ENL 501 - Rhetorical Theory

3 credits
Aristotle defined rhetoric as “the faculty of discovering all the available means of persuasion in any given situation.” W. Ross Winterowd defines it as “the global art that … studies the manifestations of all human discourse, not just persuasion.” We will study our rhetorical tradition, focusing on major theorists from Aristotle to Foucault. Depending on the instructor, the course may concentrate on such topics as Classical Rhetoric (from the fifth century B.C. through the English Renaissance), Eighteenth Century Rhetoric (Smith, Blair, Whately, Campbell), or Contemporary Rhetoric (Toulmin, Burke, Richards, Perelman, Kinneavy, Searle, Foucault, and Derrida).