What kind of work does language do? Since the linguistic turn in the humanities and social sciences, scholars in many disciplines have suggested many answers--for instance, that gender, nations, legal authority, identities, and world views are formed, and ongoingly reformed, discursively. But how does that work get done? What is a nation, for example? Who gets to say? And to whom do "they" get to say it? Or, perhaps, how does something as seemingly simple as a definition of a word affirm, negate, or reconfigure sociopolitical values and world views?

In this seminar, we'll explore different concepts in rhetorical studies (for instance, narrative, exigence, definition, audience, form, and agency) and use those concepts to think, talk, and write critically about intersections of language and power. Although no background in rhetorical studies is required for this seminar, this is not a survey course. Texts for a particular class meeting may be short, but our readings will be close and careful, our inquiries will be deep, and our expectations for what we generate in this research seminar will be high. In a survey or readings course, our primarily goal likely would be coverage of a particular topic. In this 800-level seminar, we'll explore what it means to think about rhetoric (and discourse) from a constitutive, rather than an instrumental or epistemic, perspective--and we'll use that inquiry to wrestle with, really attend to, our abilities and practices as readers, writers, and rhetorical critics. I expect you to bring your own projects into the course (e.g., a group of novels, poems, or stories; public address or other forms of sociopolitical advocacy; letters or diaries; government documents; films; journalism from historical or contemporary periods), and you can expect that, in addition to providing you with the opportunity to explore several dimensions of rhetorical studies, this course will contribute significantly to the ways you read, understand, interpret, and write about texts that are central to your project. You will be challenged in this course--by the texts we're reading, by your classmates, by me, perhaps even by you--and I expect you to challenge the texts, your classmates, me, even you. The outcome, I hope, will be an intensely collaborative and productive seminar that moves each of us forward in the scholarly projects and practices to which we are committed.

Regular and active participation in this course is a given. You also will write six essay or book abstracts (150 or 200 words each), submit four short writings (one to three pages each, double-spaced), present some of your work for the seminar to the class, participate in a draft workshop on papers written for the course, and write and submit a paper that emerges from and attends to the work we do in the course. We'll talk more about these assignments in class. Note, though, that the abstracts and short writings are due to me by email no later than 5:00 pm on the Sunday before the due date listed on the course syllabus.