COURSE DESCRIPTION BOOKLET Undergraduate Level Courses

Why were rhetoric and romantic love linked for Plato, at the very beginning of rhetoric and the Western
philosophic tradition?
How do contemporary “self-help” relationship books rely on and extend traditional concepts of
interpersonal rhetoric?
How is romantic love culturally constructed by the symbol systems we inherit?
How has the public arena for controversy and decision making, and the rhetorical strategies for influencing
public policy, changed from the origin of rhetorical theory in 5 th century Athens?
How might we describe contemporary public rhetoric, and strategize about it?
In what ways can private citizens affect public policy?
Teaching Method:
We’ll split our weekly time between lecture/whole class discussion and small group inquiry based on our
individual writing.
Requirements:
Weekly: prepared daily attendance; weekly declamation writing in response to readings
During the semester: 20 pages of polished analytical prose, on rhetorical topics of the students’ choice, in one of
three options: 3 papers (6-7 pages) due 1/5weeks; 2 papers (10 pages) due mid-term & final; 1 paper (20 pages)
due at final
Tentative Reading List: (The specific items will likely change, but the texts listed below give a sense of the scope.)
Plato, “Symposium,” “Phaedrus,” and “Gorgias”
Some contemporary self-help relationship work, such as Campbell’s The Five Love Languages
Linda Brodkey, Writing Permitted in Designated Areas Only
Nancy Welch, Living Room: Teaching Public Writing in a Privatized World
Barry Kroll, “Arguing Differently”
Michel Foucault, selections from Power/Truth
Jay Heinrichs, Thank You For Arguing
Excerpts from Francis Bacon, Advancement of Learning and Novum Organum
ENGL 405E - MODERN FICTION
Time Days Sec Faculty Class#
1230-0145p TR 001 Végsö, R 4647
0200-0315p TR 002 Deb, B 4648
Végsö, R - 001
Aim The primary objective of this course is to introduce students to a select number of modernist novelists.
During the semester, we will take a literary journey around the world as we examine the way modernist writers
recorded the global realities of the British Empire. Our readings will be in direct dialogues with one another so
that we can examine “modernist aesthetics” in terms of a series of internal conflicts rather than just as a
monolithic unified entity. We will start with two classics of British literature: James Joyce’s A Portrait of the
Artist as a Young Man and Virgina Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway. After this, we will examine Britain’s relation to India
through the reading of two novels: one by a British author and one by an Indian author. These two novels are E.
UNL DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH, SPRING 2014 – 23