ENGL 3860 Zinyllabus (FA23)

Rhetoric
Generally defined, rhetoric is the use
of symbols to produce an effect. From
this viewpoint, rhetoric assumes that
language is symbolic action. The
“word vs. deeds” binary has no place
here. Though rhetoric is often a
negative word within con-temporary
media, it has a rich history as one of
the oldest intellectual pursuits in the
western world. As Kenneth Walker
writes, “rhetoric is a material and
s e m i o t i c p e r f o r m a n c e t h a t
constitutes public identities and
shares political communities by
moving people to collective beliefs
and actions.”
The things that matter to us—our beliefs
and values, the places and institutions that
shelter and sustain our modes of being,
the cultural productions that give meaning
and direction to that being—must be
argued for.
Dr. Nathaniel A. Rivers
nathaniel.rivers@slu.edu
slupublicrhetoric.tumblr.com
Our worlds are built of things that
matter: values, relations (friends and
family), institutions (cultural, political,
religious), infrastructures (roads,
schools, utilities) and cultural
productions (literature, music, movies).
We build worlds by sharing these
things that matter to us through all
means of communication: we write
reviews of books online, we share
pictures of the food we eat and the
places we visit and inhabit, and we
speak out on behalf of others in the
name of justice. And in this course,
that is exactly what you will do: write
about the things that matter to you.
Advocacy
Though most people associate
advocacy and a related term,
activism, with the (radical) fringes of
society, this course views any
concerted attempt to shape the local
public environment as advocacy at its
core. Advocacy can include any
movement that works for political,
bureaucratic, legal, service-oriented,
or attitudinal changes. Note that
advocacy is about actively (re)shaping
environments; advocacy is not
reducible to something like “raising
awareness.” Awareness is an aspect of
advocacy but never its sole end.
Fall 2023 l ENGL 3860
Public
Writing:
Write the
World
The things that matter to us—our
beliefs and values, the places and
institutions that shelter and sustain
our modes of being, the cultural
productions that give meaning and
direction to that being—must be
argued for. Like gardeners we must
cultivate the lives that matter to us.
The world as we know it and the
worlds we might want otherwise must
be persuasively articulated in order to
be kept and made real. Indeed, a
term precious to democratic life,
republic, means simply “a public
thing”: a thing held together in
common but also over and about
which we argue. This means that our
writing too must be public.
Ethics
Ethics, within the context of rhetorical
advocacy, demands integrity, the
inclusion of relevant perspectives,
audience identification, thorough
research, and situational awareness.
Ethics is about more than following
a static set of protocols; it is about
openly engaging others. The Greeks
had a name for this approach to
ethics: agonism, or the productive
strife of a public gathering. Rather
than producing clear winners and
losers, agonism is about generating a
stronger whole. Agonism can be
contrasted with antagonism, which
l i t e r a l l y m e a n s “ a g a i n s t t h e
gathering.”
The goal of this course is for
you to write in public so that
the things that matter to you
might persist and flourish—so
that your world can be shared
with others. Students have
complete creative control over
their productions in terms of
medium, style, and content.
The only requirement is that
these texts be public and for a
discernible audience who might
yet be persuaded.
To engage such audiences, you’ll need
to write persuasively and in media that
activate and cultivate that audience’s
attention. This time around, the course
is digging into Zine culture. Zines are
short, self-published magazines
d e d i c a t e d t o a p a r t i c u l a r ,
underrepresented subject matter, which
are then informally circulated (via
photocopying). Zines are evocative
mixtures of prose, images, and design
elements. In addition to fashioning a
series of zines on a topic of their
choosing, s t u d e n t s w i l l h a v e
opportunities to create stickers,
buttons, posters and a range of other
tangible texts in the service of bringing
their project to life.