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Sunday, May 24, 2015

Syllabus for My "What Is Compelling? Argument, Reconciliation, Obligation" Summer Intensive at Berkeley

Rhetoric 10: The Rhetoric of Argument 
"What Is Compelling? Argument, Reconciliation, Obligation"

Summer 2015, Session A, 10-12.30pm., Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, 88 Dwinelle

Instructor, Dale Carrico: dcarrico@sfai.edy; ndaleca@gmail.com

Participation/Attendance/In-Class Activities, 20%; Reading Notebook, 20%; Precis, 2-3pp., 10%; Mid-Term Exam, 25%; Final Paper, 5-6pp., 25%. (Rough Basis for Final Grade, subject to contingencies)

A Provisional Schedule of Meetings

Week One
May 27 Course Introduction
SKILL SET: Rhetoric as occasional, interested, figurative; The literal as conventional, the figurative as deviant. Definitions: Rhetoric is the facilitation of efficacious discourse and the inquiry into the terms on the basis of which discourse comes to seem efficacious or not.
An argument is a claim supported by reasons and/or evidence.
May 29 Immanuel Kant, Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose
SKILL SET: Reading Critically/Writing Critically; Audience/Intentions; Ethos, Pathos, Logos; Writing A Precis

Week Two
June 1 Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence
SKILL SET: Four Habits of Argumentative Writing: 1. Formulate a Strong Thesis, 2. Define Your Terms, 3, Substantiate/Contextualize, 4, Anticipate Objections; Audience/Intentions; Performativity
June 3 Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from the Birmingham Jail
SKILL SET: Audiences: Sympathetic, Unsympathetic, Apathetic; Intentions: Interrogation, Conviction, Persuasion, Reconciliatio; Rogerian Rhetoric; Writing A Precis
June 5 Randal Amster, Anarchism and Nonviolence: Time for a "Complementarity of Tactics"
Arundhati Roy, War Is Peace
George Ciccariello-Maher, Planet of Slums, Age of Riots
Mike Davis, Slum Ecology
Chris Hedges, Evidence of Things Not Seen
Precis should be posted to the blog by six pm, Thursday, June 4 

Week Three
June 8 William May, "Rising to the Occasion of Our Death"
SKILL SET: The Toulmin Schema
June 10 Workshopping
SKILL SET: Propositional Analysis; Enthymemes, Syllogisms, Formal Fallacies, Informal Fallacies
June 12 Nietzsche, On Truth and the Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense; Workshopping
SKILL SET: Literal/Figurative Language; Figures, Tropes, Schemes; Four Master Tropes

Week Four
June 15 Mid-Term Examination
June 17 Screening and Discussion of the Film, "A History of Violence," dir. Cronenberg
June 19 Tom Beasley, The American Atheist, Atheism and Violence;
Edward Oakes, First Things, Atheism and Violence;
Rabia Terri Harris, Fellowship of Reconciliation, On Islamic Nonviolence
Jeremiah Bowden, Jihad and the Qur'an: The Case for a Non-Violent Interpretation

Week Five
June 22 Frantz Fanon, Concerning Violence from The Wretched of the Earth
Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic, The Case for Reparations
Richard Rothstein, Economic Policy Institute, From Ferguson to Baltimore: The Fruits of Government Sponsored Segregation
June 24 Hannah Arendt, Reflections On Violence and "Must Eichmann Hang?"
June 26 Workshopping Final Paper: Producing a Strong Thesis; Anticipating Objections; Providing Textual Support

Week Six
June 29 Octavia Butler, Kindred
July 1 Concluding Remarks: Judith Butler, from Undoing Gender and Precarious Life
Final Paper Due

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