Origins and development of the science fiction genre.

The History of Rhetoric is designed to introduce students to the study of rhetoric from the clasiccal period until the end of the 19th century.

This course studies the return of interest in rhetorical theory and rhetorical training in the 20th century. There are three units: 1) we explore various texts that situate modern life (cities, cars, and mass media, especially) as a problem that rhetoric can solve; 2) we look at some theories of persuasion that respond specifically to these various challenges; 3) we use these theories to explore a rhetorical case study.

This senior seminar explores the question of writing by exploring both ends of written culture: debates about writing in ancient Athens and the perceived decline in literacy brought about by computers. We will be reading a variety of works from both periods, exploring them from within the rhetorical tradition, and generally attempting to account for the way media, most prominently writing, structures culture and the transmission of knowledge.

The emergence of nonhuman rhetorical theory (eg Kennedy, Rickert, Cooper) has meant, amongst other things, recent attention paid to the role infrastructure plays in facilitating, sustaining, and ultimately shaping rhetorical performances both public and private. As such, this seminar will consider the often unseen aspects of the built environment as a ground for human (and nonhuman) rhetorical performance. Course content will primarily be drawn from the growing field of “infrastructure studies” and rhetorical adaptation of social-scientific and humanistic methods used to study the built world. Specifically, our seminar readings will focus on works that use narrative and tropes of storytelling as tools for mapping rhetorical engagement across and with infrastructure. Seminar members can expect to participate in the emergence of a new mode of rhetorical theory that has started appearing in recent conferences and journal articles. Readings may include works by Nicole Starosielski (on oceanic telecommunication cables), Bruno Latour (on trains), Matthew Kirschenbaum (on word processing), Jonathan Sterne (on MP3s), John Law (on airplanes), Janet Abbate (on Internet architecture), and Bernard Seigert (on doors).

The History of Rhetoric is designed to introduce students to the study of rhetoric from the clasiccal period until the end of the 19th century.

A class that focuses on the rhetorical choices authors make to compose texts for paricular purposes and specific audiences.

The History of Rhetoric is designed to introduce students to the study of rhetoric from the clasiccal period until the end of the 19th century.

Modern Rhetorical Theory is designed to introduce students to the development of rhetoric as a concept, discipline, and series of practices in the 20th and into the 21st centuries. The class also introduces students to practices of criticism and thinking about, with, and through academic conversations as scholars.

This course is intended as a fast-paced introduction to the rhetorical tradition, both in terms of the past canon and regarding the present extrapolation, amendation, and revision of that canon. The course offers readings in primary sources of the tradition before moving into critical works from recent rhetorical scholarship.

Welcome to first year composition. In this class, you will learn to develop ideas, communicate them effectively, and orient yourself to the expectations of college writing.

This course teachs the principles of web authoring, both design and content. Authoring effective web content involves writing words for machines and for humans while also designing documents to deliver this content in a variety of settings from cellphones to massive screens to screen readers for the blind. In this course, students will learn strategies to become effective at dealing with this multi-device ecology.

In this class we will be exploring the history of American literature from 1860 to the present.

An online course exploring the life and work of American horror writer, H.P. Lovecraft. In addition to reading a large chunk of Lovecraft’s, we will consider Lovecraft in terms of his unique style, his interest in science, and his role as a myth-maker for the twentieth century.

An online course allowing students to gain an introduction to recent publishing trends and artistic developments

In this class, in addition to reading the major works of H.P. Lovecraft, we will be considering his work in three specific ways: as a style, as a philosophy of science, and as a source of contemporary myth. Students will complete projects analyzing these three issues, as they pertain to Lovecraft’s writing and world.