G. A. Hauser
Fall 2011
Communication 6340/Comparative Literature 6040
Seminar in Rhetoric and Civic Community: Vernacular Rhetoric
Since the 1920s, the concept of rhetoric has expanded from its classical concerns with production and
presentation (the art of speaking and writing) and stylistics (figures and tropes) to consider discourse as a
social practice. As a domain of study, it has become increasingly concerned with how the performative and
material dimensions of discourse constitute social life and its human consequences. This represents a
paradigm shift that includes the discourse of the everyday or vernacular rhetoric as a locus of influence and
power.
More recently, the traditional concern of rhetoric with civic life has been re-theorized in terms of the public
sphere. This project, possibly an extension of movement studies that began in the 1950s, has included
attention to the discourse of ordinary citizens as inherent to the rhetorical character of the public sphere and
the formation of public opinion. A major strand in current scholarship on public deliberation includes
challenges to traditional approaches to deliberative practices that heretofore, with the exception of some
movement studies, have focused mainly on official voices deliberating public policy in official institutional
sites. Examinations of subaltern and counterpublic spheres, modes of enacting resistance, and citizen
exchange are a few examples of scholarly inquiry into the character of non-institutional rhetorical
performances. These everyday public performances and personal exchanges form a vernacular rhetoric that
is of a piece with the paradigm shift in rhetoric studies that began in the 1920s.
Vernacular rhetoric, as a focus of inquiry, considers how the rhetoric of the everyday interacts with formal
rhetoric, such as that in official forums or by those vested with power, in the ongoing sculpting of the
human world. These non-institutional performances cover a wide range of discursive acts from the
everyday experiences of the street that tell us who the denizens think they are and what they value to the
discourses of prisoners who use their bodies as a form of resistance and exhortations for change, with a
variety of forms and genres in between, such as poems, letters, samizdat, diaries, memoirs, and so forth. In
their own context, many are casual exchanges of the everyday, although some are products of design
intended to evade social and political censorship, others are modes of interaction and interrogation of
official discourse. On the surface some forms appear to be mundane, however whether they are everyday
exchanges intended for a conversational partner or letters intended to reach audiences in the tenebrous
regions of the underground, their constitution of and impact on the social fabric can be profound.
This seminar will examine vernacular rhetoric with four purposes: to explore the range of rhetorical
performances that occur among specific groups and their social uses, to set these in tension with the
rhetorical tradition from Isocrates forward, to develop frameworks for theorizing rhetorics of locality and
power, and to engage in critique of vernacular performances that, whether by design or destiny, exert
influence on attending audiences and publics.
Topics will include the rhetorical character of publics and public spheres, the place of vernacular rhetoric in
political processes, the ongoing negotiation among interdependent partners of how they shall act and
interact, resistance to practices of exclusion, the function of vernacular performances in shaping publicness,
community, urbanity and social will, and methodological issues associated with investigating vernacular
rhetoric.
Texts
Begona Aratxega, Shattering Silence
Ralph Cintron, Angels’ Town: Chero Ways, Gang Life, and Rhetorics of the Everyday
Michel DeCerteau, et. al. The Practice of Everyday Life. Volume 2: Living and Cooking
Melissa Harris-Lacewell, Barbershops, Bibles, and BET
Robert McElvaine, ed., Down and Out in the Great Depression
Kent Ono & John Sloop, Shifting Borders
Selections from:
M. M. Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination
Gerard Hauser, Prisoners of Conscience: Moral Vernaculars of Political Agency
Gerard Hauser, Vernacular Voices: The Rhetoric of Publics and Public Spheres
James Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance
Karen Tracy, Challenges of Ordinary Democracy
Selected essays
All chapters and articles listed on the course outline are found in COMM 6340 folder at
http://TAC.colorado.edu/hauser
Research paper
Seminar members will conduct a theoretical or critical study eventuating in a scholarly paper. Your paper
either will engage in theory building or perform a mini-study. ("Mini" in the sense that the scholars we are
reading typically examine huge data bases that develop across time, far beyond what you could examine, in
all likelihood, for a paper of this sort and within the time frame of a semester. On the other hand, if you are
well into a database that fits, then please feel free to use it. Since studies of vernacular rhetoric often
involve studies of multiple communication exchanges or performances, I suggest you read Michael McGee,
“Text Context,” located in TAC COMM 6340 folder. A good example of such textual formation is the A.
Grim reading listed for the class of 12/6. If you are new to rhetoric, I suggest you read Hauser,
Introduction to Rhetorical Theory, 2nd ed. for an introduction to its basic concepts from antiquity to the
present. Theoretical papers should use a rich example to illustrate your distinctions so that a reader can
have a concrete sense of what you mean and confidence that you are demonstrating more than your skill at
mental gymnastics. Critical papers should spend time developing a conceptual framework you will wish to
appropriate and its relation to the interests of accounting for the rhetoric of vernacular discourse. This need
not be extensive, but sufficient to situate your study within a genre of research (e.g., social movements,
civic engagement, resistance, etc., and, of course, drawing on relevant literature and/or theoretical
perspectives, such as we will consider in the seminar). Your papers should be true to the interests of a
rhetorical theorist, analyst or critic, i.e., developing a normative conceptual frame or an interpretation that
is evaluative in some interesting and significant way. You should conclude with a section in which you
assess the framework's efficacy or, alternatively, comment on the significance of your findings for our
understanding of what you are studying. Studies of vernacular rhetoric may deploy a variety of
methodologies including participant observation and ethnography. We will discuss your methodology at
those points when we have conferences on your project. However, the seminar readings are heavily
weighted toward alternative methodologies and methodological issues raised by the intersections of oratory
and conversation, official and vernacular discourse, critical and qualitative methods.
Vernacular rhetorics are deeply rooted in a history and its cultural assumptions, values, and practices. Thus
you will want to examine context, broadly interpreted, and take rhetoric in a broad sense (i.e., to include the
vernacular as well as the formal and to include the multiple discourses that are involved in vernacular
exchange, not just a single speech or letter, say). The paper must deal with the discourse, critical papers
moreso than theoretical ones, which leaves great latitude for the level at which you engage it (e.g.,
arguments, tropes, modes of displaying resistance, uses of language to construct a world and draw a reader
in, forcing choices, body rhetoric, etc.). And the paper must concern itself in a significant way with
theorizing the rhetoric-vernacular-social action relationship as it pertains to your research topic. This
means it must exhibit familiarity with the literature on such concepts as civil society, public
spheres/counterpublic spheres, resistance, etc. with due attention to the rhetoricity of these concepts. The
course readings will provide a base for theorizing on these topics, although some topics may require you go
beyond them. Finally, your paper should have an empirical dimension to it. A major argument supporting
the study of vernacular rhetoric is that it deals with how actual audiences/publics/participants engage in and
respond to an ongoing social conversation. For greater definition to what I mean by ‘empirical’, see “The
Rhetorics of Publicness,” Chapter 9 in Democracy Narrative file, TAC COMM 6340 folder.
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Research papers written in a graduate seminar confront the unfortunate reality of a ticking clock. At the
end of the semester I must record a grade. On the other hand, the purpose of a graduate seminar is to
undertake original research. Fresh insights often take more than 15 weeks to gestate. They represent major
research efforts and, as such, may potentially contribute to knowledge in the form of a convention paper or
publication, thesis or dissertation topic or chapter. I hope your papers will lead somewhere meaningful and
richly rewarding to your personal intellectual passions and will result in a shareable statement—if not 15
weeks from now, eventually. Although I am required to complete the administrative necessity of filing a
grade at the end of the semester, some of your projects may continue to develop and have us continuing our
conversation after the semester ends. That said, the process of developing a paper means working in a
systematic way. You will have regular opportunities to share your progress—sometimes briefly,
sometimes with a few minutes to elaborate. Here are some deadlines you are expected to observe:
9/13
9/27
10/5-7
10/11
11/1-3
11/15
12/8
Topic selection
Bibliography
Conference with Hauser on paper
Research question framed and sub-issues identified
Conference with Hauser on paper
First draft outline
First “final draft” due
Papers should be in the range of 25-30 pp (approximately 7-8,000 words, not more than 8,500 words
inclusive of notes). If you are writing more than 8,500 words inclusive of notes, you haven't edited well.
Do so, please. Since 8,500 words is about the upper limit most journal editors can accommodate
comfortably, concise expression is essential for your work to reach a wider scholarly audience. Papers are
to be typed, double-spaced, using 12-point font and 1 inch margins, and follow either APA 6th ed. or
Chicago Manual of Style 16th ed. format for documentation (students with an emphasis in rhetoric are
encouraged to use CMS, 16th ed). Use in-text reference form, providing a reference list of works used.
Final papers are due to me at the close of business on Thursday of the last week of class and will be
presented and discussed at a session scheduled for December 13, which is our regularly scheduled time
during exam week. We will negotiate the exact time, as your schedules permit.
Course readings
In addition to reading assigned materials, each seminar member will participate in a team responsible to
function as a seminar co-leader on one of the topic areas we cover. In this regard, seminarians will be
responsible for leading class discussion on one of the figures/conceptual frameworks we will consider.
Assignments will be made early in the semester. Besides scholarly works, we will read texts of vernacular
discourse. These are easy reading and may serve as concrete examples for us to draw on to anchor our
discussions in a common sample of vernacular rhetoric. Some of the materials found on the TAC COMM
6340 folder are password protected. The password is
Participation
Seminars are intellectual explorations. They are collaborative enterprises, not classes. I do not plan to
lecture. I do not intend to present myself as the definitive authority on all matters. I probably will be as
stumped or uncertain as you are on many of the topics we explore. This means you will be expected to add
to the discussion, help each other find answers to our questions by probing, raising alternatives, taking
positions, deliberating con amore, and working hard for the time we are together each week.
Discussion leaders
Graduate seminars, unlike courses, are distinctively shaped by their participants. They work best when they
are collaborative efforts, involving each of us taking the lead at different points to move our conversation
forward. Each student will be part of a team responsible for initiating the seminar discussion for one of our
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topic areas. This will involve a brief (20 minutes as a rule) opening statement of a.) the central issues and
insights related to vernacular rhetoric you find in the reading and b.) how the reading works to advance
(or not) a vision of civic community. Your presentation should initiate discussion around some question
or issue you find important, interesting, and relevant to our topic. If you are searching for anchors and
reference points, refer to the four goals of the seminar set for in the seminar description on page one. You
should prepare a handout summarizing the key ideas and issues you will raise and a discussion question
to start us off. Again, your presentation is not to be a lecture but an overview that kicks the intellectual ball
into play.
Discussion questions
In addition to the discussion leader’s preparation, each student will be responsible for developing a
discussion question for each class. These are not questions of clarification, such as inquiries about facts,
which you may and should ask whenever you have them, but questions that raise issues and explore
qualities you think are central to the text and bear on our topic. Bearing on our topic is crucial. It is your
responsibility to link them to the concerns of the seminar—which is vernacular rhetoric. (For example,
Hauser’s theory of vernacular rhetoric triangulates around three concepts—publics, public spheres, and
public opinion—that presuppose citizen discourse should interact with official discourse in the formation of
public policy, and that inclusion of citizen opinion will lead to better policy. His position might be
interrogated as a reflection of humanistic disenchantment with scientizing of the political process through
opinion polls and survey research, but that line of inquiry might have more to do with academic quarrels
than with the character of vernacular rhetoric. More to the point might be interrogating the possibilities of
JH’s position if read from the perspective of, say, Ono and Sloop, who consider vernacular rhetoric to be,
from head to toe, voices from the margins and regard the vision of vernacular-official interaction with
suspicion, thereby calling into question the normative efficacy of Hauser’s vernacular model with respect to
public policy formation.) Your discussion questions should be framed by the salient considerations in the
common reading that give rise to the issues or qualities you wish to discuss. These will require a paragraph
to develop—probably a half-page and not more than a single page single-spaced. You are to post these to
the class list by noon every Tuesday. Please read everyone’s questions beforehand and bring copies to
class if you can. I will bring my laptop for common viewing. We will structure our discussion around the
issues you wish to pursue.
Seminar members will be responsible for generating discussion questions and for assessing the value each
figure/conceptual framework may have for theorizing, studying and critiquing vernacular rhetoric as it
relates to how humans constitute and influence civic community. Your participation grade will be based on
these two items: seminar presentations and contribution to seminar discussions.
Grades
Final Project
Class Participation
70%
30%
Office hours
Wednesday 9:30-11:30, and by appt.
If I’m in my office, my door is open, and you want to talk, it’s ok to ask whether this is a good time.
Outside of class you may reach me at:
Gerard A. Hauser
Hellems 86, 270UCB
ph/303/492-6756
fax/ 303/492-8411
Buckingham, 34 UCB
(303) 492-1708
email/hauserg@colorado.edu
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Administrative matters
Office hours
Wednesday 9:30-11:30, and by appt.
Campus, Department, and Course Policies
Academic Integrity
All students of the University of Colorado at Boulder are responsible for knowing and adhering to the
academic integrity policy of this institution. Violations of this policy may include: cheating, plagiarism,
aid of academic dishonesty, fabrication, lying, bribery, and threatening behavior. All incidents of academic
misconduct shall be reported to the Honor Code Council (honor@colorado.edu; 303-725-2273). Students
who are found to be in violation of the academic integrity policy will be subject to both academic sanctions
from the faculty member and non-academic sanctions (including but not limited to university probation,
suspension, or expulsion). Additional information on the Honor Code can be found at
http://www.colorado.edu/policies/honor.html and at http://www.colorado.edu/academics/honorcode/
Harassment and Discrimination
The University of Colorado at Boulder policy on Discrimination and Harassment, the University of
Colorado policy on Sexual Harassment and the University of Colorado policy on Amorous Relationships
apply to all students, staff and faculty. Any student, staff or faculty member who believes s/he has been the
subject of discrimination or harassment based upon race, color, national origin, sex, age, disability, religion,
sexual orientation, or veteran status should contact the Office of Discrimination and Harassment (ODH) at
303-492-2127 or the Office of Judicial Affairs at 303-492-5550. Information about the ODH, the above
referenced policies and the campus resources available to assist individuals regarding discrimination or
harassment can be obtained at http://www.colorado.edu/odh
Disability Accommodations
If you qualify for accommodations because of a disability, please submit a letter to me from Disability
Services in a timely manner so that your needs may be addressed. Disability Services determines
accommodations based on documented disabilities. Contact: 303-492-8671, Willard 322, or
http://www.Colorado.EDU/disabilityservices
TAC Equipment
The Communication Department has equipment that is available for students to checkout. Equipment
includes laptops, digital VHS cameras, web cameras, wireless Internet cards, transcribers, tape recorders,
and more. Please see https://comm.colorado.edu/tac/ for more information.
Course Attendance
I expect graduate seminar students to attend each seminar session. If for any reason you are unable to
attend, please notify me in advance. Unexcused absences will be reflected in my final evaluation of your
participation performance.
Late Papers
Generally speaking, I don’t accept them. In light on my statement above on the nature of research
seminars, the ongoing nature of their material products, and the process of dialogue between you and me on
your research project, late papers do not seem sensible. Of course, if there are extraordinary circumstances,
you will let me know and we will go from there.
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Course Outline
Seminar in Rhetoric and Civic Community: Vernacular Rhetoric
8/23
8/30
9/6
9/13
Orienting to the vernacular
M. Bakhtin
“Discourse in the novel”
Theorizing vernacular and the public sphere
G. Hauser
Vernacular voices, Introduction, Intro-ch 4 (TAC)
R. Howard
“Electronic hybridity” (TAC)
R. Howard
“The vernacular mode” (TAC)
R. McElvaine
Down and out, pp., 37-65 (Introduction is optional)
K. Tracy
K. Ono & J. Sloop
M. Warner
R. McElvaine
Challenges of ordinary democracy, chs 1-4 (TAC)
“The critique of vernacular discourse” (TAC)
“Publics and counterpublics” (TAC)
Down and out, pp. 69-94
Vernacular rhetoric: Methodological considerations
B. Malinowski
“The problem of meaning . . . ” (TAC)
M. Carrithers
“Why anthropologists should study rhetoric” (TAC)
C. Geertz
“Deep play: Notes on the Balineze cock fight” (TAC)
D. Conquergood
“Ethnography, rhetoric, and performance” (TAC)
G. Hauser
“Attending the vernacular” (TAC)
R. McElvaine
Down and out, 97-154
9/20
R. Cintron
R. McElvaine
Angels’ town, chs 1-5
Down and out, 157-229
9/27
R. Cintron
M. Harris-Lacewell
B. Aretxaga
Angels’ town, chs 6-7
Barbershops, bibles, and BET, chs 1-2
Shattering silence, ch 1
10/4
M. Harris-Lacewell
G. Hauser
B. Aretxaga
Barbershops, bibles, and BET, chs 4-7
Vernacular voices, chs 8-9
Shattering silence, ch 2
Vernacular resistance
P. Bourdieu
J. Scott
C. Garlough
C. Garlough
“Structures, habitus, power” (TAC)
Domination and the arts of resistance, chs. 1, 3, and
5 (TAC)
“On the political uses of folklore” (TAC)
“The risks of acknowledgement” (TAC)
10/18
K. Ono and J. Sloop
B. Aretxaga
Shifting borders
Shattering silence, ch 3
10/25
G. Hauser
B. Aretxaga
Prisoners of conscience, Preface-ch 5 (TAC)
Shattering silence, ch 4
11/1
G. Hauser
B. Aretxaga
Prisoners of conscience, ch 6, 8-9 (TAC)
Shattering silence, ch 5-6
Urban vernacular
M. de Certeau
“Walking the city” (TAC)
10/11
11/8
6
11/15
P. Lewis
M. de Certeau, et. al.
“Axioms for reading the landscape” (TAC)
The practice of everyday life, v.2, Introduction-ch. 7
M. de Certeau, et. al.
R. Sennett
The practice of everyday life, v.2, Intermezzo-ch. 14
“Body and city;” “Civic bodies” (TAC)
Fall Break
11/29
L. Rosenfield
G. Philipsen
R. Cintron
12/6
Current work, concluding thoughts
A. Grim
R. Howard
P. Connor
M. Wang
12/13
“Central Park and the celebration of civic virtue”
(TAC)
“Talking ‘like a man’ in Teamstersville” (TAC)
“‘Gates locked’ and the violence of fixation” (TAC)
“Contesting chronotopes: Expert and citizen
discourse on talk of the nation” (TAC)
“Enacting a virtual ‘ekklesia’” (TAC)
“”Putting words to work”
(TBA)
Final paper presentation and discussion
Hauser household*
*The regularly scheduled final exam period for this course is 12/13 from 7:30-10:00. We will
decide on the time for this session. Ideally it will be early enough to allow time for us to celebrate
our joint accomplishment after paper presentations.
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