Rasha Diab

Studies in Rhetoric: Rhetorics of Peacemaking and Reconciliation

Course Subject Matter

Rhetoric can be used to violate and mobilize people to wage wars. Rhetoric also has the potential to be instrumental in problem-identification; problem-solving; and recovering from acts of war, symbolic violence, violation and dehumanization. This hinges on recognizing that acts of aggression/war and acts of reconciliation are rhetorically mediated.

In this seminar, we will focus on a particular use of rhetoric, and we will explore the following questions:

• At moments of intractability, what power does rhetoric have to enable healing, transformation and conflict-resolution?
• How do reconciliation pursuers initiate peacemaking? What discourses need to be mobilized? What are the necessary and sufficient conditions that enable peacemaking?
• What rhetorical practices, genres, and stances hamper/enable the pursuit of reconciliation?
• If the rhetoric of reconciliation seizes the power of the “rhetoric of possibility” or the “rhetoric of potential,” in what rhetorical situations does this potential have the stamina for reversal and conciliation? In other words, what are the necessary conditions (rhetorical and otherwise) for reconciliation?

These questions underline the complex territory of the rhetoric of reconciliation. As we explore the rhetoric of reconciliation and peacemaking, we will examine the different dimensions of discourses of peacemaking. These include the political, religious, ideological, social and psychological ones. Moreover, in an attempt to study the complex nature of rhetorics of conciliation and their cultural roots, we will study modalities of conciliation (South African, Arab Islamic, Native American …etc.)

Probable Texts

We will read primary and secondary texts. Here is a short list of secondary texts that we are likely to use:

• Eric Doxtader, With Faith in the Works of Words: The Beginnings of Reconciliation in South Africa (2010)
• Krista Ratcliffe, Rhetorical Listening (2005)
• Wayne Booth, The Rhetoric of Rhetoric (2004)
• Bradford Vivian, Public Forgetting: The Rhetoric and Politics of Beginning Again (2010)
• A Package of Readings: The readings will include the work of John Hatch, Mark MacPhail, Kurt Wilson, Gerard Hauser, Philippe Salazar, Kader Asmal, Hannah Arendt, Judith Butler, Barbara Cassin, Nelson Mandela, Fiona Ross, Desmond Tutu

Requirements

Besides regular attendance and reflective engagement, you will be expected to

• Lead class discussion (10%)
• Present a book report (10%)
• Conference Proposal (10%)
• Seminar Paper (70%)

Intercultural Rhetoric: From Incommensurability to Rhetorical Possibilities

What does culture have to do with rhetoric and writing? A careful examination of this question taps into the complex concept culture and uncovers a crucial force, informing and impacting rhetoric and writing practices and scholarship. That is why, the intersection of rhetoric/writing and culture has attracted the attention of scholars especially since the late 1960s, resulting in the development of contrastive rhetoric and comparative rhetoric. These two bodies of knowledge have two varied disciplinary orientations, yet they seem to converge in numerous ways.

Both seek to explore the role of culture in the practices and pedagogies of rhetoric and writing. To a great extent culture continued to be defined as “received culture.” However, current scholarship has more expansive definitions of culture and its influence on how we conceive, theorize and practice rhetoric and writing. This shift to a more nuanced and a fuller understanding of culture coincided with (a) increasing interest in other rhetorics, (b) reflections on the canonization of rhetoric and increasing interest in revisionist historiography, (3) re-visiting the role of continuity and discontinuity in shaping rhetorical agendas.

Course Objectives and Goals

This course has three focuses:

(1) studying the rise and convergence of comparative rhetoric, contrastive rhetoric, intercultural rhetoric, and transnational rhetoric,

(2) exploring rhetoric as manifest in different traditions and

(3) understanding the role of comparative/contrastive/intercultural/transnational rhetoric in current scholarship in rhetoric and writing theory, history of rhetoric, and their teaching.

In this seminar, we will

• trace the development, growth and transformation of contrastive, comparative, and intercultural rhetoric, drawing on different bodies of literature
• reflect on how interest in transnational rhetoric
• converges with comparative and contrastive rhetoric and
• affirms yet poses some challenges to the study of the intersection of culture, nation, and rhetoric.
  • Finally, we will engage the two main dimensions of intercultural rhetoric as we explore the disciplinary and instructional possibilities and challenges of (inter)cultural rhetorics.

Potential Books & Journal Special Issues

Ulla Connor, Contrastive Rhetoric: Cross-Cultural Aspects of Second Language Writing (Cambridge University Press, 1996)

Ronald L. Jackson II Elaine B. Richardson (eds.), Understanding African American Rhetoric: Classical Origins to Contemporary Innovations (Routledge, 2003)

 Carol Lipson and Roberta Binkley (eds.),  

• Rhetoric before and beyond the Greeks (SUNY, 2004) and
• Ancient Non-Greek Rhetorics (Parlor Press, 2008)

Lu Ming Mao, Reading Chinese Fortune Cookie: The Making of Chinese American Rhetoric (Utah State University Press, 2006)

Ernest Stromberg (editor), American Indian Rhetorics of Survivance, Word Medicine, Word Magic (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2006)

Victor Villanueva, Bootstraps: From an American Academic of Color (National Council of Teachers of English, 1993)

Writing, Rhetoric, and Latinidad. College English (Vol. 71, No.6, July 2009)

Feminist Rhetorics and Transnationalism . College English (Vol.70, No.5, May 2008).

Cross-Language Relations in Composition College English (Vol. 68, No. 6, July 2006)

What does culture have to do with rhetoric and writing? This question taps into a crucial force that impacts rhetoric and writing practices and scholarship. That is why, the intersection of rhetoric/writing and culture has attracted the attention of scholars especially since the late 1960s, resulting in the development of contrastive rhetoric and comparative rhetoric. To a great extent culture continued to be defined as “received culture.” However, current scholarship has more expansive definitions of culture and its influence on how we conceive, theorize and practice rhetoric and writing. This shift to a more nuanced and a fuller understanding of culture coincided with (a) increasing interest in other rhetorics, (b) reflections on the canonization of rhetoric, (3) re-visiting the role of continuity and discontinuity in shaping rhetorical agendas.

In this seminar, we will trace the development and transformation of contrastive, comparative, and intercultural rhetoric. We will engage the two main foci of intercultural rhetoric, namely research and education, and we will explore the disciplinary and instructional possibilities and challenges of (inter)cultural rhetorics.

Requirements

• Lead class discussion; book report
• Four short response/reflection papers
• Conference proposal
• A formal paper that further explores and reflects on an issue raised by the course

Readings

• Ulla Conner, Contrastive rhetoric
• Selections from Ulla Connor, Ed Nagelhout, and William V. Rozycki (eds.), Contrastive Rhetoric: Reaching to Intercultural Rhetoric
• Suresh Canagarajah, Resisting Linguistic Imperialism
• Clayann G. Panetta (ed.), Contrastive Rhetoric Revisited and Redefined
• Selections from Richard Graff, Arthur Walzer and Janet Atwill (eds.), The Viability of the Rhetorical Tradition
• George Kennedy, Comparative Rhetoric
• Selections from Carol Lipson and Roberta Binkley (eds.), Rhetoric Before and Beyond the Greeks; and selections   from Carol Lipson and Roberta Binkley (eds.) Ancient non-Greek Rhetorics
• R. Scallon and S. W. Scallon, Intercultural Communication
• C. Severino, Juan Guerra and Johnnella Butler (eds.), Writing in Multicultural Settings
• Packet of readings