Course Philosophy
This is a course about how to use language to cause things to happen.
It is designed in recognition of two principles. First, language is used constantly in ways that are not encapsulated by traditional academic writing, including blogs, texts, tweets, speeches, YouTube videos, arguments at Speaker’s Circle, funny t-shirts, and many others. Second, people live and die by language events. As modern media have made the widespread dissemination of language possible to many people, language has taken an overt role in geopolitical realities. In particular, the Internet has grown into a locus for terrorist groups to perpetuate their activities and for responses to them. On a broader view of language, events like September 11, attacks on Afghan presidential candidates, U.S. troop surges in OIF and OEF, and many other events can be seen as linguistic acts with underlying rhetorical intentions.
Our class will try to reconcile these language roles. On one level, we will focus on rhetoric related to the Global War on Terror, including declassified Al-Qaeda documents, U.S. policy statements, and philosophical arguments on morality in modern warfare. On another, we will use multiple approaches to language as a means to deconstruct this rhetoric, including uses of various media and disciplinary strategies. In addition to traditional writing, you will work significantly with new media (web sites, video, audio files, wikis) and often in small-group practicum activities.
This is an ambitious design that—I think—will cover a much broader range of topics than the typical composition class. It will, at least, be relevant. If it is successful, I believe it will give you access to an array of rhetorical strategies for constructing and deconstructing composition in whatever form it takes.
Learning Objectives and Outcomes
By the end of the semester, you should:
- develop a “toolkit” of approaches to recognize and deconstruct rhetoric in multiple forms
- have limited experience in a number a rhetorical formats, including traditional academic writing, public speaking, and computer-based tools
- know broadly about the philosophical content of the course, in particular just war theory and the development of extremist movements in Islam
- have an increased critical apparatus for responding to the rhetorics you face regularly
- feel more comfortable constructing arguments than you did at the beginning of the semester
- feel more comfortable doing traditional academic writing than you did at the beginning of the semester, and
- be prepared to transfer this knowledge to other MU courses.