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 sec. 021 & 022: Introduction to Technical Communication
    • August 1st: Ethics and Statistics Catch Up
    • Classmates Webpages (Summer II 2017)
    • ENGL 2116 sec. 021 & 022 Major Assignments (Summer 2017)
      • Final Portfolio Requirements
      • Oral Presentations
    • July 10th: Résumé Stuff
      • Making Résumés and Cover Letters More Effective
      • Peter Profit’s Cover Letter
    • July 11th: More on Résumés and Cover Letters
    • July 12th: Lessons on Plain Language
      • Euphemisms
      • Prose Homework/Practice for Next Class
      • Prose Revision Assignment
      • Revising Prose: Efficiency, Accuracy, and Good
      • Sentence Clarity
      • Topic Sentences
    • July 13th: More on Plain Language
    • July 17th: Writing for the User
    • July 18th: Final Project and Research Discussion
      • Epistemology and Other Fun Research Ideas
      • Making Résumés and Cover Letters Better
      • Research
    • July 19th: Rhetoric of Technology
      • Guglielmo Marconi Paragraph Revision
      • Housing Prices Paragraph Revision
      • Suburbanization Paragraph Revision
    • July 24th: Information Design and Visuals
      • Text and Subtext (Rows 1, 3, and 5)
      • Text and Subtext (rows 2, 4, and 6)
    • July 25th: Catch Up for Research & Visuals
    • July 27th: Continue I, Robot Discussion
    • July 31st: Ethics in Technical Communication
      • Ethical Dilemmas for Class Discussion
      • Ethical Dilemmas for Homework
      • Mapping Our Personal Ethics
    • July 5th: Introduction to the Course
    • July 6th: Audience, Purpose, and General Introduction
  • 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
    • August 22nd: Introduction to the Course
    • August 29th: Rhetoric, Words, and Composing
    • December 5th: Final Presentations
    • Major Assignments for ENGL 4183/5183 (Fall 2018)
      • Efficiency in Writing Reviews
      • Rhetoric of Fear
    • November 14th: Word Usage Fun
    • November 28th: Workshop Fun
    • November 7th: Voice and Other Nebulous Writing Terms
      • Finding Dominant Rhetorical Appeals
    • October 10th: Choices and Variations
    • October 17th: Stylistic Variations
    • October 24th: We Put the “Punc” in Punctuation
      • Punctuation Refresher
    • October 31st: Cohesive Rhythm
    • October 3rd: Midterm Exam Fun
    • September 12th: Verb is the Word!
    • September 19th: Coordination and Subordination
    • September 26th: Modifying Prose
      • Guglielmo Marconi Paragraph Revision
    • September 5th: I’m in Love with the Shape of You(r Sentences)
  • 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 6008/MALS 6000 The Rhetoric of Technology
    • August 22nd: Introduction to Rhetoric of Technology
    • August 29th: Introduction to Cultural Studies
    • December 5th: But I Still Love Technology…
    • ENGL 6008/MALS 6000 Rhetoric of Technology Assignments (Fall 2017)
    • History of Technical Communication
    • November 14th: All You Zombies–
    • November 21st: The The Illusion of Democracy & Communicative Capitalism
    • November 28th: Cultural Studies and Technical Communication
    • November 7th: Politics of Cyberspace…and other household technologies
    • October 17th: The Religion of Technology
      • Religion of Technology Discussion
    • October 24th: Identity Politics
    • October 31st: Technology and Gender
    • October 3rd: Science and “Perfect” Technologies
    • September 12th: The Politics of Technology
      • Langdon Winner Summary: The Politics of Technology
    • September 19th: New World Disorder
      • Fordism/Taylorism
    • September 26th: Postmodernism
    • September 5th: Foundational Thinkers in Cultural Studies
      • Rhetoric and Myth Making
  • ENGL 6166/MALS 6000: Rhetorical Theory
    • April 10th: Lyotard’s The Postmodern Condition
      • What is Postmodernism?
    • April 17th: Simulation and Essence
    • April 24th: Jameson Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism
      • Postmodernism
    • April 3rd: Derrida’s (refusal to have) Positions
    • February 13th: Aristotle’s On Rhetoric Books 2 and 3
      • Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 2
      • Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 3
    • February 20th: St. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine [Rhetoric]
      • Oratory and Argument Analysis
    • February 27th: Rene Descartes’ Discourse on Method
    • February 6th: Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 1
    • January 23rd: Plato’s Phaedrus
    • January 30th: Plato’s Gorgias
    • January 9th: Introduction to Class
    • March 13th: Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women
    • March 20th: Roland Barthes’s Mythologies
    • March 27th: Friedrich Nietzsche
    • May 1st: What is Real? Where do Rhetoric and Philosophy go from here?
    • 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
  • New Media: Gender, Culture, Technology (Spring 2018)
    • April 11th: Hyperreality (and some video games)
    • April 18th: The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, a Historical Perspective
    • April 25th: Workshop Fun
    • April 4th: Social Construction of Sexuality
    • February 14th: Convergence Culture
    • February 21: Misunderstanding the Internet
    • February 28th: Patriarchy, an Introduction
    • February 7th: Capitalist Realism and Zombies
    • January 10th: Introduction to the Course
    • January 17th: Our Public Sphere and the Media
      • Our Public Sphere
    • January 24th: The Medium is the Message/Massage
    • January 31st: Cultural Constructions
    • March 14th: Play on, Playa!
    • March 21st: Performativity
    • March 28th: The Beauty Myth and Images of Women in the Media
      • Psychoanalysis and the Male Gaze
    • New Media Assignments (Spring 2018)
  • Science Fiction in American Culture (Summer I–2019)
    • Assignments for Science Fiction in American Culture
    • Cultural Studies and Science Fiction Films
    • June 10th: Conformity and Monotony
    • June 11th: Cultural Constructions of Beauty
    • June 12th: Interstellar and Exploration themes
    • June 13th: Bicentennial Man
    • June 17th: I’m Only Human…Or am I?
    • June 18th: Wall-E and Environment
    • June 19th: Wall-E (2008) and Technology
    • June 20th: Interactivity in Video Games
    • June 3rd: Firefly (2002) and Myth
    • June 4th: “Johnny Mnemonic”
    • June 5th: “New Rose Hotel”
    • June 6th: “Burning Chrome”
    • May 20th: Introduction to Class
    • May 21st: American Culture, an Introduction
    • May 22nd: The Matrix
    • May 23rd: Gender and Science Fiction
    • May 27th: Goals for I, Robot
    • May 28th: Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot
    • May 29th: 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
    • Postmodernism Introduction
    • Protesting Confederate Place
    • QT, the Existential Robot
    • 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
LBST 2212-124, 125, 126, & 127 » September 25th: Gender Studies and Science Fiction

September 25th: Gender Studies and Science Fiction

“Think Like a Dinosaur” Addendum

The marble slab in Kelly’s “Think Like a Dinosaur” functions like a modem, which sends information in packets from one computer to be “reassembled” be a modem on the receiving computer. In 1995, modems weren’t new, but they were being used more as the World Wide Web made home internet access more user friendly. I mention this because modems were hi-tech at the time and new for most consumers. Universities, libraries, and the military were well acquainted, but everyday consumers were just beginning to get online in the early to mid-1990s. By the way, the word “modem” comes from the device’s full name: modulator/demodulator.

Gender Studies and Absolutes

This subject is going to be difficult for many of us. We tend to live in a binary world: right and wrong, black and white, us and them, male and female…we have little patience to contemplate ambiguity, especially when it’s as “fundamental” as gender. The attributes and behaviors of men and women, our gender roles, seem to be essential to what’s masculine and feminine. If something violates our assumptions, at best, we think it odd, and, at worst, we hate it. Having absolutes is comfortable to us because we don’t like to have our worldviews predicated on shaky assumptions.

Voltaire has a nice quote to contemplate: “Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.”

Unfortunately, ambiguity, doubt, and relativity are cultural conditions. We might try to ignore that or even avoid those in favor of our concrete perspectives, which are often un-examined convictions. In a class like this one that covers how culture influences the texts we read (and their creation), no absolute should remain unquestioned.

Gender is such an absolute that many don’t want questioned: men are men; women are women…why? Before we get farther into the discussion, let’s define some words:

  • Feminism: the social and political philosophy advocating the equality of all people regardless of gender.
  • Patriarchy: male dominated society; the powerful group in a society elevates male privilege and subordinates women.
  • Sexism: attitudes, assumptions, and stereotypes directed at a particular sex/gender; especially when these are related to women.*
  • Heteronormativity: the attitude that recognizes heterosexual relationships as the societal norm and ignores other possibilities.
  • Heterosexist: the belief that the only valid form of relationship is the heterosexual union between a man and a woman.
  • Phallocentrism: power is held and wielded by those in control of the phallus, the site of male power; male superiority based on the legitimate use of the phallus.
  • Exogamy: practice of marrying outside one’s group (family, culture, “race,” species–this is a Sci Fi class. Btw, who’s seen The Shape of Water? Great film).

*There is a theory that only men can be sexist in patriarchal society because sexism is systemic–it’s part of the culture, part of the system and pervasive. There is no female equivalent to sexism, no reverse sexism, because a subordinate group doesn’t have the same prevailing power privilege.

As an introduction, let’s look at a scene from ABC’s Modern Family that can have multiple readings (interpretations). On the surface, it’s a funny story and a leading character triumphs. Below the surface, it’s a trite display of gender roles and gendered value in patriarchal culture. For a brief context, Gloria feels inferior to her ex-husband’s fiancee because she’s very well educated, calm, and a successful career woman. This threatens Gloria because she feels Manny (her son) will look up to the new stepmom more than her.  Check out Gloria meeting Javier’s fiancee. (Here’s a short article about the first part of the episode–Season 4, ep. 20). If we’ve got time, let’s check out Jay getting Gloria new shoes. (By the way, Joe Mangianello is Sofia Vergara’s actual husband…)

Questions–Trish, the fiancee, sees the relationship dynamic differently from Gloria.

  • What motivates Trish’s reasons for locking herself in the room?
  • This comes at the end of the show, so what does the “resolution” value in femininity?
  • Is there a comment about a woman’s proper role?

James Tiptree, Jr./Alice B. Sheldon “And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill’s Side” (1972)

Alice B. Sheldon was pretty ahead of her time. She was promoted to the rank of Major in Army Air Force Intelligence and worked with (most likely) spy photos (1942-1946). She was also in the CIA from 1952-1955, but left to go back to college, and in 1967, she earned a PhD in experimental psychology and studied animal behavior. Although we can’t read an author’s work as a pseudo-biography, she was a very smart person who saw the world in complicated ways. As the Anthology editors note, sexuality is a major theme of her work. She would definitely not subscribe to a binary but, rather, a spectrum of sexuality.

Clearly, humans aren’t in control in her short story. They appear to be obsessed with aliens and alien sexuality or, more accurately, the mystique of alien sexuality. Tiptree plays on the situation of eroticizing the “other.” There is a long history of Western culture having a fetish for those from other cultures. The space dock worker waiting for his wife even mentions “the Polynesians” to refer to the way a culture has been exploited and eroticized by a colonial power (pp. 522-523). Even today, consumerist culture sexualizes caricatures of indigenous women.

Let’s take a look at some main passages from the short story:

  • p. 518: Wristwatches on spaceships.
  • p. 519: “I had him figured out now. A xenophobe. Aliens plot to take over Earth.” {Is that what the “red-haired man” is? Didn’t he seem a bit more xenophile?}
  • p. 519: “Little Junction,” dive bar in DC.
  • p. 520: Aliens as celebrities
  • p. 522: “Man is in love and loves what vanishes…”
    • Let’s unpack this because it relates to the poem.
    • Every heard the idea that you love what you can’t have?
    • Why not love what’s easy?
  • p. 523: “Man is exogamous–all our history is one long drive to find and impregnate the stranger.”
    • Interpret this from an imperialist lens.
    • Why the lament?
  • p. 524: “The station employs only happily wedded couples” most likely because they need the stability of marriage to keep the humans from going bonkers over the aliens. If they stray, they could disrupt the station’s business.

Keat’s “La Belle Dame sans Merci”

I guess being an English professor means I have to explain the reference to Keats’s poem “La Belle Dame sans Merci” (“The Beautiful Lady without Pity”…google translate used to claim it was “without thank you”). Of course, full disclosure, you know I’m not really that kind of English Professor, but I’ll wear that hat for a little while and explicate the poem…to a certain extent.

  • This poem is about a young man deserted and left bereft by a mysterious and magical lover.
  • The poem also could be a lament that the women died. Why are there so many narratives by men who seem to long for the perfect women?
  • Possibly a femme fatale, who seduces men and then destroys them.

Carol Emshwiller’s “Abominable” (1980)

More on phallocentrism: This idea states that males are superior and, therefore, their outlook is the only legitimate one. In the short story, it’s the male outlook that constructs what the ideal “Grace” would be, and those ideals are phallocentric because they originate in the male’s assumptions of the creature, which is a thinly veiled allusion to women.

Did anyone else think about the “Messin’ with Sasquatch” Jack Link’s commercials? They should have used beef jerky instead of bananas. Anyway, this is certainly a satire that comments on the sexist assumptions men have of women. Although you have to read between the lines, you don’t have to read too far between the lines to recognize the pack mentality this gang of men have as they “hunt” for the illusive creature. Many of the stereotypes about men being from mars and women being from Venus–a not-so-clever attempt to rationalize sexism–appear in this story. Let’s start with the setup:

  • Boys’ Night Out on the Prowl: “We are seven manly men in the dress uniform of the Marines, though we are not (except for one) Marines. But this particular uniform has always been thought to attract them” (p. 540,emphasis).
    • Here’s a contemporary example…
  • Bar hopping: “the Commander says to leave the river and go up into the hills even though they are treacherous with spring thaws and avalanches. The compass points up” (p. 541).
    • Dissecting the above passage: The alpha male of the group, the Commander, says it’s time to leave the current place (probably the apartment or typical bar where they drink–hence, “river” as a reference to “watering hole”–and build up confidence) and head to where they can find women, girls, chicks, etc. You don’t stay at home and have them come to you until you’re dating or pseudo-dating {the politest way to say…}. Now it’s time to hunt. But be careful, for there are dangers–their friends, your self-confidence, and, of course, other men–that will thwart you.
    • Does “the compass points up” need any explanation?
  • Make them laugh: The psychoanalyst claims “there’s a kind of nervous giggle, which is essentially sexual in origin and, if it occurs when they see us, is probably a very good sign” (p. 541). Of course, Emshwiller isn’t offering a pickup blueprint; instead, she’s commenting on the fact that in dating/mating rituals, men often see women as objects to have sex with.
    • All their behavior gives clues to whether or not she’ll have sex with the man. This is what the Editors meant when they claimed the narrator’s worldview “is childishly pathetic” and “how the struggle to understand [the other gender] may be crippled by cultural assumptions” (p. 540).

Assuming there’s time left, talk among yourselves for the next few minutes and think about the percentages that came up in the short story. Especially on pages 544-545, the narrator describes how to deal with the emotionally weaker species.

  • What attitudes (think stereotypes) about women are being carried out here?
  • In what ways are women portrayed as aliens or animals? How do these portrayals comment on attitudes toward women?
  • Is this really a science fiction story?

Next Class

No Friday class this week. Instead, you’ll have Test 2 on Canvas, so make sure you do that between 8am and 11pm on Friday (9/27).

Next week, we’re moving onto Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, so start reading that if you haven’t already. The full text is available online.

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