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CAS 503 – Rhetorical Criticism

Students Teaching Students

In coordination with an undergraduate-run organization called Students Teaching Students, CAS department faculty members mentor exemplary students who develop and teach 1-credit courses on a variety of subjects that advance expertise in communication and its role in public life. This semester, Associate Teaching Professor Lori Bedell is supporting undergraduates Kara Miller (who was in Lori’s RCL course a few years back) and Jess Strait as they teach a course titled “Period Talk: The Impact of Stigma on the Menstrual Equity Movement.”
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CAS 503 – Rhetorical Criticism

The long, rich, and diverse practice of rhetorical criticism is underwritten by certain abiding principles of interpretation. This seminar is predicated on the assumption that all critics, whatever their particular preoccupations, will need to engage and put these principles to work in interepretive practice. Among them: questions of effect; the play of text and context, issues of genre, audience, and style; the visual, the aural, and the ambient; and identity, ideology, and resistance.

Course Objectives

CAS 503 aims to:

  • establish a common literacy in the traditions, touchstones, and current challenges of rhetorical criticism;
  • provide weekly opportunities to present written work on key issues in rhetorical criticism;
  • assist in the development of an article-length essay suitable for submission to a journal.