Rhetoric, Writing, and Public Discourse 387: Rhetorical Criticism

This course teaches students the core methods used to critically analyze texts from a rhetorical perspective. Using a variety of rhetorical artifacts including speeches and court opinions film, public monuments and memorials, and political protest rhetoric, students will consider how individual rhetorical acts are shaped by authorship and composition, audience, and social and historical context. We will think about these factors in conversation with concrete methods for analysis ranging from close textual criticism to ideology critique to affect and public memory analysis. Finally, the course will instruct students in researching and writing an extended piece of rhetorical criticism.