A. and Richard R. Yeo, eds. The Politics and Rhetoric of Scienhfic
Method. Dordrecht: Reidel/Kluwer, 1986.
Suzzallo Q175.3 .P65 1986
Selzer, Jack, ed. Understanding Scienhfic Prose. Madison: Wisconsin, 1993.
Engineering QH371.G6843 U53 1993