Teaching What We Preach:
Designing Courses in (Un)Occupied Territories
Linda Driskill
Professor, Rice University
Houston, Texas, USA
Friday, March 18, 2011
Genre Studies Preaches . . .
Rice
University
Genres Constitute Organizations
Genre System(s) = University
Application
Admission
Parking Permits
Parking Tickets
Library Records
Fund-raising Orientation Research Proposals
Brochures
Data
Academic Curricula Awards
Dissertations
Thesis Defense
COURSES
Publications
Papers Lab Reports Exams
Student Clubs’
Graduation Requirements
Grades
Posters
Diplomas
Transcripts
Genres Constitute Organizations
Genre System(s) = University
Sciences
COURSES
Engineering
Physics, Biology
Chemistry, Math
Geology
Professional
Schools
Law
Medicine
Music
Architecture
Mechanical Engineering
Civil Engineering
Bioengineering
Humanities
Rhetoric
Social Sciences
Classics
Political Science
Philosophy
Economics
Linguistics
Sociology
Disciplinary Boundaries
Change Over Time
• Early universities - few subjects
• German universities - specialization
• 20th cent. universities - hybrid disciplines
– bioengineering, feminist studies,
mathematical economics
• Must rhetoric always be a handmaiden?
Genres Constitute Organizations
Genre System(s) = University
Sciences
Engineering
RHETORIC
Biology
Physics,
Chemistry, Math
Geology
Professional
Schools
Law
Medicine
Music
Architecture
Mechanical Engineering
Civil Engineering
Bioengineering
QuickTime™ and a
decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
Humanities
Rhetoric
Social Sciences
Classics
Political Science
Philosophy
Economics
Linguistics
Sociology
Our Courses Usually Occupy
Discipline-Limited Territory
QuickTime™ and a
decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
• Theories
• Processes / methods
• Critical studies of _______
• Specific genres (across contexts)
• Research techniques
Exception: Rhetorical Genre Studies
Partial Exception
• Professional courses
– Nursing communication
– Science communication
– Engineering communication
– Social work communication
• Other discipline “owns” the territory but
doesn’t teach communication
Serious Intellectual Questions
• Bazerman calls for “a robust, empiricallygrounded theoretically coherent account of
how material experience winds up
represented in texts and how this is related
to continuing material practices based on
those representations”
• Goal: “recognize both the force of the
social constructionist arguments and
appropriately understand and respect the
empirical drive of the scientific project”
March 12, 2011, Post to WPA List
Challenge Boundaries Joyfully
• No resolution today
• Get “into the kitchen”
• Look at examples
• Question results
• Set up ideas for future
Designing Courses for
(Un)occupied Territories
• If genres constitute organizations,
discourse communities, and disciplines
• Rhetoric departments should occupy a
larger intellectual territory
• TODAY: How rhetoric courses provide
a lens on topics otherwise claimed
(but not occupied) by other fields
Assumptions of New Occupier
• Rhetorician is capable and responsible
for understanding
– Assumptions
– Theories
QuickTime™ and a
d eco mpres sor
are nee ded to s ee this picture.
– Definitions
– Arguments of other fields
• Rhetorician credible in those territories
without disciplinary membership
Four Newly Occupied Territories
Courses / Outposts
• Museums and Material Culture:
Objects Caged and Free-range
• Survivor Stories and Disaster Policies
• How I Learned to Love (and Hate) the
Bomb: The Rhetoric of Atomic Energy in
Political Discourse and Popular Culture
• Designing Texts /
Picturing Arguments
Museums and Material Culture
Objects CAGED and FREE-RANGE
Museums and Material Culture:
Objects Caged and Free-range
• Other universities place topic in various
departments: museum studies,
anthropology, art history, etc.
• Not claimed at Rice
• Premise: genre systems that connect
objects and museums provide a
legitimate lens - similar to mathematics
Similar Objects, Different Genres
CAGED: The espresso maker
(1978) designed by Richard
Sapper for Alessi Fratelli and
displayed in the Museum of
Modern Art.
FREE-RANGE:
The Sapper-designed
teakettle on my friend’s
stove.
Genres Move Objects
Between Cycles
Magazines
Articles
Blogs
Ads
Free-Range
Tweets
Diaries
Letters
Transfer
Genres
Caged
Ads
Web
Blogs
Labels
Exhibition
Magazines
Scholarly Pubs
Course Content
• Examines exhibitions and collections as
visual and material arguments managed by
rhetorical genre sets
• Uncovers the genre sets of private and
managed ownership
• Analyzes politics of display
• Considers who writes about these and how in
various disciplines
• Analyzes political and ethical issues
Course Assignments & Projects
• Personal essay about a free-range object
• Team essay about caged object on campus
• 9 field trips to museums and their libraries
(notes)
• Researched object essay about managed object
• Fantasy exhibition portfolio including object
essay, exhibit label, web copy, blog entry,
backgrounder research log for museum staff, etc.
• Presentation on a research technique
How I Learned to Love
(and Hate) the Bomb
The Rhetoric of Atomic Energy in
Political Discourse and Popular Culture
New Technology Interpreted
• Political Discourse
– Press conferences,
press releases
– Speeches
– Committee Reports
– Proposals
– Reports
– Telegrams
• Popular Culture
– Music
– Films
– Commercials
– News reels
– Cartoons
– Short stories
– Novels
– Poems
Three Periods
• 1945-59
Cold War Begins
– Press releases, scientists’ movement,
Acheson-Lilienthal Proposal, Baruch to UN
– Music, First Yank into Tokyo, Fat Man and Little
Boy, Atomic Café
• 1960-79
Protest, anti-nuclear, ethics
• 1980s
Reagan’s proposals, SDI
Unoccupied Territory
• Complements “straight” Cold War or
WWII history or political science
• Expands a “film studies” type course
• Emphasizes the genres that organize
people’s actions and thinking
• Shows power of metaphor and genre
conventions, plot, in interpreting genres
Why Take This Course?
• Learn to recognize how new technologies are
being sold to you
• Maximize group value: Learn from people in
other majors
• Pursue valuable individual projects
• Recognize new connections between literary
and non-literary discourse
• Do good scholarship in an interesting area
Builds on Majors’ Knowledge
• First round reports from disciplinary groups
– How the bombs worked
– Atomic music
– Complexity of researching Truman’s decision
– Unknown dangers of radiation
Sample Projects
Atomic Verse: Nuclear
Destruction in Postwar American
poetry
The Ethical Possibilities
for Citizen Identity Given
Government Propaganda
Why the Persuasive Strategy of
the Union of Concerned
Scientists Failed
The Post-Apocalyptic
Nuclear Tradition in Video
Games
The Ideology of Strategic
Defense: Reagan, SDI, and
American Culture
The Narrative Function of
Atomic Energy in
Goldfinger
The Rhetoric of Civil
Defense Announcements
’45 to ‘85
Absent and Undefended
Minorities
A Comparative Analysis of NonProliferation Treaties’ Rhetoric
Hero Images and the Atomic
Bomb: Reagan’s SDI Speech
and Dr. Strangelove
More Papers
Dr. Atomic and Messengers in Apocalyptic
Narratives
The Absence of Minorities and Marginalization
of Women in Atomic Bomb Films
Adjusting Bomb News to Audience
Sensitivities in The Stars and Stripes
Atomic Songs and the Religious Right
The Atomic Protest Music Tradition and Punk
Rock Lyrics
Survivors’ Stories and
Disaster Policies
Focused Research Group
Welcome
to ENGL 387.2
Survivors’ Stories
and Disaster Policies
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2010 “Natural” Disasters
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
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Haiti earthquake
Chile earthquake
Turkey earthquake
China snowstorm
Washington, D.C. snow
Pakistan floods
Queensland Floods
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Deliberately Caused “Disasters”
“They kept telling
us that we are not
human beings and we
are here to serve them”
Testimony from unnamed boy
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URGENCY: 2007 Agreements
Call for Disaster Plans
• UN-sponsored Hyogo Protocol
• ProVention Consortium Agreement
• Recognized need in US
– In 2005 New Orleans had no plan for
evacuating citizens who had no private
transportation, who were handicapped, or
were special needs cases
• Plans written in “gender-free” neutrality
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So, is this a course for you?
In an era of disasters and grand challenges,
• What relationship exists between humanities
and social sciences and engineering?
• What use are
– close reading,
– literary and language theories,
– analysis of structure and style?
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PLENTY!
• Survivors’ stories can be analyzed to
guide policy-making
• Gendered perspectives increase
effectiveness
– Add insights from diverse experience
– Add capabilities of more people
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E387.2 Is “New Traditional”
• Organized as course AND on-going
research project
• Enough structure for comfort, enough
freedom for creativity
– Three papers
– Three writing hours
(for reflection)
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Course Goals
• Test models for analyzing survivors’ stories
• Identify motivating elements that govern
survivors’ eventual choices
• Evaluate best practices in response
• Understand the policy context
• Recommend how gendered perspectives
can be applied to new disaster policies
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Overall Structure
• Begin with story analysis: Katrina, 9/11
• Analyze best practices and existing
approaches, US & international cases
• Read literature on mitigation policies
and “mainstreaming” gender
perspectives
• Formulate our conclusions and
recommendations
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DESIGNING Arguments /
Picturing / TEXTS
An introduction to Visual Argument
Three-part Course
• Design Concepts and Historical Genres
• Interpretive Approaches
– Genre theory, Perception, Advertising
– Lanham’s Economics of Attention
– How genres work
• New Technologies
– Small screens, Web pages, new media
Course approach
• In-class exercises and interactions
• Group discussions and reports from the
front (not always satisfactory)
• Projects: design a stage set for a oneact absurdist drama, design a fashion
blog for Rice University, Compare
corporate web sites, and REPORT
Final Projects & Presentations
• The Scarlet Letter’s Changing Covers
• Anime “eyecatches” as new visual genre
• Dressing for Success: Powerful Women
Washington D.C. Politicians & Wanna Bes
• Three Web Worlds of Disney: Stylistic Web
Coherence and Audience Adaptation
• Isaiah and Old Spice Audience Engagement
Newly Occupied Territories
• Linking activity theory and genre theory
• Involving students in thinking with our
theories
• Asserting our claims on knowledge
• Using collaborative pedagogy and
engaging technologies
• Showing rhetoric as an ethical tool
Where Are Your Territories?
• What fields and interests keep you
reading on weekends?
• What did you major in as an undergrad?
• What matters most to you?
• What to do want to know much more
about?
Pack Your Rhetoric Tools and “Light Out”!
Two Different Systems
• Free-range Objects
– Functional use, private
or public ownership
– Genres in cycle of
production and
consumption
– Personal essay
– Feature articles
• Caged Objects
– Managed collections
– Letters, donation
agreements, or
acquisitions
– Genres in system of
museum collections,
library, exhibition,
loans, and deaccession or
preservation