Rhetoric & Technical Communication
Rhetoric & Technical Communication
Toscano, Aaron, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Dept. of English

Resources and Daily Activities

  • Conference Presentations
    • PCA/ACA Conference Presentation 2022
    • PCAS/ACAS Presentation 2021
    • SEACS 2021 Presentation
    • SEACS 2022 Presentation
    • SEACS 2023 Presentation
    • South Atlantic MLA Conference 2022
  • Dr. Toscano’s Homepage
  • ENGL 2116-014: Introduction to Technical Communication
    • February 13th: Introduction to User Design
    • February 15th: Instructions for Users
      • Making Résumés and Cover Letters More Effective
    • February 1st: Reflection on Workplace Messages
    • February 20th: The Rhetoric of Technology
    • February 22nd: Social Constructions of Technology
    • February 6th: Plain Language
    • January 11th: More Introduction to Class
    • January 18th: Audience & Purpose
    • January 23rd: Résumés and Cover Letters
      • Duty Format for Résumés
      • Peter Profit’s Cover Letter
    • January 25th: More on Résumés and Cover Letters
    • January 30th: Achieving a Readable Style
      • Euphemisms
      • Prose Practice for Next Class
      • Prose Revision Assignment
      • Revising Prose: Efficiency, Accuracy, and Good
      • Sentence Clarity
    • January 9th: Introduction to the Class
    • Major Assignments
    • March 13th: Introduction to Information Design
    • March 15th: More on Information Design
    • March 20th: Reporting Technical Information
    • March 27th: The Great I, Robot Analysis
  • 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 24th: Introduction to the Class
    • August 31st: Rhetoric, Words, and Composing
    • Major Assignments for ENGL 4183/5183 (Fall 2022)
      • Rhetoric of Fear
    • November 16th: Voice and Other Nebulous Writing Terms
      • Finding Dominant Rhetorical Appeals
    • November 2nd: Rhetorical Effects of Punctuation
    • November 30th: Words and Word Classes
    • November 9th: Cohesive Rhythm
    • October 12th: Choosing Adjectivals
    • October 19th: Choosing Nominals
    • October 26th: Stylistic Variations
    • October 5th: Midterm Exam
    • September 14th: Verb is the Word!
    • September 21st: Coordination and Subordination
    • September 28th: Form and Function
    • September 7th: Sentence Patterns
  • 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 6166: Rhetorical Theory
    • April 12th: Knoblauch. Ch. 4 and Ch. 5
    • April 19th: Jacques Derrida’s Positions
    • April 26th:  Feminisms and Rhetorics
    • April 5th: Knoblauch. Ch. 3 and More Constitutive Rhetoric
    • February 15th: Isocrates (Part 2)
    • February 1st: Aristotle’s On Rhetoric Books 2 & 3
      • Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 2
      • Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 3
    • February 22nd: St. Augustine’s On Christian Doctrine [Rhetoric]
    • February 8th: Isocrates (Part 1)-2nd Half of Class
    • January 11th: Introduction to Class
    • January 18th: Plato’s Phaedrus
    • January 25th: Aristotle’s On Rhetoric Book 1
    • March 15th: Descartes, Rene, Discourse on Method
    • March 1st: Knoblauch. Ch. 1 and 2
    • March 22nd: Mary Wollstonecraft
    • March 29th: Second Wave Feminist Rhetoric
    • May 3rd: Knoblauch. Ch. 6, 7, and “Afterword”
    • Rhetorical Theory Assignments
  • ENGL/COMM/WRDS: The Rhetoric of Fear
    • February 14th: Fascism and Other Valentine’s Day Atrocities
    • February 21st: Fascism Part 2
    • February 7th: Fallacies Part 3 and American Politics Part 2
    • January 10th: Introduction to the Class
    • January 17th: Scapegoats & Conspiracies
    • January 24th: The Rhetoric of Fear and Fallacies Part 1
    • January 31st: Fallacies Part 2 and American Politics Part 1
    • Major Assignments
    • March 7th: Fascism Part 3
  • 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 2213-110: Science, Technology, and Society
    • August 22nd: Science and Technology from a Humanistic Perspective
    • August 24th: Science and Technology, a Humanistic Approach
    • August 29th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 2
    • August 31st: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 3 and 4
    • December 5th: Video Games and Violence, a more nuanced view
    • November 14th: Boulle, Pierre. Planet of the Apes. (1964) Ch. 27-end
    • November 16th: Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. 1818. Preface-Ch. 8
    • November 21st: Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. 1818. Ch. 9-Ch. 16
    • November 28th: Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Ch. 17-Ch. 24
    • November 30th: Violence in Video Games
    • November 7th: Boulle, Pierre. Planet of the Apes Ch. 1-17
    • November 9th: Boulle, Pierre. Planet of the Apes, Ch. 18-26
    • October 12th: Lies Economics Tells
    • October 17th: Brief Histories of Medicine, Salerno, and Galen
    • October 19th: Politicizing Science and Medicine
    • October 24th: COVID-19 Facial Covering Rhetoric
    • October 26th: Wells, H. G. Time Machine. Ch. 1-5
    • October 31st: Wells, H. G. The Time Machine Ch. 6-The End
    • October 3rd: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 7 and Conclusion
    • September 12th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 7 and Conclusion
    • September 19th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Prefaces and Ch. 1
    • September 26th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 2
    • September 28th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 5 and 6
    • September 7th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 5 and 6
  • New Media: Gender, Culture, Technology (Spring 2021)
    • April 13th: Virtually ‘Real’ Environments
    • April 20th: Rhetoric/Composition Defines New Media
    • April 27th: Sub/Cultural Politics, Hegemony, and Agency
    • April 6th: Capitalist Realism
    • 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
    • Major Assignments for New Media (Spring 2021)
    • March 16th: Identity Politics
    • March 23rd: Social Construction of Gender and Sexuality
    • March 2nd: Foundational Thinkers in Cultural Studies
    • March 30th: Hyperreality
    • March 9th: Globalization & Postmodernism
    • May 4th: Wrapping Up The Semester
      • Jodi Dean “The The Illusion of Democracy” & “Communicative Capitalism”
      • Social Construction of Sexuality
  • 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
    • A Practical Editing Situation
    • American Culture, an Introduction
    • Efficiency in Writing Reviews
    • Feminism, An Introduction
    • Fordism/Taylorism
    • Frankenstein Part I
    • Frankenstein Part II
    • Futurism Introduction
    • How to Lie with Statistics
    • Isaac Asimov’s “A Cult of Ignorance”
    • Langdon Winner Summary: The Politics of Technology
    • Marxist Theory (cultural analysis)
    • Oral Presentations
    • Oratory and Argument Analysis
    • 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
  • Video Games & American Culture
    • April 14th: Phallocentrism
    • April 21st: Video Games and Neoliberalism
    • April 7th: Video Games and Conquest
    • Assignments for Video Games & American Culture
    • February 10th: Aesthetics and Culture
    • February 17th: Narrative and Catharsis
    • February 24th: Serious Games
    • February 3rd: More History of Video Games
    • January 13th: Introduction to the course
    • January 20th: Introduction to Video Game Studies
    • January 27th: Games & Culture
      • Marxism for Video Game Analysis
      • Postmodernism for Video Game Analysis
    • March 24th: Realism, Interpretation(s), and Meaning Making
    • March 31st: Feminist Perspectives and Politics
    • March 3rd: Risky Business?

Contact Me

Office: Fretwell 255F
Email: atoscano@uncc.edu
ENGL 6166: Rhetorical Theory » January 11th: Introduction to Class

January 11th: Introduction to Class

Welcome to the Class

Tonight we will get to know each other and find out the course goals and requirements. I will go over the syllabus first, which will only be located online. I have been told by the University to conserve resources, so I will not print or photocopy anything for this class. We will use the Web and Moodle to communicate course material.

After we go over the syllabus, I’ll highlight some important dates and assignments to come. Then, we’ll get to know our classmates.

Your Story

We’ll most likely do this after break (usually 7:30-7:45).

I want us to get to know one another briefly tonight. Usually, I pair you up with a neighbor and have you answer the following questions, but, tonight, if you haven’t done so already, hop onto Canvas and answer these questions for Weekly Discussion Post #1. Then, each of you will report back to class about yourself.

  • Name
  • Year (don’t put 2022–year in the program)
  • Degree and Concentration
  • Hometown(s)
  • Job/Future Job
  • Favorite Book (or most recent)
  • Favorite TV Show
  • Favorite Movie
  • What do you expect in ENGL 6166?
    • What do you want to know about Rhetorical Theory?
    • What are your educational plans?

Freewrite on “Rhetoric”

What is rhetoric? For the next 5 min, please freewrite. Consider popular and academic definitions you’ve encountered. Where do you find rhetoric, and how has it been characterized? There’s no right or wrong here.

Asimov’s “A Cult of Ignorance”

Let’s discuss the article you read for tonight. Areas to start or get to…

  • Anti-intellectualism
  • Elites
  • Right to know
  • Credibility and trust
  • Reading scores
  • Drop in magazine readership
  • Ignorance, willful ignorance, celebrating ignorance…
  • “true concept of democracy”
  • “Why not trust the experts? Also, what’s wrong with highway signs having pictures instead of words?

Gorgias’ “Encomium of Helen”

I prefer the George Kennedy translation of this speech (pp. 251-256), but Brian R. Donovan’s translation is good enough. When discussing the speech, please refer to line and section numbers to orient the class.

This speech is most likely a refined oratory used for didactic purposes, a class lesson. Observing the structure is obvious (especially in the Kennedy translation with the subheadings), so let’s consider what makes it persuasive. Thinking forward to your rhetorical analyses, how is meaning built into this speech? What might be a priori, and what might be a posteriori? Additionally, if this is an example of how one prepares a speech, what are some features you recognize?

Consider Gorgias’ views on the following:

  • Royalty
  • The Gods
  • Love
  • Destiny/Fate
  • Persuasion (good, bad, beautiful)

This speech is an often anthologized work from the 5th century B.C.E., so it’s a major work of Western Civilization. Did Gorgias just argue that no crime of passion should be seen as unjust? After all, love etches itself on the soul and may shape an individual’s actions. Can one really be to blame if they commit a crime of passion, such as murder?

From Kennedy’s translation:

  • p. 251: Kennedy notes “Paris had been promised the most beautiful woman in the world as a bribe for choosing Aphrodite, goddess of love, when he judged a beauty contest between her, Hera, and Athena.”
    • Divine intervention…
  • [1], p. 252: “for it is equal error and ignorance to blame the praiseworthy and to praise the blameworthy.”
    • What type–think structure–of argument is Gorgias making?
  • [4], p. 252: “[Helen] possessed godlike beauty, which getting and not forgetting she preserved.”
    • We should compare this to Isocrates’ praise of chastity ([58], pp. 44-45, esp. note 56).
  • [8], p. 253: “Speech is a powerful lord that with the smallest and most invisible body accomplishes most godlike works.”
  • [10], p. 254: “…the two arts of witchcraft and magic are errors of the soul and deceivers of opinion.”
    • So Harry Potter is evil.
  • [11], p. 254: “…on most subjects most people take opinion as counselor to the soul. But opinion, being slippery and insecure, casts those relying on it into slippery and insecure fortune.”
    • If we haven’t already, let’s discuss these:
      Taste/Conviction
      Opinion
      Theories/Laws
      Facts
  • [19], p. 255: “If love, a god, prevails over divine power of the gods, how could a lesser one be able to reject and refuse it?”

Isocrates’ “Encomium of Helen”

I prefer the David C. Mirhady and Yun Lee Too translation of this speech (in Isocrates I, pp. 31-48), but J. A. Freese’s translation is good enough. When discussing the speech, please refer to line and section numbers to orient the class.

From Mirhady & Too’s Translation:

  • After a lesson or 20 in Greek mythology, Isocrates gets to his argument about Helen…
  • [40], p. 41: “…it was already clear to all that she would be the object of armed struggle.”
  • [53], p. 43: “They thought it was nobler for them to die fighting for the daughter of Zeus than to live and not face danger on her account.”
    • What might we learn from this observation about the rhetoric of dying for the motherland?
  • [54], p. 44: “[Helen] had the most beauty, which is the most venerated, most honored, and most divine quality in the world.”
    • Bless her heart…I’m being 100% sarcastic here.
  • [56], p. 44: “We distrust those who are foremost in intelligence or anything else, unless they win us over by treating us well every day and compelling us to like them. But we have goodwill toward beautiful people as soon as we see them…”
  • It’s a good thing we’re not as shallow as the Athenian demos!

The Speeches’ Contexts

As mentioned in the course description on the syllabus, “Critiquing the nearly all male, Eurocentric canon is greatly encouraged and an assumed goal for the course.” Biesecker provides excellent contexts for these speeches, using Pericles’ citizenship law (451 or 450 B.C.E) to explain them in regard to the status of women in Athens…well, Athenian women, and we will discuss the subtle difference in those two phrases: “women in Athens” as opposed to “Athenian women.” Think citizenship.

  • p. 100: “women’s status worsened with the transformation of Athens from an aristocratic to a more democratic society.”
  • “the exclusion of women from the public sphere can be explained as a symptom of a psychic dynamic in the male Athenian collective unconscious.”
  • Most important aspect of this article for tonight (p. 102):
    “by stipulating the necessary condition for citizenship the law made possible disputes over questions of citizenship. Put more concretely, the law provided a legal standard (two parent citizenship) by which litigants could and more than likely did contest or defend an individual’s claim to citizenship in a court of law.”
  • p. 103: “the law opened up the possibility for contesting women’s subjugated status with respect to citizenship by making no gender distinction.”
  • p. 104: “Gorgias’ speech was written sometime in the last quarter of the fifth century, a time notorious for the widening of political access; Isocrates wrote his encomium around 370 B.C.E., a moment in which democratization was being contested.”
  • p. 105: “Gorgias’ Helen, at least implicitly, entertains alternative versions of the status of women in society.”

Isocrates on MAGA (Make Athens Great Again)

  • p. 106: “Isocrates…advocate[d]…controlled democracy…a form of government which, in its most extreme form, amounts to monarchy, and which benefits the few rather than the many. Isocrates’ educational program, then, is conservative in its socio-political agenda: it seeks a return to a time before the democratization of Athens.”
  • Helen’s patrilineage is valued, therefore, she’ll produce great sons
    “Isocrates praises Helen for her patrilineage because it guarantees that she will reproduce more members of the aristocratic class.”
  • p. 107: “if Pericles’ law did in fact create an opening for contesting women’s exclusion from the public sphere, Isocrates’ speech would shut it, if only by not attending to it.”

Biesecker provides an analysis for how Pericles’ law acknowledges matrilineage and how “Gorgias’ and Isocrates’ speeches can be read as having responded, however implicitly, to questions concerning gender relations…” (p. 107, italics added).

Next Class

We’ll continue our online class meeting next week, and I hope that’s our last one ever, but something tells me I shouldn’t hold my breath. You’ll have a longer reading for next week, but it’s a classic! The bookstore should have Plato’s Phaedrus, the preferred translation, but you may also read it here.

Skip to toolbar
  • Log In