Rhetoric and Democratic Theory COMM 6360/Social & Cultural Theory

Transcription

1 Rhetoric and Democratic Theory COMM 6360/Social & Cultural Theory Spring, 2016 Tuesdays, 3:30-6:00: Hellems 77 Prof. Peter Simonson Department of Communication University of Colorado Boulder Hellems 95, Office Hours: T: 11-12/Wed 3-4 and by appt. Since the first decades of the 20 th century, the study of communication, rhetoric, and media have articulated themselves to democratic theory. These linkages have taken multiple forms, with democratic theory variably functioning as normative guide, critical resource, and ideological self-justification for communication inquiry. This seminar investigates and re-animates the longer conversation through historically informed readings of contemporary democratic theory and extensions of it in rhetorical studies. We will focus on four thematic clusters: crises of democracy and their communicative dimensions; pluralism and commonality as conditions and achievements; the constitution of publics and counterpublics through multiple rhetorical modes; and the bodily senses, sensibilities, and structures of feeling through which democracy takes shape. The seminar will proceed on broadly historicist grounds, attuning itself to ways that formalized scholarly thought expresses wider ethico-political and cultural sensibilities of a given moment. It also operates with the understanding that democratic and rhetorical theory are part of ongoing intellectual conversations with present and past authors and texts. To those ends, we will devote the first four weeks of the class to revisiting the pragmatist-influenced, anti-foundational, modernist democratic theory of the first third of the twentieth century. Taking shape within contexts marked by both progressive hope for social reform and ideological and philosophical crisis, democratic theory advanced through figures like Mary Parker Follett, John Dewey, Alain Locke, and Walter Lippmann. To varying degrees, their writings have shaped intellectual conversations across a series of subsequent crisis and reform moments since 1968 from the challenges to authority and liberal consensus brought about by the New Left through the loss of faith in public institutions and grander metanarratives of progress, the rise of neoliberalism, the fall of Eastern European communism, and the ongoing challenges of addressing differences across lines of gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, religion, species, and ontology. In the final 10 weeks of the course, we will pick up this complex story in the 1980s, reading from influential political theorists and extensions of their work in contemporary rhetorical studies. 1

2 The course has several goals. For one, it aims to provide a general literacy in key problematics at the intersections of democratic and rhetorical theory. In so doing, it aims to deepen and enrich the inventional resources through which students in rhetoric, communication, media studies, and allied fields conduct their critical, empirical, historical, and theoretical studies. Related, the course aspires to help graduate students prepare for comprehensive exams, move forward with thesis and dissertation projects, carve out freestanding conference papers and journal articles, and develop future courses to teach. Course Requirements Course requirements involve weekly participation and a final paper or comprehensivestyle take-home exam. a. Participation (40% of your final grade) means coming prepared to discuss the readings and engage in give-and-take dialogues with classmates. I like for everyone to be involved every class period. We will initially focus on understanding the texts and summarizing them in a charitable manner. From there, we ll move on to evaluating and applying ideas. Always look for ways to draw attention to particular key passages in the texts and focus the group s attention on these shared objects for the week. Each class period, come in prepared to answer the following questions: For individual texts: What is the project? (identify genre, scope, aspirations, assumptions, style, politics) What is the argument? (summarize claims, supporting reasons, evidence be ready to do so in a way that you could What is useful in it? (imagine applications or uses of it to what kinds of projects, in what ways, and to you specifically) What are its limitations? (conceptual, empirical, rhetorical, political, ethical, aesthetic what criticisms can we make of it?); How does it compare to other works (put it into conversation with other texts and authors, draw out comparisons and contrasts). For the readings as a whole: What are the key issues and concepts that cut across all the works? (if you were to boil down the week s readings to their basic essence, what would you say? How would you complete this sentence: This week s readings focus on.) What ideas particularly interest you this week? (come in with a question or topic for discussion to help set our agenda) 2

3 b. Seminar Paper or Comps-Style Exam Question (60% of your grade: 5% abstract, 5% final presentation, 50% paper). You will need to speak with Simonson (in February) and submit an abstract (by March 4). You ll also be presenting it to the class, conference-style, during our last meeting in finals week. (Note: the class will not meet during the last week of classes, giving you time to focus exclusively on your paper/take-home.) Option 1: A 25-page seminar paper that meaningfully engages with issues and texts from the class. This can take multiple forms: o An empirical paper or critical case study that focuses on a particular object of interest to you and brings ideas from course readings (and perhaps beyond) to engage and makes sense of it. o An interpretive paper that aims to explicate the ideas of one or more authors and draw out their implications for your field of study. o A theoretical paper that takes up one concept or issue (e.g. pluralism, participation, dissensus, deliberation) and critically engages one or more authors in the service of developing a conceptual framework that could be applied to various objects of study. o A literature review focused on an issue or subfield broadly related to the class but including additional sources that prepare you for a thesis, dissertation, or comprehensive exam area. Option 2: Comprehensive exam-style question. Here, the Week 1 readings plus at least seven other weeks of your choice will serve as your comps reading list. In conversation with me, you will identify a thematic focus to guide a comps-style question about that list. I will give you that question the week of April 18 and you will have two weeks to write a 25-page answer to the question. Abstract: Write up a 250-word proposal (not counting bibliography) for your final project that does all of the following: o Identifies the central question and scope of your project o Discusses the significance of the project and what you hope to achieve in it o Sketches your tentative main claims, working argument, or hypothesis (if you are pursuing Option 1) o Provides a working bibliography of primary and secondary sources you will be drawing upon 3

4 Required Books Danielle S. Allen, Talking to Strangers: Anxieties of Citizenship since Brown V. Board of Education. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism's Stealth Revolution. Brooklyn: Zone Books, William E. Connolly, Pluralism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, Andrew Dobson, Listening for Democracy: Recognition, Representation, Reconciliation. New York: Oxford University Press, Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion. New York: Free Press, Articles will be available as PDF s on the D2L site for the course. Course Schedule Introduction: Crises of Democracy in the Twentieth-Century United States January 12: Democratic Crisis and the Study of Rhetoric in Two Eras Edward A. Purcell, Jr., The Problems of Democratic Theory and America and the Rise of European Dictatorships, in The Crisis of Democratic Theory: Scientific Naturalism and the Problem of Value (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1973), 1-12, Thomas W. Benson, For the Common Good: Rhetoric and Discourse Practices in the United States, , in Andrea A. Lunsford, Kirt H. Wilson, and Rosa A. Eberly, eds., The Sage Handbook of Rhetorical Studies (Los Angeles: Sage, 2009), David Held, From Postwar Stability to Political Crisis: The Polarization of Political Ideals, in Models of Democracy, 3 rd ed. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006), Modernism, Non-Foundational Democratic Theory, and Communication January 19: Pluralism, Public Opinion, and the Interwar Crisis of Democratic Theory: Walter Lippmann Sue Curry Jansen, Walter Lippmann (New York: Peter Lang, 2012), 1-16, Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion (1922; New York: Free Press, 1997), 3-84, , ,

5 January 26: Face-to-Face Communication, Communities, and Democracy as a Way of Life: Mary Parker Follett and John Dewey Introductory material to the republication of Mary Parker Follett, The New State: Group Organization the Solution of Popular Government (1918; State College, PA: Penn State University Press, 1998), xii-lix: Benjamin Barber, Mary Parker Follett as Democratic Hero Jane Mansbridge, Mary Parker Follett: Feminist and Negotiator Kevin Mattson, Reading Follett Follett, The New State, Introduction, chapters on Neighborhood Groups (chs ), and Appendix ( The Training for the New Democracy ), 3-15, , John Dewey, The Eclipse of the Public and Search for the Great Community in The Public and Its Problems (New York: Henry Holt, 1927), Dewey, Creative Democracy: The Task Before Us (1939) Robert Asen, The Multiple Mr. Dewey: Multiple Publics and Permeable Borders in John Dewey's Theory of the Public Sphere, Argumentation and Advocacy 39.3 (2003), February 2: Race, Art, and Democratic Politics: Alain Locke and W.E.B. DuBois Nancy Fraser, Another Pragmatism: Alain Locke, Critical Race Theory, and the Politics of Culture, in Leonard Harris, ed., The Critical Pragmatism of Alain Locke (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999), Alain Locke, selections from The New Negro (1925; New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992): Preface and The New Negro ), ix-xxvii, Introduction (by Arnold Rampersad), Preface, and The New Negro Eric King Watts, selections from Hearing the Hurt: Rhetoric, Aesthetics, and Politics of the New Negro Movement (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2012), 1-24, 50-95: Introduction; Hearing the Hurt ; The Last Best Gift of Africa : Du Bois, Dewey, and a Black Public ; Negro Youth Speaks : Alain Locke and The New Negro Robert Danisch, Alain Locke on Race and Reciprocity: The Necessity of Epideictic Rhetoric for Cultural Pluralism." The Howard Journal of Communications 19.4 (2008), Contemporary Currents I: Publics, Deliberation, Trust, & Listening February 9: On Publics and Counterpublics Jürgen Habermas, The Public Sphere: An Encyclopedia Article, originally published in German in 1964, published in English in New German Critique 3 (1974), Craig Calhoun, Introduction: Habermas and the Public Sphere, in Calhoun, ed., Habermas and the Public Sphere (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992), Nancy Fraser, Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy, in Calhoun, ed., Habermas and the Public Sphere,

6 Gerard Hauser, Civic Conversation and the Reticulate Public Sphere, in Vernacular Voices: The Rhetoric of Publics and Public Spheres (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1999), Cara A. Finnegan and Jiyeon Kang, Sighting the Public: Iconoclasm and Public Sphere Theory, Quarterly Journal of Speech 90.4 (2004), Melanie Loehwing and Jeff Motter, Publics, Counterpublics, and the Promise of Democracy, Philosophy and Rhetoric 42.3 (2009): Daniel C. Brouwer and Robert Asen, Introduction: Public Modalities, or the Metaphories We Theorize By, in Brouwer and Asen, eds, Public Modalities: Rhetoric, Culture, Media, and the Shape of Public Life (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2010), Meet with Simonson this week (Feb 8) or next (Feb 15) to talk about your final project for the course. Feb 16: Deliberative Democracy and Rhetoric Seyla Benhabib, Toward a Deliberative Model of Democratic Legitimacy, in Benhabib, ed., Democracy and Difference: Contesting the Boundaries of the Political (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996), Iris Marion Young, Inclusion and Democracy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp (Introduction, Democracy and Justice, and Inclusive Political Communication ) Robert Ivie, Rhetorical Deliberation and Democratic Politics in the Here and Now, Rhetoric & Public Affairs 5.2 (2002): Arabella Lyon, Deliberative Acts: Democracy, Rhetoric, and Rights (State College, PA: Penn State University Press, 2013), ch. 1 (29-65): Defining Deliberative Space: Rethinking Persuasion, Position, and Identification Week of Feb 23: NEED TO RESCHEDULE (Simonson in Germany) Civic Friendship, Trust, and Race in America: Danielle S. Allen Danielle Allen, Talking to Strangers: Anxieties of Citizenship since Brown v. Board of Education. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004). March 1: Democratic Listening: Andrew Dobson Listening for Democracy: Recognition, Representation, Reconciliation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014). By 5:00 pm, Friday March 4: Submit a 250-word abstract of your seminar paper or a reading list for your comps-style question. 6

7 Contemporary Currents II: Agonism, Dissensus, and Radical Democracy in a Neoliberal Age March 8: Agonistic Democracy and Hegemony: Chantal Mouffe Kevin Deluca, Articulation Theory: A Discursive Grounding for Rhetorical Practice (1999) Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox (London: Verso, 2000), xi-22, , : Introduction: The Democratic Paradox The first section of Democracy, Power, and The Political For an Agonistic Model of Democracy The Ethics of Democracy Mouffe, Agonistics: Thinking the World Politically (London: Verso, 2013), xi-18, What is Agonistic Politics? Agonistic Politics and Artistic Practices Also: Brief presentations of final projects to the class. March 15: Disagreement, Conflict, Aesthetics: Jacques Rancière Gabriel Rockhill, Translator s Introduction and Glossary of Technical Terms in Jacques Rancière, The Politics of Aesthetics (New York: Continuum, 2004), 1-6, Jacques Rancière, Disagreement: Politics and Philosophy, Trans Julie Rose (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999), Preface & Chs. 1-3 (vii- 60). Jodi Dean, Politics without Politics, Parallax 15.3 (2009), Ethan Stoneman, Appropriate Indecorum: Rhetoric and Aesthetics in the Politics of Jacques Rancière, Philosophy and Rhetoric, 44.2 (2011), Isabell Lorey, The 2011 Occupy Movements: Rancière and the Crisis of Democracy. Theory, Culture & Society (2014), Freya Thimsen, The People Against Corporate Personhood: Doxa and Dissensual Democracy, Quarterly Journal of Speech (2015), March 22: Spring Break March 29: Democracy in a Neoliberal Age: Wendy Brown Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism s Stealth Revolution (Brooklyn: Zone Books, 2015). Contemporary Currents III: Deep Pluralism and the Politics of Things April 5: Deep Pluralism, Existential Faith, and Democratic Politics of Becoming: William Connolly William E. Connolly, Pluralism (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005). 7

8 April 12: The Politics of Things and Animals: Bruno Latour, Jane Bennett, and others Bruno Latour. From Realpolitik to Dingpolitik, In Making Things Public: Atmospheres of Democracy (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005), (with lots of pictures). Jane Bennett, In Parliament with Things, in Lars Tønder and Lasse Thomassen, eds., Radical Democracy: Politics Between Abundance and Lack (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2005), Bennett, Political Ecologies in Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things (Durham: Duke University Press, 2010), Noortje Marres and Javier Lezaun, Materials and Devices of the Public: An Introduction. Economy and Society 40.4 (2011), Ella Myers, The Democratic Ethics of Care for Worldly Things, in Worldly Ethics (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2013), Gwendolyn Blue and Melanie Rock. Animal Publics: Accounting for Heterogeneity in Political Life, Society & Animals 22.5 (2014), Nathaniel Rivers, Tracing the Missing Masses: Vibrancy, Symmetry, and Public Rhetoric Pedagogy, enculturation: A Journal of Rhetoric, Writing, and Culture. Bringing it Together: On Rhetorical Citizenship in Light of Our Readings April 19: Visions of Rhetorical Citizenship: A Forum Discussion Robert Asen, A Discourse Theory of Citizenship, Quarterly Journal of Speech 90.2 (2004), Alessandra Beasley Von Burg, Stochastic Citizenship: Toward a Rhetoric of Mobility, Philosophy and Rhetoric 45.4 (2012), Isaac West, Introduction: Transgender Citizenships, in Transforming Citizenships: Transgender Articulations of the Law (New York: NYU Press, 2014), David Cisneros, Rhetorics of Citizenship: Pitfalls and Possibilities, Quarterly Journal of Speech (2014), Kenneth Rufo and R. Jarrod Atchison, From Circus to Fasces: The Disciplinary Politics of Citizen and Citizenship, Review of Communication 11.3 (2011), April 26: No Class Work on Final Papers Monday, May 2: Papers due to Simonson by by 12:00 noon. May 3: Oral Presentations of Final Projects 8