This
course is an advanced class in writing and rhetorical analysis. We’ll examine a
variety of protest movements to understand how protest intersects with rhetorical
formations of communal identity. The class materials will have two main
components: thematic course readings on protest for discussion, and lectures on
principles of advanced composition, with an emphasis on clear, well-organized
academic writing.
We’ll
take as our premises the idea that 1) protest is a rhetorical form worth
engaging for an entire semester, and 2) questions of communal identity are
inherently entangled with these rhetorical forms. In the course readings,
students will learn to analyze the written and visual rhetoric of protest
movements. As a class, with the help of a few classic and contemporary works of
performance and rhetorical theory, we’ll examine how protest movements mobilize
rhetoric to achieve their ends, paying special attention to how this language
embodies the figure of the protester. How do different identities become tied
to and articulated through various types of protest? How might the locations
and methods of protests affect protestors’ experiences of various aspects of
embodiment? How does the performance of identity by protestors affect responses
by the public, the media, and state or other authorities?
In the research
project, students will choose a particular protest movement to use as an object
of study. As a class, we’ll create research questions about the rhetorical
aspects of these movements, and develop the research skills and critical
vocabularies that will enable us to analyze how identity plays a role in
protest. The protest movements we look at in class and in individual projects
will not be limited to the US, and students who are interested in protest
movements that intersect with questions of gender, race, sexuality, abledness,
economic inequality and class, migration, religious identity, of family will
have opportunities to explore these forms of identity as they’re articulated
through protest.
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