Next Week

Don't forget to click on the syllabus for the latest info about what we are reading and who will be facilitating discussion. If you are faciliating soon and your choice of texts isn't on the syllabus yet -- e-mail me to remind me so the information appears as soon as possible. Speaking of as soon as possible... that's when your blog-posts need to arrive for the first assignment. Kick it into gear, people.

TECBlogging

TECBlogging

Tomorrow... And Beyond!

Remember that for tomorrow you should have read and prepared to discuss C.S. Lewis' The Abolition of Man. Tomorrow I'll be bringing a blank syllabus on which students will be able to select presentation times for the remainder of the term, and texts from the online list that they would like to present (you can select a time without knowing yet exactly which text you will want to present -- but remember, when it comes both to times and texts, first come, first served). I am going to choose two texts for us to read and discuss next week, and I encourage students to come forward to present on at least one of them. The first text is a curious short story by Marc Stiegler called The Gentle Seduction. The second is John Perry Barlow's incredibly influential Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace.

The Language of the Future

These are the lyrics to Laurie Anderson's "The Language of the Future," from United States, which I discussed a little bit before class with a couple of you. We can take this up, among other things, next Thursday, should the shape of the conversation move us that way....

The Language of the Future

Last year, I was on a twin-engine plane coming from Milwaukee to New York City. Just over La Guardia, one of the engines conked out and we started to drop straight down, flipping over and over. Then the other engine died: and we went completely out of control. New York City started getting taller and taller. A voice came over the intercom and said:

Our pilot has informed us that we are about to attempt a crash landing.
Please extinguish all cigarettes. Place your tray tables in their upright, locked position.

Your Captain says: Please do not panic.
Your Captain says: Place your head in your hands.
Captain says: Place your head on your knees.
Captain says: Put your hands on your head. Put your hands on your knees! (heh-heh)

This is your Captain.
Have you lost your dog?
We are going down.
We are all going down, together.

As it turned out, we were caught in a downdraft and rammed into a bank. It was, in short, a miracle. But afterwards I was terrified of getting onto planes. The moment I started walking down that aisle, my eyes would clamp shut and I would fall into a deep, impenetrable sleep.

(YOU DON’T WANT TO SEE THIS ...
YOU DON’T WANT TO BE HERE ...
HAVE YOU LOST YOUR DOG?)

Finally, I was able to remain conscious, but I always had to go up to the forward cabin and ask the stewardesses if I could sit next to them: “Hi! Uh, mind if I join you?” They were always rather irritated -- “Oh, all right (what a baby)” -- and I watched their uniforms crack as we made nervous chitchat.

Sometimes even this didn’t work, and I’d have to find one of the other passengers to talk to. You can spot these people immediately. There’s one on every flight. Someone who’s really on your wavelength.

I was on a flight from L.A. when I spotted one of them, sitting across the aisle. A girl, about fifteen. And she had this stuffed rabbit set up on her tray table and she kept arranging and rearranging the rabbit and kind of waving to it: “Hi!”
“Hi there!”
And I decided: This is the one I want to sit next to. So I sat down and we started to talk and suddenly I realized she was speaking an entirely different language. Computerese.
A kind of high-tech lingo.
Everything was circuitry, electronics, switching.
If she didn’t understand something, it just “didn’t scan.”
We talked mostly about her boyfriend. This guy was never in a bad mood. He was in a bad mode.
Modey kind of a guy.
The romance was apparently kind of rocky and she kept saying: “Man oh man you know like it’s so digital!” She just meant the relationship was on again, off again.

Always two things switching.
Current runs through bodies and then it doesn’t.
It was a language of sounds, of noise, of switching, of signals.
It was the language of the rabbit, the caribou, the penguin, the beaver.
A language of the past.
Current runs through bodies and then it doesn’t.
On again.
Off again.
Always two things switching.
One thing instantly replaces another.

It was the language of the Future.

Put your knees up to your chin.
Have you lost your dog?
Put your hands over your eyes.

Jump out of the plane.
There is no pilot.
You are not alone.

This is the language of the on-again off-again future.
And it is Digital.

And I answered the phone and I heard a voice and the voice said:
Please do not hang up.
We know who you are.
Please do not hang up.
We know what you have to say.
Please do not hang up.
We know what you want.
Please do not hang up.
We’ve got your number:
One ...
Two ...
Three ...
Four.

Syllabus for Critical Theory B, Fall, 2006

Critical Theory B, Fall 2006: Theory Faces Technoscience
Instructor: Dale Carrico, dalec@berkeley.edu; dcarrico@sfai.edu
Thursdays, 9.00-11.45; Office Hours: After class and by appointment.
Course Blog: http://tecblogging.blogspot.com/

Course Description

A technophile is a person to whom we attribute a naïve or uncritical enthusiasm for technology, while a technophobe is a person to whom we attribute a no less uncritical dread of or hostility to technology. But what does it tell us that there is no similarly familiar word to describe a person who is focused on the impact of technoscientific developments in a critical way that pays equally close attention both to their promises and their dangers? Is it really so impossible to conceive of a critical technocentrism equally alive to real promises and alert to real dangers?

Technoscientific change is an ongoing provocation on our personal and public lives. In this course we will focus our attention on some of the ways critical theory has tried to make sense of the ongoing impact of technoscience and technodevelopmental social struggle on public life, cultural forms, creative expression, and ethical discourse.

Our conversation this term will take as its point of departure the assumption that the basic categories through which we make sense of individual and collective agency, dignity, and claims of right are transforming under the pressure of emerging and converging digital networks, genetic, prosthetic, and cognitive medicine, developments in energy, manufacturing, materials science, automation, weapons proliferation, and so on.

Over the course of the term, we will survey some key interventions of critical theory into the problems, values, assumptions, and specificities of contemporary technoscience. Together with these theoretical texts, we will contemplate fiction, film, and policy-making that take up these problems and expresses these values and assumptions in different ways. These texts will sometimes be technophilic, sometimes technophobic. Sometimes they will be freighted with hyperbolic enthusiasm, sometimes with intimations of disaster. Some will see technological development as inherently superhumanizing, some as inherently dehumanizing. We will lodge our own interventions in a hope that refuses nostalgia and a critical realism that refuses the faith in inevitable progress.

In an important sense the course will truly be a collaborative performance, and so our more specific focus and problems and interests will depend in a significant measure on your own circumstances, concerns, and on the texts that you yourselves happen to respond to most forcefully. Every text that we are reading in this class is available online, and I am providing an overabundance of texts for you to choose from. The shape of our conversation, its pace, focus, order will reflect your choices and your responses. It remains to be seen just what conclusions we will find our way to by the end of the term and the end of this conversation.

Grade Breakdown:

Attendance/Participation/Quizzes: 20%
In-Class Presentation: 15%
Three Short Papers, approximately 3pp. each, posted to this blog: 40%
Final Examination: 25%

Texts

Christopher Allen, “Tracing the Evolution of Social Software”
Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron, “California Ideology”
John Perry Barlow, “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace”
Michel Bauwens, "The Political Economy of Peer Production"
Michael Berube, “Life As We Know It”
James Boyle, “The Second Enclosure Movement and the Construction of the Public Domain”
James Boyle, “Enclosing the Genome?”
David Brin, “Three Cheers for the Surveillance Society!”
Jamais Cascio, “Leapfrog 101” and other entries under the "Leapfrog" keyword at Worldchanging
Jordan Crandall, "Operational Media"
Erik Davis, “Experience Design”
Jacques Ellul, excerpts from The Technological Society
fibreculture, any essay from Issue 5, "Multitudes, Creative Organisation and the Precarious Condition of New Media Labour"
Andrew Freenberg, “Marcuse or Habermas: Two Critiques of Technology”
Donna Haraway, “The Promises of Monsters”
Katherine Hayles, “Liberal Subjectivity Imperiled: Norbert Weiner and
Cybernetic Anxiety”
James Hughes, “Embrace the End of Work”
Don Ihde, "How Could We Ever Believe Science Is Not Political?"
Jeron Lanier, “One Half of a Manifesto”
Lawrence Lessig, “Preface,” and “What Things Regulate?” from Code
Lawrence Lessig, "Insanely Destructive Devices"
C.S. Lewis, “The Abolition of Man”
Jessica Litman, “Sharing and Stealing”
Steve Mann, “The Post-Cyborg Path to Deconism”
Paul D. Miller (DJ Spooky), “Material Memories”
Annalee Newitz, “Genome Liberation”
Bruce Sterling, “Viridian Design Speech”
Marc Steigler, “The Gentle Seduction”
Paul Virilio, Two Conversations
Oscar Wilde, “The Soul of Man Under Socialism”
Mark Winokur, “The Ambiguous Panopticon”
Christian Zemsauer, "Afro-Futurism"
Slavoj Zizek, “Bring Me My Philips Mental Jacket”
Slavoj Zizek, "No Sex, Please, We're Posthuman"

A Provisional Schedule of Meetings:

Week One, August 31

Administrative Introduction
Personal Introductions

Week Two September 7

Course Introduction
C.S. Lewis, “The Abolition of Man”

Week Three September 14

John Perry Barlow, “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace” DC
Marc Steigler, “The Gentle Seduction” Claudia

Week Four September 21

Kristin, Don Ihde, "How Could We Ever Believe Science Is Not Political?"
Michael Berube, “Life As We Know It”

Week Five September 28

Jamais Cascio, “Leapfrog 101” and other entries under the "Leapfrog" keyword at Worldchanging, David C.
David Brin, “Three Cheers for the Surveillance Society!,” Bronwen

Week Six October 5

Slavoj Zizek, “Bring Me My Philips Mental Jacket”
Slavoj Zizek, "No Sex, Please, We're Posthuman," Alla

Week Seven October 12

Oscar Wilde, “The Soul of Man Under Socialism,” Tony
Donna Haraway, “The Promises of Monsters,” Chika

Week Eight October 19

Lawrence Lessig, Insanely Destructive Devices, Grey
Paul Virilio, Two Conversations

Week Nine October 26

Annalee Newitz, “Genome Liberation,” Ates
Michel Bauwens, "The Political Economy of Peer Production"

Week Ten November 2

Katherine Hayles, “Liberal Subjectivity Imperiled: Norbert Weiner and Cybernetic Anxiety”
Jeron Lanier, “One Half of a Manifesto”

Week Eleven, November 9:

Desk Set

Week Twelve, November 16:

Colossus: The Forbin Project.

Week Thirteen: November 23: Academic and Administrative Holiday

Week Fourteen: November 30

Paul D. Miller (DJ Spooky), “Material Memories”
Mark Winokur, “The Ambiguous Panopticon”

Week Fifteen: December 7


Week Sixteen: December 14

Syllabus for Critical Theory A, Spring, 2006

Critical Theory A
Subject, Object, Abject

Spring 2006

Tuesdays, 9.00-11.45
Instructor: Dale Carrico, dalec@berkeley.edu
Office Hours: Before and after class and by appointment.

Course Description

Just what is the relationship of argument to interpretation? “Interpretation” derives from the Latin interpretatio, a term freighted with the sense not only of explication and explanation, but translation. What are the conventions that govern intelligible acts of interpretation, translation, argumentation? What are the conventions through which we constitute the proper objects of interpretation in the first place? And who are the subjects empowered to offer up interpretations that compel our attention and conviction? What happens when objects object to our interpretations and demand the standing of subjects themselves? How does the interpretation of literary texts differ from the interpretation of the law? How does it differ from a scientist’s interrogation of her environment? Or from any critical engagement with the “given” terms of the social order in which one lives? Or even from the give and take through which we struggle to understand one another in everyday conversation? These are questions with which we will begin our survey of some of the themes, problems, and conventions in the rhetoric of interpretation. Where we will have arrived by the end will of course be very much a matter open to interpretation.

Schedule of Meetings

Jan 24 Introduction
Donna Haraway, “A Manifesto for Cyborgs”
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Haraway/CyborgManifesto.html

Jan 31 Diagnostic Essay Due, 2-3pp.
Discuss Haraway, “Manifesto for Cyborgs”

Feb 7 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology

Feb 14 Marx and Engels, The German Ideology (continued)

Feb 21 Roland Barthes, Mythologies

Feb 28 Barthes, Mythologies (continued)

Mar 7 Louis Althusser, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses”

March 13-17 Spring Break

Mar 21 Paper Due, 4-5pp. due
Screen film They Live, John Carpenter, dir.
Discuss film.

Mar 28 Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish

Apr 4 Conclude discussion of Foucault, Discipline and Punish
Begin discussion of Michel Foucault, History of Sexuality

Apr 11 Discuss Foucault, History of Sexuality (continued)

Apr 18 Franz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks

Apr 25 Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (continued)

May 2 Carol Adams, “Preface” and “On Beastliness and a Politics of
Solidarity,” from Neither Man Nor Beast: Feminism and the Defense
of Animals
Judith Butler, Giving an Account of Oneself

May 9 Paper Due, 4-5pp
Butler, Giving an Account of Oneself
Concluding Remarks.

Wendy Brown

For Thursday, I would like everybody to read the first two and then the final two short pieces of the Brown book Politics Out of History. For those who are curious, if we had stuck to the syllabus and devoted another week to the Brown I would have also assigned Chapters 4 and 5. But as it is this will give us plenty to talk about. The Chapters for Thursday, then, are "Politics Out of History," "Moralism as Anti-Politics," "Democracy Against Itself," and "Specters and Angels." Enjoy!

Our In-class Test

So, here's the example we created in class.

Wikipedia: Critical Theory

Mabel pointed out to me that the Wikipedia entry for the term Critical Theory covers much of the same ground I rambled on about last week in our Introductory discussion. She's right, it's really pretty good. Check it out if you want a concise refresher or overview of the history, problems, methods of critical theory.

Syllabus

Critical Theory A
Critique, Subjection, Prostheses

Fall 2005

Thursdays, 9.00-11.45, Conference Room
Instructor: Dale Carrico, dalec@berkeley.edu
Office Hours: Before and after class and by appointment.

Sept 1 Introduction
Donna Haraway, “A Manifesto for Cyborgs”
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Haraway/CyborgManifesto.html

Sept 8 Diagnostic Essay Due, 2-3pp.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology

Sept 15 Marx and Engels, The German Ideology (continued)

Sept 22 Roland Barthes, Mythologies

Sept 29 Barthes, Mythologies (coninued)

Oct 6 Louis Althusser, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses”

Oct 13 Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish
Paper Due, 4-5pp. due

Oct 20 Foucault, Discipline and Punish (continued)

Oct 27 Michel Foucault, History of Sexuality

Nov 3 Foucault, History of Sexuality (continued)

Nov 10 Judith Butler, Undoing Gender

Nov 17 Butler, Undoing Gender (continued)

Nov 24-25 Thanksgiving Holiday

Dec 1 Wendy Brown, Politics Out of History
Take Home Exam Due

Dec 8 Brown, Politics Out of History (continued)

Dec 15 Concluding Remarks
Donna Haraway, “A Manifesto for Cyborgs” (revisited)
Paper Due, 4-5pp.

Four Aims of Argument

I've gotten a couple of questions about the reference in the Mid-Term to the "Four Aims of Argument." This is NOT a reference to the "Four Habits of Argumentative Writing." Here's a hint: One of the four "Aims" is -- Persuasion.

See everybody tomorrow morning in Dwinelle 188. Be on time!

Text of the Midterm Exam

For those few of you who were unable to attend class Thursday, this is the text of the take-home mid-term examination I distributed then. You are to hand it in Tuesday morning when you arrive in class. Remember, we are screening a film Tuesday in Room 188 of Dwinelle Hall. Please arrive on time, because the running time of the film demands we get right underway.

You still have plenty of time to complete the exam. It is adapted from an exam I have administered to students in my Rhetoric 10 course, and they are able to complete it, without notes or other resources at their disposal, in under three hours.

Your Name:
Rhetoric 110
Summer, 2005

Midterm Examination

Part I (50 pts., total)

Section 1: Short Answer (20 pts.)

1. Describe the three rhetorical appeals, ethos, logos, and pathos.
2. Name the four Aims of Argument, as we have discussed them in class.
3. Name the four “Master Tropes”
4. What is the difference between a syllogism and an enthymeme?
5. What distinguishes a hypothetical from a categorical syllogism?
6. What is the inductive leap?
7. What is the difference between a scheme and a trope?
8. According to the Toulmin Schema, what is an argument’s warrant?
9. What is the difference between a paradox and an oxymoron?
10. What is the difference between the fallacies of division and composition?

Section 2: Identifications (10 pts. [incl. 2 free pts.])

Identify the form of the inference (the logical argument) in each of these syllogisms, and say whether they are valid or fallacious.

1. P, then q.
Not p.
So, not q.

2. If a, then b.
B is the case.
Thus, so is a.

3. S, then t.
Not t.
And hence, not s.

4. x, then y.
x
Therefore, y.

5. Circle the antecedent in this proposition:

If you studied for the exam, then I expect you will do quite well on it.

6. Is the following a deductive or inductive argument?

“Self-esteem appears to be at least a necessary condition for happiness. All the happy people I’ve known, whatever their other differences in personality and goals, seem to have basic self-esteem, whereas people who don’t have that trait never seem to be happy.”

7. Which of the following two sentences is a Trope and which a Scheme? Indicate your answer by putting a “T” or “S” in the space in front of the sentence.

“Band-Aids: Your child’s new body-guards.”

“I am stuck on Band-Aids, ‘cause Band-Aids stuck on me.”

8. What type of deductive syllogism is the following argument?

“According to the union contract, either we have to close the plant on labor day, or we have to pay the workers twice the regular pay. But we have too much work to close the plant, so we’ll have to pay the workers double time.”

Section 3: Matching

Matching Fallacies (10 pts. [incl. 1 free pt.])

1. Ad Ignoratiam
2. Ad Populum
3. Ad Misericordiam
4. Ad Baculum
5. Ad Verecundiam
6. Denying the Antecedant
7. Undistributed Middle
8. Petitio Principii
9. Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc

___ Teacher to Student: “And, finally, in reconsidering your position, you might want to remember who gives out the grades in this course.”

___ Parent to Child: “Fine. Go ahead. Quit school. Why should you care if you are breaking a poor parent’s heart?”

___ Why are you so skeptical about the existence of UFOs? Nobody has ever proved they don’t exist!”

___ Time is money, and time heals all wounds. So, it’s no surprise that money heals all wounds.

___ Anarchy would be a fine and beautiful system for society to adopt, if men were angels. Alas, they are not.

___ The Golden Rule is a sound moral principle, since it’s basic to every system of ethics in literally every known culture.

___ Order is indispensable to justice, for justice can only be achieved in the context of a social and legal order.

___ “I must say I’m not surprised Tara slipped on that banana peel and broke her leg, when not five minutes before I watched her step on a crack, walk under a ladder, cross a black cat’s path, and break her compact mirror without giving it a second thought.”

___ You should buy the new Bottle Blond Boyz Album. All the kewl kids are.

Matching Figures (10 pts.)

1. Prosopopeia
2. Litotes
3. Metaphor
4. Auxesis
5. Hyperbole
6. Metonymy
7. Alliteration
8. Assonance
9. Antanaclasis
10. Oxymoron

___ Summer session courses go on for an absolute eternity.

___ O miserable abundance, O beggarly riches! -- John Donne, Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions

___ Last week I saw a woman flayed, and you will hardly believe how much it altered her appearance for the worse. – Jonathan Swift, A Tale of a Tub

___ And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window panes. – T.S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”

___ The prosecutor was a missile, zeroing in on his culminating point.

___ “Tho’ we’re apart, you’re a part of me still.” – lyrics of the song, Blueberry Hill

___ …and with firm confidence in justice, freedom, and peace on earth that will raise the hearts and the hopes of mankind for that distant day when no one rattles a saber and no one drags a chain. – Adlai Stevenson, acceptance speech, 1952

___ Progress is not proclamation or palaver. It is not pretense nor play on prejudice. It is not the perturbation of a people passion-wrought nor a promise proposed. – Warren G. Harding nominating William Taft in 1912.

___ It shreds the nerves, it vivisects the psyche – and it may even scare the living daylights out of more than a few playgoers. – Review in TIME, 1966

___ Whales in the wake like capes and Alps Quaked the sick sea and snouted deep. – Dylan Thomas, “Ballad of the Long-Legged Bait”

Part II (50 pts, total)

Section 1: Exercises (15 pts.)

A. Reconstruct the following arguments by identifying their conclusions and their premises. Then identify whether or not the arguments are valid.

1. The TELEBEARS system asks me all sorts of questions when I dial in. And we all know that if a computer were a conscious being it would ask me all sorts of questions. So TELEBEARS must be a conscious being.

2. If the United States completes a missile defense system before the rest of the world does, they wil gain enormous leverage over all other nations in any confrontation. For if the US completes its defensive shield firsdt, they will pose a credible threat of a first strike, and if they pose such a threat they will gain enormous leverage.

B. For each of the following enthymemes: 1. Supply the missing premise or conclusion. 2. Identify whether the missing element is a major premise, a minor premise, or the conclusion.

1. He must be annoyed, because he’s scowling all the time.

2. Mary crossed the picket line, so her lamb must have crossed it too.

3. New Yorkers are well-mannered, and no well-mannered people are uncivilized.

4. True freedom demands responsibility, and that is why most folks dread it.

5. No enthymemes are complete, and so this argument is incomete.

Section 2: Toulmin Schema (15 pts.)

Construct a strategy of support using the Toulmin Schema for the following enthymeme: “”Serpents make vile pets, because they cannot be trusted.” Be sure to identify all the parts of the Toulmin Schema, the claim, the stated reason, and to supply a plausible warrant, qualification, grounds, etc. [By “construct a strategy of support” I mean simply to provide an argument, but one which exhibits all the characteristics the Toulmin Schema identifies for analyzing arguments.]

Section 3: Short Essay (20 pts.)

Write an essay of approximately two pages in length [students who received the handout will probably produce handwritten essays that cover the blank space of the page on which this question appears, plus the back of the sheet, as necessary] analyzing the following passage from Frederixk Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave. Your essay should identify what you take to be the central claim of the passage, and then discuss how Douglass uses figurative language to make his claim and express it more forcefully.

“It was called by the slaves the Great House Farm. Few privileges were esteemed higher, by the slaves of the out-farms, than that of being selected to do errands at the Great House Farm. It was associated in their minds with greatness. A representative could not be prouder of his election to a seat in the American Congress, than a slave on one of the out-farms would be of his election to do errands at the Great House Farm. They regarded it as evidence of great confidence reposed in them by their overseers; and it was on this account, as well as a constant desire to be out of the field from under the driver’s lash, that they esteemed it a high privilege, one worth careful living for… The competitors for this office sought as diligently to please their overseers, as the office-seekers in the political parties seek to pelase and deceive the people. The same traits of character might be seen in Colonial Lloyd’s slaves, as are seen in the slaves of the political parties.”

Reading

I realize everybody is hard at work polishing up their papers for tomorrow -- but do remember to give the pieces by Alex Steffen (rather short) and Paulina Borsook (rather long, but very amusing) a good read to prepare for our discussion in class. Also, we will be moving to a classroom in Dwinelle Hall next Tuesday to screen the film "Desk Set." Be sure to remind me tomorrow to give you good directions how to get there.

Welcome!

People are starting to accept their blogger invites, and as they arrive I'm waking up your sidebar links so that the links connect readers directly with your e-mail accounts. If you indicated to me that you do not want your e-mail released I have not included you in the sidebar, but everybody can post to the blog, whether they are visible in the sidebar or not. If you would prefer that your sidebar link direct people to a different account or a home page or whatever else, please just let me know and I'll alter it. If I have misspelled your name or misremembered your nicknames or anything like that, let me know and I'll alter it.

Experiment with the blog and make it your own. Discuss the course, discuss your papers, discuss the readings, discuss the discussions, discuss your disgust with the weather, with politics, whatever you like.

There are some great technoloculture/technoethics links on the sidebar that I thought might interest folks in the class, as well as general writing resources. Check them out, and always feel welcome to discuss what you encounter in them in the course.

I hope this is a useful separate space for you all -- sorry it took me so long to bring it online! See everybody Tuesday morning. d

Syllabus for Rhet 110, Summer, 2005

Rhetoric 110
Advanced Argumentation and Argumentative Writing:
Varieties of Techno-Ethical Discourse

Summer 2005

24 Wheeler Hall, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, 9.30-12 noon

Course Instructor

Dale Carrico
Mailbox: 7408 Dwinelle
Messages: 642-1415
E-Mail: dalec@berkeley.edu
Office Hours: For an hour after class Tuesdays and Thursdays and by appointment.
Course Description

This course is devoted to the study and practice of advanced argumentative techniques and assumes a basic background in writing and argument. We will examine works of theory and cultural criticism, popular editorials, legal and political policy, as well as literary and media texts. The texts in the class are all broadly organized around the theme of technological development, considered as a space both of imaginative investment and social struggle.

The problems and skills that emerge from our focus should have a wide applicability for research and criticism across the humanities. We will divide our time between three argumentative modes: deliberation, demonstration, and debate. Among the topics and questions we will be grappling with are: How should an argument that seeks to call basic assumptions into question be different in form from one that hopes to arrive at conviction, or to impact conduct, or to reconcile antagonistic viewpoints? How do we properly anticipate and assess the demands of a variety of specific audiences? How do we identify and deploy the argumentative content of figurative language? Just what is this process that is called "close reading" and how precisely does it relate to the Toulmin schema for the analysis of arguments? What kinds of claims properly emerge from the close reading of texts and how are they substantiated? What constitutes a "fact" in philosophical and literary criticism devoted to practices of close reading?

Required Texts (Primarily to be found in our Course Reader)

Laurie Anderson, “The Language of the Future”
Hannah Arendt, “Prologue to The Human Condition”
John Perry Barlow, “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace”
Paulina Borsook “The Crypto Wars,” from Cyberselfish
David Brin, “The End of Photography as Proof of Anything at All”
David Brin, “Three Cheers for the Surveillance Society”
Octavia Butler, “The Evening and the Morning and the Night”
Daniel Harris, “The Futuristic,” from The Aesthetics of Consumerism
Donna Haraway, “A Manifesto for Cyborgs”
Eric Hughes, “A Cypherpunk’s Manifesto”
James Hughes, “Using Democracy to Cure Future Shock”
Thomas Jefferson. The Declaration of Independence.
Walter Lang, dir. Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy. Film: “Desk Set”
Timothy C. May, “The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto”
Katsuhiro Otomo. Film: “Roujin Z”
Nick Rombes, “Professor DVD”
Valerie Solanas, “The SCUM Manifesto”
Thomas Starr, “The Real Declaration”
Alex Steffen, “The Tech Bloom”
Bruce Sterling, “Maneki Neko,” from A Good Old-Fashioned Future
Marc Stiegler, “A Gentle Seduction”
Oscar Wilde, “The Soul of Man Under Socialism”

Also, each student is required to purchase a blank notebook in which they will keep a writer’s journal, as well as a folder to keep track of all written assignments.

Course Requirements and Policies

1. Attendance – This is a six week intensive course and absences must be kept to an absolute minimum. You should warn me in advance about absences. When this is not possible, call the Rhetoric Office (642-1415) and leave a message explaining why you are absent. Keep in mind that missing classes or arriving late disrupts the community of the classroom, especially since you will be doing a great deal of work with your peers this term. Absences and lateness will affect your performance negatively, and will lower your final grade significantly.

2. Deadlines -- You are required to observe assignment deadlines. If you anticipate trouble completing an assignment on time, you must speak to me in advance about an extension. Any paper or homework assignment handed in late without an extension will be reduced by a half of a letter grade for each day  including Saturdays and Sundays –- that it is late. Try to break the procrastination cycle: leave enough time so that printer failures, disk errors, and lines at the printout place do not make you late.

3. Format -- All written work for this course must be printed on a word processor or typed. Written work that is not printed on a word processor or typed will not be accepted (unless of course it is an in-class assignment), and the late policy (see #2 above) will apply. Always spell-check your written assignments. Resist the use of your computer’s thesaurus. Use your own vocabulary. ALWAYS proofread your papers after you have printed them out. Excessive spelling and proofreading errors will be subject to significant grade reductions. Also, it is a good idea to keep copies of papers and other important written assignments. Papers do get lost, and if an instructor loses a paper it is your responsibility to provide a new copy.

4. Participation -– Participation in class discussion is REQUIRED. I know that some people are less enthusiastic about class participation than others. Let me state my philosophy on this: Classroom discussion is the only way I know to make visible the genuinely broad range of valid responses any complicated argument will provoke. Understanding objections to your viewpoint will either sharpen the effectiveness of that view or it will change your mind, and either outcome can only be a good thing. If you are pathologically shy it may be possible to satisfy the participation requirement by attending office hours regularly. But please make an effort at class participation –- I’ll do what I can to make the class a safe environment for the exploration and dispute of ideas. Feel free to disagree with one another or with me or with anybody, but always respect one another and keep an open mind about other viewpoints. And keep in mind also that borderline grades will be affected both positively and negatively by regular classroom participation or by its lack.

Your final grade will be determined by summing the grades of the following assignments in the given proportions:

1. Peer Responses on the First Paper Draft 05%
2. First Paper 10%
3. Peer Responses on Second Paper Draft 05%
4. Second Paper 10%
5. Take-Home Mid-Term Exam 10%
6. Peer Responses on Third Paper Draft 05%
7. Third Paper 10%
8. Peer Responses on Final Paper Draft 05%
9. Final Paper 10%
10. Homework and In-Class Work 10%
11. Class Participation 10%
12. Final Report 04%
13. Journal 04%
14. Quizzes 02%

Course Requirements and Policies

I have read, I understand, and I agree to all of the course requirements and policies.

I. Attendance ________________

II. Deadlines ________________

III. Format ________________

IV. Participation ________________


Print Name:________________________________

Signature:_________________________________


A Provisional Schedule of Meetings

Week One

May 24
Course Introduction
SKILL SET: An argument is a claim supported by reasons. Ethos/Pathos/Logos.

May 25
2-3 Minute Introductory Speeches
SKILL SET: Four Habits of Argumentative Writing: 1. Formulate a Strong Thesis; 2. Define Your Terms; 3. Substantiate/Contextualize; 4. Anticipate Objections.

May 26
Hand in Diagnostic Essay (2-3pp) on Anderson’s Piece
Laurie Anderson, “The Language of the Future,” Brin, “The End of Photography”
SKILL SET: Audiences/Intentions; Reading Critically is a Kind of Writing

Week Two

May 31
Hand in Drafts of First Paper to Peer Revision Groups
Wilde, “The Soul of Man Under Socialism”
SKILL SET: Intentions – Interrogation, Conviction, Persuasion, Reconciliation

June 1
Peer Revision/Discussion of Drafts
Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence
Barlow, “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace”
Starr, “The Real Declaration”
SKILL SET: Audiences –- Sympathetic, Unsympathetic, Apathetic; Rogerian Rhetoric

June 2
Hand in Paper One, Precis (3-4pp.) of Wilde’s Essay
May, "The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto"
Hughes "A Cypherpunk's Manifesto"
SKILL SET: The Toulmin Schema

Week Three

June 7
Hand in Drafts of Second Paper to Peer Revision Groups
Brin, “Three Cheers for the Surveillance Society”
SKILL SET: Literal/Figurative Language; Figures/Tropes; Four Master Tropes

June 8
Peer Revision/Discussion of Drafts
SKILL SET: Syllogisms, Enthymemes; Formal Fallacies

June 9
Second Paper (4-5pp.) Due
Borsook "The Crypto Wars"
Steffen, “The Tech Bloom”
SKILL SET: Informal Fallacies

Week Four

June 14
Hand in Take-Home Mid-Term Exam
Screening of “Desk Set”

June 15
Rombes, “Professor DVD”
Discussion of “Desk Set”
SKILL SET: Terms for Film and Media Criticism

June 16
Sterling, “Maneki Neko”
Harris, “The Futuristic”

Week Five

June 21
Hand in Drafts of Third Paper to Peer Revision Groups
Stiegler, "The Gentle Seduction"
Hughes, “Using Democracy to Cure Future Shock”

June 22
Peer Revision/Discussion of Drafts
Solanas, “The SCUM Manifesto”

June 23
Third Paper (4-5pp) Due
Screening on “Roujin Z”

Week Six

June 28
Hand in Drafts of Final Paper to Peer Revision Groups
Butler, “The Evening and the Morning and the Night”

June 29
Hand in Final Report
Hand in Journals
Peer Revision/Discussion of Drafts
Haraway, “A Manifesto for Cyborgs”

June 30
Final Paper (5-6pp) Due
Arendt, "Prologue to The Human Condition"
Closing Remarks: Technocriticism, Technoethics, Technocultures

This is it.

Hey, check this place out. Tomorrow's the last day, people. Definitely bring your final papers and any other odds and ends you may have on hand. We'll try to tie together the loose ends and talk through the major themes and finish up Smart Mobs. Any final questions, comments, perplexities, flights of fancy -- tomorrow's your last chance!

Tomorrow's Class

We're coming down to the wire folks. Is anybody giving an in class presentation tomorrow? Anybody handing in late writing assignments? We'll be talking about the next two chapters (5-6) of Smart Mobs and talking about your final papers. You should have a thesis in mind and we'll talk about what the final papers should be shaping up as.

Professor Peevish

First off, tomorrow looks to be pretty enjoyable. The reading from Smart Mobs is Chapter Four, "The Era of Sentient Things," some of which dovetails in interesting ways with one of the in-class presentations, on David Brin's Salon.com piece, "Three Cheers for the Surveillance Society." The next presentation is Nick Rombes' "Professor DVD" which is short, but packs a lot of punch and ties in to a number of discussions we have had all along about how the availability of information on digital networks alters the credentializing role of professional criticism.

I was "expecting" to see short essays from several of you on the blog this week (remember those diagnostics you never got around to?), and there are in fact several outstanding writing assignments from some of you. I want to stress now as the term winds down that it is crucial that everybody hand in all the assigned work from the class if they expect to receive a passing grade in the course. I will not be accepting late work after next Tuesday, because at that point I have to devote myself to grading final papers.

Everybody in our little community can easily do well in the course, and I want you to do well, but you simply must do the work to do well.

Since a couple of you have attended the last classes only sporadically, I'm blogging this to all in the hopes that everybody will see the entry here or that in the spirit of civic mindedness you knock some sense into slack classmates if you stumble into any of them on campus over the course of the week. Questions, problems, comments contact me or talk to me after class or schedule an appointment to talk to me.

Tomorrow

Actually, I'm thinking there won't be a student presentation tomorrow. If I'm wrong about that, and you are planning to deliver one, please let everybody know asap so we can find and read the paper you mean to present on. Otherwise, it looks like we'll be catching up on Smart Mobs. We can devote a section of class to Chapter One, and then the next section to Chapter Two. It would be great if everybody came to class with a claim from the text that they were willing to defend as the thesis of each of these chapters, and at least one problem or perplexity they found in each chapter. In order to be sure everybody has a chance to do their presentations in class we may need to double up next week. Anyone who isn't clear about presentations or other assignments due to this point should talk to me tomorrow or e-mail me. See you all tomorrow.

Up For Next Class

We'll be talking about Chapter One of Smart Mobs, so be sure to remember we're switching from the Lunenfeld volume to the Rheingold book. We've got two in-class presentations coming up, one on Valerie Solanas' SCUM Manifesto, and the other on James Boyle's essay, "Enclosing the Genome." Also, be sure to read "The Four Habits of Argumentative Writing," and be prepared to ask me what I mean by it, because my expectations for the final paper will be defined by the guidelines you'll find there and we should talk about them in the weeks to come as you begin to think about what you'll be writing next. Looks like another jam-packed Tuesday morning coming up.