Fall 2022 - ENGL 475W D100

Seminar in Rhetoric (4)

Class Number: 4509

Delivery Method: In Person

Overview

  • Course Times + Location:

    Sep 7 – Dec 6, 2022: Fri, 12:30–4:20 p.m.
    Burnaby

  • Prerequisites:

    45 units. Strongly recommended: ENGL 214 or 375. Reserved for English honours, major, joint major and minor students.

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Advanced seminar in a particular topic, approach, or author in the field of rhetoric and writing. The course may be repeated for credit if a different topic is taught. Students with credit for ENGL 475 may not take this course for further credit. Students who obtained credit for ENGL 475W prior to Summer 2015 may not take this course for further credit. Writing.

COURSE DETAILS:

The Fictions of Rhetoric

As a practical civic art, rhetoric is traditionally associated with persuasion and debate about real-world problems by actual people in real-life situations like those of the lawcourt, the parliament, and the public assembly. Its grounding in the real-world has traditionally distinguished rhetoric from the imagined-worlds of fiction. In his foundational work "The Rhetorical Situation," Lloyd Bitzer, for instance, marks off the "fictive situations" depicted in novels or plays from the "real situations" that concern rhetoric. Despite this grounding in the real world, however, "fictive situations" have played an important role as pedagogical devices in the history of rhetorical training. Declamation games were imaginary legal and parliamentary cases meant to train ancient Greek and Roman students for the real cases and situations they would one day encounter in lawcourts and legislative assemblies. Some themes were prosaic--fraud, inheritance, divorce, and adoption--and others sensational--murder, suicide, poisoning, abduction, and cannibalism. Though often maligned as "false semblances of reality" and "empty shadows," overexposure to which could spoil and incapacitate students, leading them to "shrink in terror from the real perils of public life," as Quintilian put it, these imaginary cases remained central to instruction for centuries, serving as the "capstone experience" in the western rhetorical curriculum. They have been rediscovered in recent years by researchers who see in them valuable opportunities for students to practice rhetorical invention and gain experience with the controversial thinking and many-sidedness of a rhetorical perspective. In this course we will practice declamation and learn about its history and purposes, focusing in particular on the legal "controversiae." Along the way we will also investigate other kinds of imaginary cases and situations used in rhetorical training and practice, like the fictional (vs. factual) variants of the paradigm and those of its generic heir, the exemplum.

Grading

  • Controversia Essay 40%
  • Paradigm Essay 40%
  • Drafts 10%
  • Participation 10%

Materials

REQUIRED READING:

No textbook.  Readings for the course are journal articles and excerpts from primary texts.

REQUIRED READING NOTES:

Your personalized Course Material list, including digital and physical textbooks, are available through the SFU Bookstore website by simply entering your Computing ID at: shop.sfu.ca/course-materials/my-personalized-course-materials.

Department Undergraduate Notes:

IMPORTANT NOTE Re 300 and 400 level courses: 75% of spaces in 300 level English courses, and 100% of spaces in 400 level English courses, are reserved for declared English Major, Minor, Extended Minor, Joint Major, and Honours students only, until open enrollment begins.

For all On-Campus Courses, please note the following:
- To receive credit for the course, students must complete all requirements.
- Tutorials/Seminars WILL be held the first week of classes.
- When choosing your schedule, remember to check "Show lab/tutorial sections" to see all Lecture/Seminar/Tutorial times required.

Registrar Notes:

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY: YOUR WORK, YOUR SUCCESS

SFU’s Academic Integrity website http://www.sfu.ca/students/academicintegrity.html is filled with information on what is meant by academic dishonesty, where you can find resources to help with your studies and the consequences of cheating. Check out the site for more information and videos that help explain the issues in plain English.

Each student is responsible for his or her conduct as it affects the university community. Academic dishonesty, in whatever form, is ultimately destructive of the values of the university. Furthermore, it is unfair and discouraging to the majority of students who pursue their studies honestly. Scholarly integrity is required of all members of the university. http://www.sfu.ca/policies/gazette/student/s10-01.html