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
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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