What Is Compelling? The Rhetoric of Argument
12.30-2pm, Tuesdays and Thursdays, 60 Evans
Course Blog, http://whatiscompelling.blogspot.com
Instructor, Dale Carrico: dalec@berkeley.edu
Roughly and Provisionally Your Final Grade Will Reflect:
Attend/Participate: 15%; Workshops: 15%; Mid-Term: 35%; Final 35%
A Provisional Schedule of Meetings
January
Week One
January 20
Course Introduction
SKILL SET: An argument is a claim supported by reasons and/or evidence.
January 22
SKILL SET: Ethos, Pathos, Logos
Week Two
January 27
Euripides, Hecuba
January 29
SKILL SET: Four Habits of Argumentative Writing: 1 Formulate a Strong Thesis, 2 Define Terms, 3 Substantiate/Contextualize, 4 Anticipate Objections; Audience/Intention
February
Week Three
February 3
Kant, "Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose"
February 5
SKILL SET: Intentions -- Interrogation, Conviction, Persuasion, Reconciliation
Week Four
February 10
Martin Luther King, Jr., "Letter from the Birmingham Jail"
February 12
SKILL SET: Audiences -- Sympathetic, Unsympathetic, Apathetic; Rogerian Rhetoric
Week Five
February 17
SKILL SET: The Toulmin Schema
February 19
Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence
Week Six
February 24
SKILL SET: Literal/Figurative Language; Figures, Tropes, Schemes; Four Master Tropes
February 26
SKILL SET: Syllogisms, Enthymemes, Formal Fallacies
March
Week Seven
March 3
SKILL SET: Syllogisms, Enthymemes, Formal Fallacies
March 5
SKILL SET: Informal Fallacies
Week Eight
March 10
Screening and Discussing the Film, "A History of Violence"
March 12
Screening and Discussing the Film, "A History of Violence"
Week Nine
March 17
Mid-Term Examination, Part One
March 19
Mid-Term Examination, Part Two
Week Ten
Spring Break
Week Eleven
March 31
Art Spiegelman, Maus
April
April 2
Art Spiegelman, Maus
Week Twelve
April 7
Hannah Arendt, On Violence
April 9
Hannah Arendt, On Violence, and "Must Eichmann Hang?"
Week Thirteen
April 14
Michel Foucault, from Discipline and Punish
April 16
Frantz Fanon, "Concerning Violence" from The Wretched of the Earth and a selection from Black Skin, White Masks
Week Fourteen
April 21
Octavia Butler, Kindred
April 23
Octavia Butler, Kindred
Week Fifteen
April 28
Mike Davis, from Planet of Slums
April 30
Mike Davis, from Planet of Slums
May
May 5
Judith Butler, from Undoing Gender and Precarious Life
Week Sixteen
May 7
Concluding Remarks
Hand in Take Home Final.
