Rhetoric, Writing, and Public Discourse 301: Special Topic in Rhetoric, Writing, and Public Discourse: Language, Difference, & Dialogue

In a pluralistic, globalized world beset by increasing xenophobia and widespread conflict, it is more important than ever to learn to share the world with those who are different from us. This course will explore three key topics whose dimensions inform our lives in such a plural culture: language, difference, and dialogue. We will consider the extent to which entering into dialogue about difficult ideas with others constitutes a form of responsibility, and ask what it means to take responsibility for our words? For example, to whom or what is a speaker responsible in a given case? What guides, if any, are there for taking responsibility and making sense-such as truth and truthfulness, social norms and linguistic conventions, ongoing dialogues and discourses, other people and/or oneself? What possibilities emerge from this responsibility? What limitations? To reflect on these questions, we will engage with scholarly frameworks including ordinary language philosophy, gender studies, postcolonial studies, performance studies, science and technology studies. Our engagements with 20th and 21st century philosophical questions, terms, and ideas about language will help us to think mindfully about how, and to what extent, we are able to negotiate across differences in dialogue.