ENG 530:  Classical Rhetoric and Written Composition                            Dr. Crowley    LL 308B

Fall 1999   4:30-7:30 Th    LL 049     #04248                                  965-4999   scrowley@asu.edu

        

TEXTS 

            Protagoras [Plato]: "The Myth of Protagoras" and "Refutations" (handout)        

            Gorgias: "Helen" and "Palamedes" (handout)

            Plato: "Phaedrus" and "Gorgias"

            Aristotle: On Rhetoric, Nichomachean Ethics

            Isocrates: "Helen" (handout), "Areopagiticus," "Against the Sophists" and "Antidosis"

            Cicero: selections from De Oratore and Brutus

            Quintilian: The Institutes of Oratory, Books X-XII

 

            The texts of Aristotle, Isocrates, Cicero, and Quintilian are available at university bookstores.  Copies of the requisite texts of Protagoras and Gorgias will be made available in class.  They may also be found in The Older Sophists, ed. Rosemary Kent Sprague.  Plato's texts are readily available in libraries and used bookstores.  Any translation will do.  We will refer most often to George Kennedy's translation of Aristotle's Rhetoric (listed above) but any translation of this or the other text listed above will suit our purposes.

 

THE COURSE

            This course acquaints graduate students with the theory and history of ancient rhetorics in order that they may gain a clearer understanding of the influence of ancient rhetorical theory within Western culture and the history of Western education.  We will pay particular attention to the differences between ancient and contemporary attitudes toward rhetoric, teaching, and composing.  I regret that the reading list consists solely of the work of male authors who are quite dead and who were prominent contributors to the dominant cultures of their day.  The absence of women from the reading list does not mean that their contributions to ancient thought (as well as the reasons for their absence from the reading list) will be overlooked in class.

 

PROCEDURES  

            I will lecture for a few minutes during some class meetings to provide context or background for our discussions.  During most class meetings, however, we will share written responses to the readings, discuss the readings, and hear presentations.   

 

ASSIGNMENTS  

            I expect students to complete two sorts of exercises in ENG 530:  responses to readings and a class presentation.  The study of ancient rhetorical theory requires a lot of difficult reading, and for that reason I have not assigned a long paper.

            1.  Responses to readings:  You are expected to write TEN short responses to the assigned readings.  "Response" means exactly that:  what did you think of  the author's argument and its presentation?  Its relevance to the history of rhetoric?  to your work and your intellectual life?  Another question you can ask of the texts:  Whose interests were/are being served by the composition and preservation of the text?  I have no rules about format, but I do appreciate reading error-free prose, neatly delivered, and written in a strong voice that does not simply report the argument of the assigned texts.  Responses should not repeat class discussion, either, although I encourage you to use them to respond to developments in class discussion. "Short" means three pages or less, unless you simply can't restrain yourself.  I've asked for 10 responses, so you can skip writing a response for any four class meetings after the first one.  Obviously, the responses are a device to keep you current with your reading, but I also hope they become part of our classroom conversation.  For that reason, I will ask you to turn in your response for each week, in my office or mailbox, on THURSDAY MORNINGS BEFORE NINE O'CLOCK.  I will duplicate sections of the responses and distribute them in class as starting points for discussion. Please make two copies--one for me and one for you.

            2.  Presentations:  You are expected to make a class presentation in which you report the results of your reading of one or a group of the secondary works listed in the syllabus.  The objective of this assignment is to allow you to investigate a relevant issue in more detail than the class as a whole has been able to do, and to share the results of that investigation with the class.  Your presentation should describe the scope of the work you have read, define the problem addressed in it, determine the author's success or failure in working through the problem, and articulate the worth of the work for historians of ancient rhetorics and/or teachers of rhetorics and writing. The best presentations will take a critical attitude toward the secondary scholarship, seeking to judge both its quality and its importance to the work we are undertaking in class.  I encourage you to read other works that are relevant to the work you have chosen, and to provide the class with an brief annotated bibliography of scholarship which addresses the issues in the work on which your presentation is based.  Wise students will also provide me with some written work (an outline or notes) that was used to make the presentation.  Written work done in connection with the presentation may be submitted up to two weeks subsequent to the presentation.

 

GRADES, ATTENDANCE, AND SUBMISSION OF WRITTEN WORK

            Responses are worth 60% of the final grade.  The presentation accounts for 20% of the final grade, and class participation accounts for 20% of the final grade.  I grade the responses and the presentation on how well they meet the criteria outlined above.  "Participation" means that you come to class, are  prepared to take part in discussion or other activities, and that you do so. 

            I expect every member of this class to be an active and regular participant in the learning process.  I promise you that the quality of your performance will suffer if you do not attend class regularly.  So will your grade. 

            Please complete your work on time.  If you cannot meet a deadline, please talk to me IN ADVANCE OF THE DEADLINE. I accept no unexcused late work. If you cannot submit work on the due date listed in the syllabus, be sure to discuss the situation with me before the due date.  Again: I do not read unexcused late papers.

 

SYLLABUS:  Please complete assigned readings before class meets.  This syllabus is always subject to change;  any changes will be made in class.

 

8/26  introductions

9/2     The Older Sophists and sophistry

           READ: selections from Protagoras [Plato] and Gorgias, "Encomium of Helen"

 

9/9    More sophistry  

            READ: Gorgias, "The Defense of Palamedes"

            PRESENTATIONS: 1.  Susan Jarratt, Rereading the Sophists      

           2. Andy Crockett, "Gorgias's Encomium of Helen: Violent Rhetoric      or radical Feminism"

   James Porter, "The Seductions of Gorgias"

                                                 Susan Jarratt, "The First Sophists and Feminism"                     

                                                Nancy Worman, "The Body as Argument: Helen in Four Greek

             Texts"

 

9/16    A philosopher scoffs at sophistry

            READ: Plato, The "Phaedrus"

PRESENTATION:  Any commentary on the "Phaedrus," and Richard Weaver's "The Phaedrus and the Nature of Rhetoric"

 

9/23    More philosophic scoffery

            READ: Plato, "Gorgias"

                                                                        PRESENTATIONS:   

1.  C. Jan Swearingen, "A Lover's Discourse" and "Plato's Feminine"

                             James L. Kastely, "In Defense of Plato's Gorgias"             

                            Page duBois, "The Platonic Appropriation of Reproduction"             

                        2.  Jacques Derrida, "Plato's Pharmacy"

                        3.  Jasper Neel, Plato, Derrida, and Writing

                       

9/30     Aristotle saves rhetoric for the polis

            READ:  Aristotle,  On Rhetoric, Book I

            PRESENTATION:  Cheryl Glenn, Rhetoric Retold, chapters 1 and 2

                    Susan Jarratt and Rory Ong, "Aspasia:  Rhetoric, Gender, and                                 Colonial Ideology"

 

10/7     Aristotle tells us how to speak

            READ: Aristotle, On Rhetoric, Books II and II

            PRESENTATIONS: 1.  Eugene Garver, Aristotle's Rhetoric: An Art of Character

                                              2.  Larry Arnhart, Aristotle on Political Reasoning

                                              3.  Jasper Neel, Aristotle's Voice

 

10/14  Aristotle asks:  How should we treat one another?

            READ:  Aristotle, The Nichomachean Ethics

            PRESENTATIONS: 1.  Eva  Keuls, The Reign of the Phallus

                        2.  Sarah Pomeroy, Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves

3.  John Winkler, "Laying Down the Law: The Oversight of Men's Sexual Behavior in Classical Athens"

                             Peter Garnsey, Ideas of Slavery, chapters 1-8                     

 

10/21  The great competitor

            READ: Isocrates, "Helen," "Areopagiticus," "Against the Sophists"

            PRESENTATIONS: 1.  Josiah Ober, Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens

                        2.  David J. Cohen, Law, Violence, and Community in Ancient Athens

                        3  Donald Kagan, Pericles of Athens and the Birth of Democracy

                        4.  Philip Brook Manville, The Origins of Citizenship in Ancient Athens

 

10/28   What is rhetoric? 

            READ: Isocrates, "Antidosis"

            PRESENTATIONS:

                        1. Takis Poulakos, Speaking for the Polis: Isocrates' Rhetorical Tradition

                        2.  John Poulakos, Sophistic Rhetoric in Classical Greece         

 

11/4    The rhetorician who was also, incidently, one of the greatest rhetors ever

            READ: Cicero, selections from De Oratore

 

11/11   Cicero's history of rhetoric

            READ:  Cicero, Brutus

PRESENTATIONS: 1.  Richard Leo Enos, The Literate Mode of Cicero's Legal Rhetoric                             2.  Any five of Cicero's orations

 

11/18 The great teacher of rhetoric

          READ:  Quintilian, Institutes of Oratory, Books X-XI 

          PRESENTATION:   Miriam Brody, Manly Writing        

 

11/25  THANKSGIVING--NO CLASS

 

12/2    READ: Quintilian, Institutes of Oratory, Book XII

           Summary discussion