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

Resources and Daily Activities

  • Charlotte Debate
  • Conference Presentations
    • Critical Theory/MRG 2023 Presentation
    • PCA/ACA Conference Presentation 2022
    • PCAS/ACAS 2024 Presentation
    • PCAS/ACAS Presentation 2021
    • SAMLA 2024 Presentation
    • SEACS 2021 Presentation
    • SEACS 2022 Presentation
    • SEACS 2023 Presentation
    • SEACS 2024 Presentation
    • SEACS 2025 Presentation
    • SEWSA 2021 Presentation
    • South Atlantic MLA Conference 2022
  • Dr. Toscano’s Homepage
  • ENGL 2116-014: Introduction to Technical Communication
    • April 10th: Analyzing Ethics
      • Ethical Dilemmas for Homework
      • Ethical Dilemmas to Ponder
      • Mapping Our Personal Ethics
    • April 12th: Writing Ethically
    • April 17th: Ethics Continued
    • April 19th: More on Ethics in Writing and Professional Contexts
    • April 24th: Mastering Oral Presentations
    • April 3rd: Research Fun
    • April 5th: More Research Fun
      • Epistemology and Other Fun Research Ideas
      • Research
    • 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
    • May 1st: Final Portfolio Requirements
  • 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 23rd: Introduction to the Class
    • August 30th: Rhetoric, Words, and Composing
    • December 6th: Words and Word Classes
    • Major Assignments for ENGL 4183/5183 (Fall 2023)
    • November 15th: Cohesive Rhythm
    • November 1st: Stylistic Variations
    • November 29th: Voice and Other Nebulous Writing Terms
      • Rhetoric of Fear (prose example)
    • November 8th: Rhetorical Effects of Punctuation
    • October 11th: Choosing Adjectivals
    • October 18th: Choosing Nominals
    • October 4th: Form and Function
    • September 13th: Verb is the Word!
    • September 27th: Coordination and Subordination
      • Parallelism
    • September 6th: Sentence Patterns
  • ENGL 4275/WRDS 4011: “Rhetoric of Technology”
    • April 23rd: Presentation Discussion
    • April 2nd: Artificial Intelligence Discussion, machine (super)learning
    • April 4th: Writing and Reflecting Discussion
    • April 9th: Tom Wheeler’s The History of Our Future (Part I)
    • February 13th: Religion of Technology Part 3 of 3
    • February 15th: Is Love a Technology?
    • February 1st: Technology and Postmodernism
    • February 20th: Technology and Gender
    • February 22nd: Technology, Expediency, Racism
    • February 27th: Writing Workshop, etc.
    • February 6th: The Religion of Technology (Part 1 of 3)
    • February 8th: Religion of Technology (Part 2 of 3)
    • January 11th: Introduction to the Course
    • January 16th: Isaac Asimov’s “Cult of Ignorance”
    • January 18th: Technology and Meaning, a Humanist perspective
    • January 23rd: Technology and Democracy
    • January 25th: The Politics of Technology
    • January 30th: Discussion on Writing as Thinking
    • Major Assignments for Rhetoric of Technology
    • March 12th: Neuromancer (1984) Day 1 of 3
    • March 14th: Neuromancer (1984) Day 2 of 3
    • March 19th: Neuromancer (1984) Day 3 of 3
    • March 21st: Writing and Reflecting: Research and Synthesizing
    • March 26th: Artificial Intelligence and Risk
    • March 28th: Artificial Intelligence Book Reviews
  • ENGL 6166: Rhetorical Theory
    • April 11th: Knoblauch. Ch. 4 and Ch. 5
    • April 18th: Feminisms, Rhetorics, Herstories
    • April 25th:  Knoblauch. Ch. 6, 7, and “Afterword”
    • April 4th: Jacques Derrida’s Positions
    • February 15th: St. Augustine’s On Christian Doctrine [Rhetoric]
    • February 1st: Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 2 & 3
      • Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 2
      • Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 3
    • February 22nd: Knoblauch. Ch. 1 and 2
    • February 29th: Descartes, Rene, Discourse on Method
    • February 8th: Isocrates
    • January 11th: Introduction to Class
    • January 18th: Plato’s Phaedrus
    • January 25th: Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 1
    • March 14th: Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women
    • March 21st: Feminist Rhetoric(s)
    • March 28th: Knoblauch’s Ch. 3 and More Constitutive Rhetoric
    • Rhetorical Theory Assignments
  • ENGL/COMM/WRDS: The Rhetoric of Fear
    • April 11th: McCarthyism Part 1
    • April 18th: McCarthyism Part 2
    • April 25th: The Satanic Panic
    • April 4th: Suspense/Horror/Fear in Film
    • 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 28th: Nineteen Eighty-Four
    • March 7th: Fascism Part 3
    • May 2nd: The Satanic Panic Part II
      • Rhetoric of Fear and Job Losses
  • Intercultural Communication on the Amalfi Coast
    • Pedagogical Theory for Study Abroad
  • 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
    • August 19: Introduction to the Course
    • August 21: More Introduction
    • August 26th: Consider Media-ted Arguments
    • August 28th: Media & American Culture
    • November 13th: Hank Green’s An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, Part 3
    • November 18th: Feminism’s Non-Monolithic Nature
    • November 20th: Compulsory Heterosexuality
    • November 25th: Presentation Discussion
    • November 4: Hank Green’s An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, Part 1
    • November 6: Hank Green’s An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, Part 2
    • October 16th: No Class Meeting
    • October 21: Misunderstanding the Internet, Part 1
    • October 23: Misunderstanding the Internet, Part 2
    • October 28: The Internet, Part 3
    • October 2nd: Hauntology
    • October 30th: Social Construction of Sexuality
    • October 7:  Myth in American Culture
    • September 11: Critical Theory
    • September 16th: Social Construction of Gender and Sexuality
    • September 18th: Postmodernism, Part 1
    • September 23rd: Postmodernism, Part 2
    • September 25th: Postmodernism, Part 3
    • September 30th: Capitalist Realism
    • September 4th: The Medium is the Message!
    • September 9: The Public Sphere
  • Science Fiction and American Culture
    • April 10th: Octavia Butler’s Dawn (Parts III and IV)
    • April 15th: The Dispossessed (Part I)
    • April 17th: The Dispossessed (Part II)
    • April 1st: Interstellar (2014)
    • April 22nd: In/Human Beauty
    • April 24: Witch Hunt Politics (Part I)
    • April 29th: Witch Hunt Politics (Part II)
    • April 3rd: Catch Up and Start Octavia Butler
    • April 8th: Octavia Butler’s Dawn (Parts I and II)
    • February 11: William Gibson, Part II
    • February 18: Use Your Illusion I
    • February 20: Use Your Illusion II
    • February 25th: Firefly and Black Mirror
    • February 4th: Writing Discussion: Ideas & Arguments
    • February 6th: William Gibson, Part I
    • January 14th: Introduction to to “Science Fiction and American Culture”
    • January 16th: More Introduction
    • January 21st: Robots and Zombies
    • January 23rd: Gender Studies and Science Fiction
    • January 28th: American Studies Introduction
    • January 30th: World’s Beyond
    • March 11th: All Systems Red
    • March 13th: Zone One (Part 1)
      • Zone One “Friday”
    • March 18th: Zone One, “Saturday”
    • March 20th: Zone One, “Sunday”
    • March 25th: Synthesizing Sources; Writing Gooder
      • Writing Discussion–Outlines
    • March 27th: Inception (2010)
  • Teaching Portfolio
  • Topics for Analysis
    • A Practical Editing Situation
    • American Culture, an Introduction
    • Cultural Studies and Science Fiction Films
    • Efficiency in Writing Reviews
    • Feminism, An Introduction
    • Fordism/Taylorism
    • Frankenstein Part I
    • Frankenstein Part II
    • Futurism Introduction
    • How to Lie with Statistics
    • How to Make an Argument with Sources
    • Isaac Asimov’s “A Cult of Ignorance”
    • Judith Butler, an Introduction to Gender/Sexuality Studies
    • Langdon Winner Summary: The Politics of Technology
    • 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
Topics for Analysis » Futurism Introduction

Futurism Introduction

Founding of Futurism

Unlike our discussion on postmodernism, which has no clear definitive definition, Futurism with a capital ‘F’ refers to the movement established by the Italian poet F. T. Marinetti. When people use futurism with a lowercase ‘f’, they’re often referring to a loosely associated movement that attempts to predict the future. Both Futurists and futurists LOVE technology and generally see the future as solving problems of the present. We’ll focus on Marinetti, the founder of Futurism, but there were others in his movement. Also, we’ll focus on Italian Futurism, but there were other Futurist movements in the early part of the 20th Century: Russian, English, Slovak.

For dates, Futurism’s heyday was 1909-1916 (WWI pretty much ended the movement).

Major Themes in Futurism

  1. Technology: Above all else, Marinetti looked to technology as a muse for Futurist art. Just as John Gast’s “American Progress” painting shows technology as a force of civilization (and as good), Marinetti saw technology as a way for humans to evolve and harness more power over nature and progress from the past.
  2. War: Along with consumer or everyday technologies (e.g., the automobile) Marinetti thought war and militaristic technologies (e.g., tanks, machine guns, dirigibles) were important to pursue to make Italy great.
    • Although we think of Italian culture (and, therefore, the nation of Italy) emerging from the Roman Empire, modern Italy as we know it wasn’t unified until 1870–that’s after the US Civil War.
    • Not surprisingly, Italy was unified through battle, and these wars were relatively recent for F. T. Marinetti (born in 1876).
    • Fascism–although Marinetti aligned himself with Mussolini, considering him to be “just another fascist” is short sighted. Like fascists, he was pro-military and nationalistic (believing in panitalianismo, Italian unification), but what do we call pro-military nationalistic citizens…patriots.
    • Got a taste for the thrill of battle as a war correspondent when Italy invaded Libya during the pre-WWI push for European nations to colonize Africa and other parts of the world.
  3. Dynamism: Art was to reflect constant motion or movement. Nothing was to stand still–kind of like this sculpture.
    • Loved speed!
  4. Ahistoricity: Forget the past. Marinetti wanted to be (metaphorically) reborn and detached from his own past. He lamented and chastised Italians’ and foreigners’ love of past Italian art.
    • Museums were worthless (ironically, Futurist artworks are in many museums)–art should be for the moment, avant-garde.
    • Buildings shouldn’t use archaic styles of “the dead” past; instead, they should drop ornamentation and use “the straight line” as much as possible (e.g., Sant’Elia’s La Città Nuova [1912-1914])
    • Avant-garde movements are all short lived
    • Ironically, they are credited for shaping modernist art in the 20th century.
  5. Parole in Libertà: Marinetti wanted to free the bounds of everything he could think of–history, weak human bodies, and grammar. Yes, he wanted to promote a syntax without grammatical rules that he saw as inefficient.
    • Wireless Imagination–love Guglielmo Marconi’s wireless
    • Typography as poem and visual art–Zang Tumb Tumb
    • 8 Anime in una bomba

“The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism”

Founding: Marinetti and friends are enamored with the technologies they see around them—they seem to be the muses that inspire the group to take off on their quest. A few of the technologies (circa 1900):

  • “red-hot bellies of locomotives”
  • “hellish fires of great ships”
  • “roar of automobiles”

And not so pleasant but somehow inspiring…

  • “O maternal ditch, almost full of muddy water! Fair factory drain!”
  • “faces smeared with good factory muck—plastered with metallic waste, with senseless sweat, with celestial soot”

There are also many references to throwing off the “chains” of past intellectual values. Futurism tried to separate itself from any aesthetic ideas of the past:

  • “For hours we had trampled our atavistic ennui…” (boredom with the past)
  • “We will destroy the museums, libraries, academies of every kind, will fight moralism, feminism, every opportunistic or utilitarian cowardice.”
  • “Museums: cemeteries!”
  • “Museums: absurd abattoirs of painters and sculptors”
  • “We establish Futurism, because we want to free this land from its smelly gangrene of professors, archaeologists, ciceroni* and antiquarians.”
    • *Ciceroni (pl, pronounced chi-chair-o-knee) are learned folks, perhaps quasi-philosophers, who guide tourists through museums, ruins, and other cultural sites. It’s derived from Cicero, the ancient Roman philosopher. It isn’t an insult per se, but, because Marinetti doesn’t like the idea that Italy is known for its past, he looks down on ciceroni for helping the world hold onto Italy’s past. Obviously, Marinetti wants to look to the future.

Marinetti had a timeframe for this movement: roughly 10 years, when the members turned 40 and “other younger and stronger men will probably throw us in the wastebasket like useless manuscripts.” There are many influences on Marinetti’s aesthetics, but the era with its industrialization and technological advancement were major influences on his movement.

“Destruction of Syntax–Imagination without strings–Words in Freedom”

Marinetti would like to practice what he preaches, but even he recognizes that he needs to explain his “synthetic lyricism, imagination without strings, and words in freedom” using correct syntax and punctuation. He’s still efficient, so that adheres to Futurism’s aesthetics. Here’s a good summary of why he’s advocating these avant-garde aesthetics:

Futurism is grounded in the complete renewal of human sensibility brought about by the great discoveries of science. Those people who today make use of the telegraph, the telephone, the phonograph, the train, the bicycle, the motorcycle, the automobile, the ocean liner, the dirigible, the aeroplane, the cinema, the great newspaper (synthesis of a day in the world’s life) do not realize that these various means of communication, transportation and information have a decisive influence on their psyches.

Basically, because contemporary technologies of his time period appeared to speed up life and offer the world to newspaper readers, he felt humans needed to allow this new techno-mediated phenomenon to influence all communication. If there are wasteful phrases, syntactical structure, or burdensome grammar, we should get rid of it. He wants words to convey the essence of the objects they refer to.

Imagination without Strings (also translated as “Wireless Imagination”)

In Italian it’s “Immaginazione senza fili,” which is literally “Imagination without strings.” During the decade before Marinetti’s first Futurist Manifesto, Guglielmo Marconi was exciting the European public (and the overseas public) with his contributions to “telegrafo senza fili” or “wireless telegraphy.” Marinetti was a HUGE admirer of Marconi and claimed his invention inspired his aesthetics.

Marinetti gives us this summary of how to free objects by having their essence communicate without being bogged down in metaphors or analogies (i.e., personification) of the past:

The imagination without strings, and words-in-freedom, will bring us to the essence of material. As we discover new analogies between distant and apparently contrary things, we will endow them with an ever more intimate value. Instead of humanizing animals, vegetables, and minerals (an outmoded system) we will be able to animalize, vegetize, mineralize, electrify, or liquefy our style, making it live the life of material. For example, to represent the life of a blade of grass, I say, “Tomorrow I’ll be greener.”

War, the World’s Only Hygiene

It’s pretty obvious here that Marinetti is infusing a militaristic approach to his movement. As Italy contemplates getting into WWI, he and the Futurists are advocating Italy get involved. Ultimately, WWI ended the Italian Futurist movement. Marinetti was injured and several major members were killed. Into the 1920s and the rise of High Modernism, Futurism fizzled out and Marinetti was mainly considered a quack. His allegiance to Mussolini also hurt his reputation.

Even though he’s not placed in league with T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, D. H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, and James Joyce, he and his movement captured the time period’s moment of industrialization, militarization, and speed. As are all artists, he was a product of his era and saw things in the culture that ordinary folks didn’t. He gave technology and science an artistic outlet, which is exactly what we say about science fiction—technology and science are themes, characters, muses for writers.

Science Fiction

As I mentioned, he’s not usually considered a science fiction writer, but he’s engrossed in technology and does project a techno-futurist vision where technologies are amplified to fuel the progress he considers inherent in technological advancement. The belief that technologies will progress is part of contemporary American culture’s consciousness–we believe technologies will get better. We just might not have the same techno-fever Marinetti displayed.

Skip to toolbar
  • Log In