I'm teaching rhetoric as a graduate theory class this quarter and would really appreciate any advice anyone has to give me, so feel free to comment on my choices, topics and so on. As you can see the conclusion will be OOO, which I find very exciting. Throughout we're going to keep testing to see how far we can bend things away from human reference.
So far my syllabus is:
1) Introduction. 2) The pre-Socratics. 3) Language and Idea. Plato and Neoplatonism. 4) Technique. Aristotle, Quintillian, Horace. 5) God. Maimonides, Augustine, Eckhart, Milton. 6) The sublime. Longinus, Burke, Kant. 7) Production. Nietzsche, Marx, Freud. 8) Deconstruction. Heidegger, Derrida. 9) Objects. McLuhan, Bogost, Harman, Bogost, Barnett, Gale, Reid.
Are you familiar with, and or interested in, for this course, or more generally, literature on the design of things as rhetorics for persuading users of those things to do this or that with said things? These are sometimes called product semantics (Krippendorf); but they can also be less semiotically interactionist, taking up Gibsonian 'affordances;' and then they might be quite structural, as in Akrich and Latour's scripts. Alan Costall's recent edited collection _Doing Things with Things_ [Ashgate] is an example (not a great one) of this kind of design-oriented philosophical anthropology. It is less object-oriented than object-based, but let me know if you want more of these sorts of references.
Any chance I can get a finished copy of your syllabus when you're done - that is, with specific readings? I'd really appreciate it - plus, one day I hope to be able to teach a similar course. Thanks in advance.
Pre Socratics?
ReplyDeletePyrrho of Elis
Heraclitus
Diogenes
Technique?
Catullus
Cicero
God?
Frankly, I'd skip the whole subject, or have them discuss life on Mars.
Production?
Never liked Nietzsche. Sorry. Him and Heidegger both piss me off. I'd include Adorno. And Zizek.
Objects?
Kittler. Foucault.
I'd ditch God and go for activism.
Voltairine deCleyre, John Zerzan, Rosa Luxemburg, Derrick Jensen.
But it's your class. hope my ideas help.
best,
HW
Thank you Henry. Very helpful.
ReplyDeleteAre you familiar with, and or interested in, for this course, or more generally, literature on the design of things as rhetorics for persuading users of those things to do this or that with said things? These are sometimes called product semantics (Krippendorf); but they can also be less semiotically interactionist, taking up Gibsonian 'affordances;' and then they might be quite structural, as in Akrich and Latour's scripts. Alan Costall's recent edited collection _Doing Things with Things_ [Ashgate] is an example (not a great one) of this kind of design-oriented philosophical anthropology. It is less object-oriented than object-based, but let me know if you want more of these sorts of references.
ReplyDeleteCameron
Fascinating, thanks and I'll take a look.
ReplyDeleteHey Tim,
ReplyDeleteAny chance I can get a finished copy of your syllabus when you're done - that is, with specific readings? I'd really appreciate it - plus, one day I hope to be able to teach a similar course. Thanks in advance.