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 2213/HTAS 2100: Science, Technology, and Society » November 3rd: Planet of the Apes. (1964) Ch. 1-17

November 3rd: Planet of the Apes. (1964) Ch. 1-17

Today is Election Day. I hope you’ve done your civic duty and voted.

The higher your educational level, the more likely you are to vote. Therefore, if you’re in college and not voting, you’re underachieving. Slackerism has never really been cool. All the cool slackers I knew in the 1990s–many proud of not voting–live pretty pathetic lives these days…I read bout them on facebook.

Themes to Guide Us

  • Privileging Knowledge
  • Devolution
  • The Problem of Utopia

Planète des Singes

Pierre Boulle, author of Planet of the Apes and Bridge over the River Kwai, started out as an engineer and French secret agent, who was captured in 1943 by French legions who supported Japan (this was after France fell to Germany). He was engaging in espionage in what is now Vietnam, Loas, and Cambodia. His experience as a POW was certainly incorporated into Bridge over the River Kwai but we can also read some of that in Ulysse Mérou’s captivity in Planet of the Apes. The novel is important to this class for its commentary—it is a social science fiction political satire—on scientific authority, evolution, and intelligence (vs. intellectualism). There is also the theme about human-animal relations, which a contemporary satirical text deals with: South Park’s “Whale Whores” episode. We won’t spend too much time on this theme, but definitely be thinking about the assumptions we have of animals and, specifically, types of animals. Why are animal lives not held to the same value as human lives? Consider the term anthropocentric.

As mentioned before, some science fiction readers expect plot devices to be accurate—as scientifically precise as possible. This class looks at the allegorical aspects of science fiction: It’s a projection of the author’s cultural moment into an imagined (future) setting. Although we can clarify some of the “technical” details, let’s not get too bogged down in the physics of space travel. However, if you haven’t seen Interstellar (2014), you should. It’s out of this world–Ha!

Obvious Allusions and Puns

“Take your stinking paws off me you damn dirty ape!” (1968 film)
Where is this line in the novel?

  • Ulysse Mérou is an allusion to the character Ulysses (or Odysseus) in Homer’s Odyssey.
  • Soror is the sister planet of Earth (p. 23). Any guess as to why “Soror” for the “sister” planet?
  • The Institute for Advanced Biological Science (p. 133) alludes (not perfectly, of course) to the Institut de France, which houses the French Academy of Sciences that you no doubt remember from the Pasteur-Pouchet Debate.
    • The Institute for Advanced Biological Science is official science
    • Consider the roles of the Orangutans, Gorillas, and Chimpanzees

Exploration and Discovery

Although there are other Earthlings as characters, we don’t see them enough to focus too much attention on them. However, I might ask you to comment about the Professor in next week’s post. We’ll see. Let’s think about how the protagonist, Ulysse Mérou, deals with this new world of Soror. We should try to compare the narrative of the Time Machine and Planet of the Apes to discover patterns between the two texts. Yes, patterns exist. I didn’t just pick these texts at random.

  • p. 13: “[T]he voyage lasted about two years our time, during which three and a half centuries must have elapsed on Earth.”
  • p. 13: “[T]he professor….often admitted he was tired of his fellow men.”
  • p. 14: The spaceship is a mini-Ark with vegetable, flowers, “some birds, butterflies, and even a monkey, a little chimpanzee…christened Hector.”
  • p. 18: The crew arrive in orbit around Soror, a comparable planet to Earth.
  • p. 22: Is it safe? They “tried it out first on [their] chimpanzee.”
    Foreshadowing to the tests the apes do on humans.
  • p. 23: “[W]e knew that a civilization existed….Rational beings…had molded the face of the planet.”
    Pay attention to the use of tools (or inability to use them) and how that makes a being intellectual as opposed to just intelligent.

Nova

Two years without female companionship. Imagine how happy the crew (except for the professor) is to see not just a woman but one consider conventionally beautiful by their culture’s standards. Notice how many references Ulysse make to dogs (p. 31, 33, 49, 50).

  • p. 30: “[H]er eyes….[had] a sort of void, an absence of expression reminding me of a wretched mad girl I had once known.”
  • p. 31: “[W]e heard her: but the sounds she uttered only added to the impression of animality created by her attitude.”
    How did Nova greet Hector, the crew’s pet chimpanzee?
  • p. 81: “My sleep was interrupted, however, by feverish nightmares, in which Nova’s body appeared in the guise of a monstrous serpent wound around me own body.”
    Whoa! What does that dream mean?
  • p. 89: When Ulysee first tried talking to Zira, “Nova looked furious and could not keep still.”
    • What?!? How come? What could that possibly mean?
  • p. 107: “I allowed myself to be stroked by [Zira’s] hairy hand, much to the displeasure of Nova.”
  • p. 115: “I, the ultimate achievement of millennial evolution….I, Ulysse Mérou, embarked like a peacock around the gorgeous Nova on the love display.”
  • p. 130: To calm Nova down, “[Ulysse] had had to resort to force to keep her quiet. After receiving a few thundering slaps across her beautiful face, she had eventually calmed down.”
  • p. 134: Zira didn’t like Ulysse slumming with Nova–“Since she was now convinced I had an ape’s mind, my intimacy with the young girl vexed and shocked her.”
  • p. 149: Using the flashlight to control Nova, “I am the absolute master at home, now that I possess this instrument, and no longer need any arguments more striking to keep her quiet.”
  • p. 194: “I often Think of Nova….Since I have changed camps I have even forbidden myself to show her more affection than I show to her fellows.”

p. 37: “’A female savage…belonging to some backward race like those found in New Guinea or in our African forests?’”

  • Colonialism
  • Jingoism
  • Cultural imperialism (cultural hegemony)

What it means to be civilized (or advanced) has to do with how cultures behave. What’s one of the worst practices to engage in for humans? What is a marker of a civilized people? One thing for sure is that technologies appear to mark civilized societies. Of course, such an attitude is culturally relativistic.

Soror Humans

  • p. 41: Ulysse considered the Soror humans to have “a lack of conscious though; the absence of intelligence.”
  • p. 46: “[T]hese beings were roused to fury by objects. Things that were manufactured provoked their anger as well as their fear.”
  • p. 47: “Their women were all beautiful, though none could rival Nova’s splendor.”
  • p. 48: “[T]he shelters were not even huts, but nestlike constructions like those built by the big apes in our African forests.”
  • p. 112: Sex in captivity–“The only surprising element in these displays was the scientific ardor with which these apes followed them, never omitting to makes copious notes on the procedure.”
    • Let’s connect this to another scientific observation of animal mating. What could we say about the situation the apes are in as they try to record human mating?
    • What environment factors may affect the Soror humans’ behavior?

Next Class

Continue reading another third of Planet of the Apes by next class, 11/05.

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