Rhetoric & Technical Communication
Rhetoric & Technical Communication
Toscano, Aaron, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Dept. of English

Resources and Daily Activities

  • Dr. Toscano’s Homepage
  • ENGL 2116-083: Introduction to Technical Communication
    • ENGL 2116 sec. 083 Major Assignments (Summer 2020)
      • Final Portfolio Requirements
      • Oral Presentations
    • June 11th: Continue with I, Robot
    • June 15th: Ethics and Perspective Discussion
      • Ethical Dilemmas for Homework
      • Ethical Dilemmas to Ponder
      • Mapping Our Personal Ethics
    • June 16th: More on Ethics
    • June 1st: Effective Documents for Users
    • June 2nd: Final Project and Research Discussion
      • Epistemology and Other Fun Research Ideas
      • Making Résumés and Cover Letters Better
      • Research
    • June 3rd: Technology in a Social Context
    • June 8th: Information Design and Visuals
    • June 9th: Proposals, Marketing, and Rhetoric
    • May 18th: Introduction to the course
    • May 19th: Critical Technological Awareness
    • May 20th: Audience, Purpose, and General Introduction
    • May 21st: Résumé Stuff
      • Making Résumés and Cover Letters More Effective
      • Peter Profit’s Cover Letter
    • May 25th: More Resume Stuff
    • May 26th: Plain Language and Prose Revision
      • Euphemisms
      • Prose Practice for Next Class
      • Prose Revision Assignment
      • Revising Prose: Efficiency, Accuracy, and Good
      • Sentence Clarity
    • May 27th: More on Plain Language
    • May 28th: Review Prose Revision
  • ENGL 4182/5182: Information Design & Digital Publishing
    • August 21st: Introduction to the Course
      • Rhetorical Principles of Information Design
    • August 28th: Introduction to Information Design
      • Prejudice and Rhetoric
      • Robin Williams’s Principles of Design
    • Classmates Webpages (Fall 2017)
    • December 4th: Presentations
    • Major Assignments for ENGL 4182/5182 (Fall 2017)
    • November 13th: More on Color
      • Designing with Color
      • Important Images
    • November 20th: Extra-Textual Elements
    • November 27th: Presentation/Portfolio Workshop
    • November 6th: In Living Color
    • October 16th: Type Fever
      • Typography
    • October 23rd: More on Type
    • October 2nd: MIDTERM FUN!!!
    • October 30th: Working with Graphics
      • Beerknurd Calendar 2018
    • September 11th: Talking about Design without Using “Thingy”
      • Theory, theory, practice
    • September 18th: The Whole Document
    • September 25th: Page Design
  • ENGL 4183/5183: Editing with Digital Technologies
    • Efficiency in Writing Reviews
    • February 3rd: I’m in Love with the Shape of You(r Sentences)
    • January 20th: Introduction to the Course
    • January 27th: Rhetoric, Words, and Composing
    • Major Assignments for ENGL 4183/5183 (Spring 2021)
  • ENGL 4275: Rhetoric of Technology
    • April 13th: Authorities in Science and Technology
    • April 15th: Articles on Violence in Video Games
    • April 20th: Presentations
    • April 6th: Technology in the home
    • April 8th: Writing Discussion
    • Assignments for ENGL 4275
    • February 10th: Religion of Technology Part 3 of 3
    • February 12th: Is Love a Technology?
    • February 17th: Technology and Gender
    • February 19th: Technology and Expediency
    • February 24th: Semester Review
    • February 3rd: Religion of Technology Part 1 of 3
    • February 5th: Religion of Technology Part 2 of 3
    • January 13th: Technology and Meaning, a Humanist perspective
    • January 15th: Technology and Democracy
    • January 22nd: The Politics of Technology
    • January 27th: Discussion on Writing as Thinking
    • January 29th: Technology and Postmodernism
    • January 8th: Introduction to the Course
    • March 11th: Writing and Other Fun
    • March 16th: Neuromancer (1984) Day 1 of 2
    • March 18th: Neuromancer (1984) Day 2 of 2
    • March 23rd: Inception (2010)
    • March 25th: Writing and Reflecting Discussion
    • March 30th & April 1st: Count Zero
    • March 9th: William Gibson’s Neuromancer (1984)
  • ENGL 4750-090 & ENGL 5050-092 Video Games & Culture
    • Assignments for Video Games & Culture
    • August 25th: Introduction to the Course
    • November 10th: Aggression & Addiction
    • November 3rd: Moral Panics and Health Risks
    • October 13th: Narrative, ludology, f(r)iction
    • October 20th: Serious Games
    • October 27: Risky Business?
    • October 6th: Hyperreality
    • September 1st: History of Video Games
    • September 22nd: Video Game Aesthetics
    • September 29th: (sub)Cultures and Video Games
    • September 8th: Defining Video Games and Critical Theory Introduction
      • Marxism for Video Game Analysis
      • Postmodernism for Video Game Analysis
  • ENGL 6166: Rhetorical Theory
    • April 13th: Umberto Eco & Jean Baudrillard
    • April 20th: Moving Forward on Theory
    • April 27th: Last Day of Class
    • April 6th: Lyotard’s The Postmodern Condition
      • What is Postmodernism?
    • February 10th: St. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine [Rhetoric]
      • Oratory and Argument Analysis
    • February 17th: Knoblauch on Magical and Ontological Rhetoric
    • February 24th: Rene Descartes’ Discourse on Method
    • February 3rd: Aristotle’s On Rhetoric Books 2 and 3
      • Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 2
      • Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 3
    • January 13th: Introduction to Class
    • January 27th: Aristotle’s On Rhetoric Book 1
    • March 16th: Friedrich Nietzsche
    • March 23rd: Mythologies and Meaning of Meaning (part 2)
    • March 30th: Derrida’s (refusal to have) Positions
    • March 9th: Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women
    • Rhetorical Theory Assignments
  • LBST 2212-124, 125, 126, & 127
    • August 21st: Introduction to Class
    • August 23rd: Humanistic Approach to Science Fiction
    • August 26th: Robots and Zombies
    • August 28th: Futurism, an Introduction
    • August 30th: R. A. Lafferty “Slow Tuesday Night” (1965)
    • December 2nd: Technological Augmentation
    • December 4th: Posthumanism
    • November 11th: Salt Fish Girl (Week 2)
    • November 13th: Salt Fish Girl (Week 2 con’t)
    • November 18th: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Part 1)
      • More Questions than Answers
    • November 1st: Games Reality Plays (part II)
    • November 20th: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Part 2)
    • November 6th: Salt Fish Girl (Week 1)
    • October 14th: More Autonomous Fun
    • October 16th: Autonomous Conclusion
    • October 21st: Sci Fi in the Domestic Sphere
    • October 23rd: Social Aphasia
    • October 25th: Dust in the Wind
    • October 28th: Gender Liminality and Roles
    • October 2nd: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
    • October 30th: Games Reality Plays (part I)
    • October 9th: Approaching Autonomous
      • Analyzing Prose in Autonomous
    • September 11th: The Time Machine
    • September 16th: The Alien Other
    • September 18th: Post-apocalyptic Worlds
    • September 20th: Dystopian Visions
    • September 23rd: World’s Beyond
    • September 25th: Gender Studies and Science Fiction
    • September 30th: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
    • September 4th: Science Fiction and Social Breakdown
      • More on Ellison
      • More on Forster
    • September 9th: The Time Machine
  • LBST 2213/HTAS 2100: Science, Technology, and Society
    • December 10th: Violence in Video Games
    • December 15th: Video Games and Violence, a more nuanced view
    • December 1st: COVID-19 facial covering rhetoric
    • December 3rd: COVID-19 Transmission and Pandemics
    • December 8th: 500-word Essay
    • November 10th: Planet of the Apes. (1964) Ch. 27-end
    • November 12th: Frankenstein (1818) Preface-Ch. 8
    • November 17th: Frankenstein (1818) Ch. 9-Ch. 16
    • November 19th: Frankenstein (1818) Ch. 17-Ch. 24
    • November 3rd: Planet of the Apes. (1964) Ch. 1-17
    • November 5th: Planet of the Apes (1964) Ch. 18-26
    • October 13th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 5 and 6
    • October 15th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 7 and Conclusion
    • October 1st: The Golem at Large Introduction & Ch. 1
    • October 22nd: The Time Machine
    • October 29th: H.G. Wells and Adaptations
    • October 6th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology) Ch. 2
    • October 8th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 3 & 4
    • September 10th: Science and Technology, a Humanistic Approach
    • September 15th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 2
    • September 17th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 3 and 4
    • September 22nd: Collins & Pinch Ch. 5 & 6
    • September 24th: Collins & Pinch Ch. 7 & Conclusion
    • September 29th: Test 1
    • September 8th: Introduction to Class
  • New Media: Gender, Culture, Technology (Spring 2021)
    • February 16: Misunderstanding the Internet
    • February 23rd: Our Public Sphere and the Media
    • February 2nd: Introduction to Cultural Studies
    • January 26th: Introduction to New Media
  • Science Fiction in American Culture (Summer I–2020)
    • Assignments for Science Fiction in American Culture
    • Cultural Studies and Science Fiction Films
    • June 10th: Interstellar and Exploration themes
    • June 11th: Bicentennial Man
    • June 15th: I’m Only Human…Or am I?
    • June 16th: Wall-E and Environment
    • June 17th: Wall-E (2008) and Technology
    • June 18th: Interactivity in Video Games
    • June 1st: Firefly (2002) and Myth
    • June 2nd: “Johnny Mnemonic”
    • June 3rd: “New Rose Hotel”
    • June 4th: “Burning Chrome”
    • June 8th: Conformity and Monotony
    • June 9th: Cultural Constructions of Beauty
    • May 18th: Introduction to Class
    • May 19th: American Culture, an Introduction
    • May 20th: The Matrix
    • May 21st: Gender and Science Fiction
    • May 25th: Goals for I, Robot
    • May 26th: Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot
    • May 27th: Hackers and Slackers
    • May 30th: Inception
  • Teaching Portfolio
  • Topics for Analysis
    • American Culture, an Introduction
    • Feminism, An Introduction
    • Frankenstein Part I
    • Frankenstein Part II
    • Futurism Introduction
    • Langdon Winner Summary: The Politics of Technology
    • Marxist Theory (cultural analysis)
    • Oral Presentations
    • Our Public Sphere
    • Postmodernism Introduction
    • Protesting Confederate Place
    • Punctuation Refresher
    • QT, the Existential Robot
    • Religion of Technology Discussion
    • Rhetoric, an Introduction
      • Analyzing the Culture of Technical Writer Ads
      • Rhetoric of Technology
      • Visual Culture
      • Visual Perception
      • Visual Perception, Culture, and Rhetoric
      • Visual Rhetoric
      • Visuals for Technical Communication
      • World War I Propaganda
    • The Great I, Robot Discussion
      • I, Robot Short Essay Topics
    • The Rhetoric of Video Games: A Cultural Perspective
      • Civilization, an Analysis
    • The Sopranos
    • Why Science Fiction?
    • Zombies and Consumption Satire

Contact Me

Office: Fretwell 280F
Phone: 704.687.0613
Email: atoscano@uncc.edu
ENGL 6166: Rhetorical Theory » January 13th: Introduction to Class

January 13th: Introduction to Class

Welcome to the Class

Tonight we will get to know each other and find out the course goals and requirements. I will go over the syllabus first, which will only be located online. I have been told by the University to conserve resources, so I will not print or photocopy anything for this class. We will use the Web and Moodle to communicate course material.

After we go over the syllabus, I’ll highlight some important dates and assignments to come. Then, we’ll get to know our classmates.

Your Story

I want us to get to know one another briefly tonight. Usually, I pair you up with a neighbor and have you answer the following questions, but, tonight, talk in groups of 2 or 3 for 15 min, and then each of you will report back to class about yourself.

  • Name
  • Year (don’t put 2020–year in the program)
  • Degree and Concentration
  • Hometown(s)
  • Job/Future Job
  • Favorite Book
  • Favorite TV Show
  • Favorite Movie (good movies can be found here)
  • What do you expect in ENGL 6166?
    • Do not say an ‘A’.
    • What do you want to know about Rhetorical Theory?
    • What are your educational plans?

Freewrite on “Rhetoric”

What is rhetoric? For the next 5 min, please freewrite. Consider popular and academic definitions you’ve encountered. There’s no right or wrong here.

Asimov’s “A Cult of Ignorance”

Let’s discuss the article you read for tonight. Areas to start or get to…

  • Anti-intellectualism
  • Elites
  • Right to know
  • Credibility and trust
  • Reading scores
  • Drop in magazine readership
  • Ignorance, willful ignorance, celebrating ignorance…
  • “true concept of democracy”
  • “Why not trust the experts? Also, what’s wrong with highway signs having pictures instead of words?

Gorgias’ “Encomium of Helen”

I actually gave you a link to the wrong translation, but the one I wanted to give you is no longer available. I went on the “WayBack Machine” and found the one I assigned previously and put that on Canvas for future reference. If you read the Kennedy translation, you’ll notice a big difference between it and Thomas Martin’s translation.

This speech is most likely a refined oratory used for didactic purposes, a class lesson. Observing the structure is obvious (especially in the Kennedy translation with the subheadings), so let’s consider what makes it persuasive. Thinking forward to your rhetorical analyses, how is meaning built into this speech? What might be a priori, and what might be a posteriori?

Consider Gorgias’ views on:

  • Royalty
  • The Gods
  • Love
  • Destiny/Fate
  • Persuasion (good, bad, beautiful)

This speech is an often anthologized work from the 5th century B.C.E., so it’s a major work of Western Civilization. Did Gorgias just argue that no crime of passion should be seen as unjust? After all, love etches itself on the soul and may shape an individual’s actions. Can one really be to blame if they commit a crime of passion, such as murder?

Initial Information about Plato

Normally, I start with Plato’s Gorgias and then move onto Phaedrus, but, in the interest of having more figures to study (and after including Aristotle’s three Books of On Rhetoric), I decided to have us just read Phaedrus. Instead of thinking about Plato’s different ideas across his texts, I’d rather us just focus on a single work. We could spend the entire semester on Plato…In fact, you could do an entire degree just on Plato. In Gorgias, Plato has nothing good to say about rhetoric, but he seems to believe it has a place in Phaedrus. Keep in mind that Plato (via Socrates) believes in absolute truth and that perfect types exist. However, it’s hard to know if Plato believed we could ever reach a full understanding of perfection or good. It seems that we can get close if we’re really devoted to philosophy.

“Plato sought a cure for the ills of society not in politics but in philosophy, and arrived at his fundamental and lasting conviction that those ills would never cease until philosophers became rulers or rulers philosophers.” Hamilton, Walter. Trans. Phaedrus and Letters VII and VIII. Radice, Betty. Ed. New York: Penguin, 1973: 1.

Platonic “Forms, of which shifting phenomena of the sensible world are imperfect imitations or copies…The Forms are in fact universals given the status of independent and absolute entities.” (p. 17)

Questions for Phaedrus

Before Lysias’ Speech

  • What is the nature of the dialogue between Socrates and Lysias?
  • Is it important for Socrates to draw (or drag) out the word-for-word speech Lysias brought with him?
  • Why is Socrates close to dismissing the myths “too ingenious and labored” and, instead, claims he wants to know himself before worrying about “other such monsters” (pp. 24-25, 230)?

Curious parts of Lysias’ Speech

  • p. 27: Love is fickle: it “value[s] any new love in the future more than the old.”
  • p. 27: Love is a disorder. Lovers aren’t in their right minds, so their intentions can’t be trusted.
  • p. 28: Those in love “are apt to interpret anything as a personal slight.” They don’t like their partners with others.
  • p. 30: Love the one who’s most grateful and “gratitude will be proportionate.”

Socrates 1st Speech

  • p. 36: “Most people are unaware that they are ignorant of the essential nature of their subject.” Consider the benefit of starting a speech by defining your terms.
  • pp. 36-37: “in each one of us there are two ruling and impelling principles…a desire for pleasure…and an acquired conviction which cause us to aim at excellence.”
  • p. 37: “The conviction which impels us towards excellence is rational…self-control.”
  • “the desire which drags us towards pleasure is irrational…excess.”
  • p. 40: “the companionship of a lover, besides being injurious, is in the highest degree disagreeable to the object of his passion.”
  • pp. 40-41: “While he is in love the lover is a tedious nuisance, but” he’ll leave you when “his passion cools” regardless of any vows, oaths, or promises made.
  • p. 41: Socrates concludes “that it is far better to yield to a non-lover who is in his sober senses than to a lover who from the very nature of things is bound to be out of his mind.”
  • p. 41: Socrates also warns that lovers aren’t friends, and an older man has an appetite for a young boy that he needs satisfied.
  • Socrates gets a divine sign that makes him stay and redo his speech on love. This sets up his 2nd speech. Before he talks, though, he seems to set up his argument and warns that they risk being seen as uncivilized if anyone heard them talk this way.
  • Question: “Is Plato being genuine here? Why bring up something so specific (the idea of lover in the previous speech) just to refute it? Is he trying to hide what he really thinks? Perhaps he’s shunning the corrupt “illusion” of love that some maintain between each other.

Socrates on Souls

After explaining “that soul is uncreated and immortal,” Socrates explains the myth of the charioteer and how souls come to earth and, eventually, get freed.

  • pp. 52-53: The main gods (Zeus et. al. on Mount Olympus) have horses that take them on easy journeys, allowing them to see truth. The lesser gods and lower (humans) don’t get that glimpse and see varying degrees of the truth.”
  • p. 53: Those souls beneath gods don’t get the entire “absolute knowledge…in the fullest sense.”
  • p. 53: The lesser souls struggle with their horses and “depart without achieving initiation into the vision of reality, and henceforth upon mere opinion.”
  • Opinion: has the appearance of knowledge but isn’t reality, which is “knowledge of the real world of the forms” (Hamilton, note 1, p. 53).
  • p. 54: The hierarchy of souls—how much they glimpse of the truth.
    • 1st: seeks wisdom, beauty, or love—a philosopher
    • 2nd: monarch or warrior commander
    • 3rd: manager of a household or financier (banker)
    • 4th: lover of physical activity
    • 5th: soothsayer
    • 6th: poet or other (imitative) artist
    • 7th: artisan or farmer
    • 8th: popular teacher or demagogue
    • 9th: tyrant
  • Apparently, it takes 10,000 years for a soul to regrow wings…unless—

Love is Regrowth

  • p. 57: the corrupted man “feels no fear or shame in pursuing a pleasure which is unnatural.”
  • pp. 58-59: the soul that glimpses its love and is shut off will be awestruck when it sees its love again.
  • p. 58: “he is ready to be a slave and to make his bed as near he is allowed to the object of his passion.”
  • p. 61: “every man desires to find in his favourite a nature comparable to his own particular divinity.”

Notice what’s happened here. Instead of aiming to love a lesser soul, as Socrates advocated in his first speech, he claims true love is a desire to be with one comparable to oneself.

Rhetoric and Philosophy

  • p. 92: Once the speaker knows the types of souls and knows them when he encounters them, “then can he be said to have perfectly mastered his art.”
  • p. 94: Socrates has a problem with probability and, therefore, rhetorical training because “probability establishes itself in the minds of the populace because of its likeness to truth.”
  • p. 97: “once a thing is [written] it circulates equally among those who understand the subject and those who have no business with it.”
  • Who is a suitable and unsuitable reader? Any parallels in American history?

Next Class

I hope I went over the Leading Class Discussion Assignment. If not, I hope this is a reminder, and it isn’t after 8:45…

There’s no class next Monday (1/20) in observance of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Please Read Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 1 for our next class meeting on 1/27.

Skip to toolbar
  • Log In