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
    • South Atlantic MLA Conference 2022
  • Dr. Toscano’s Homepage
  • ENGL 2116-014: Introduction to Technical Communication
    • February 1st: Reflection on Workplace Messages
    • 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
  • 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
    • 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
  • 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
    • 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
LBST 2212-124, 125, 126, & 127 » September 16th: The Alien Other

September 16th: The Alien Other

We’ll finish up The Time Machine by watching a scene or 2 from the 2004 film. I know the syllabus order is Bradbury and then Clarke, but we’re going to reverse that:

  • Bradbury, Ray. “There Will Come Soft Rains” (1950) [Anthology pp. 234-240]
  • Clarke, Arthur C. “The Sentinel” (1951) [Anthology pp. 241-249]

Superior Aliens and Inferior Humans

Many Sci Fi stories have a superior alien race that helps, enslaves, or does both to humans. Most of those narratives can be interpreted as allusions to the ways some groups of humans have treated other groups. Below are key terms for our discussion that are important for understanding the stories for today:

  • Hegemony: the dominance of a group over another group; the hegemons’ power allows it to dictate the dominant or prevailing values of a culture. In our cultural studies approach, we see the effects of hegemony when we uncover the prevailing values in American culture.
  • Imperialism: a nation (usually an empire) that rules or has authority over foreign countries or lands; those lands are often called or considered “colonies.” {See colonialism for an important distinction}
  • Jingoism: patriotic chauvinism, often vocal and loud, in regard to one’s country being the best; jingoism advocates for a large military preparedness often under the guise of patriotism; they are vehemently patriotic.
  • Superpower: a world power that has influence over other nations, often pulling those smaller groups into their cause against another superpower.
    • Consider the proxy war between Saudi Arabia an Iran fought in Syria and Yemen.

All the words above share one common trait: superiority. Human civilizations–not just Western–have long histories of thinking deities, higher powers, etc. created or will save humans.

Clarke’s “The Sentinel” is more subtle in its treatment of the superior-alien-inferior-human narrative, but it’s still about a life form that’s vastly superior to us in technological terms. Let’s examine that before getting into Tenn’s more common narrative of superior aliens destroying humans.

Arthur C. Clarke’s “The Sentinel” (1951)

Normally, we go right into the meaning of the texts, but I wanted to have us consider prose style for a little bit. In some English classes, prose style would be the main focal point of the course, and interpretation wouldn’t be as prominent. Let’s take a look at how Arthur C. Clarke describes the Earth in his story and how others describe the Earth in technical writing passages.

Clarke: “Those wanderers must have looked on Earth, circling safely in the narrow zone between fire and ice, and must have guessed that it was the favorite of the Sun’s children.” (p. 249)

Planets for Kids: “The Earth differs from all the other planets because it has such a wide diversity of life and intelligent beings. This has only been possible because of the Earth’s atmosphere which has protected the Earth and allowed life to flourish.” (end of page)

Wikipedia: “Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System’s four terrestrial planets. It is sometimes referred to as the world or the Blue Planet. Earth formed approximately 4.54 billion years ago, and life appeared on its surface within its first billion years.” (para. 1-2, accessed February 2018–current page might have changed)

What are some similarities and differences in the prose style (what language is used–diction, sentence structure, figurative phrases, etc.) of the above passages about the Earth?

Technical Communication Areas

  • Literature (mostly science fiction)
  • Age-specific information (science for kids)
  • Attempt to communicate objective facts (peer-review articles, encyclopedias, textbooks, etc.)

Interpreting Clarke’s “The Sentinel”

As the Anthology editors tell us, Clarke’s story’s “cognitive appeal is the challenge it poses to conventional notions of humanity’s place in the universe” (p. 242). As mentioned, we tend to put ourselves on top! We consider ourselves to be the most significant creatures, and our stories are full of examples of our greatness. Clarke and other Sci Fi writers use the possibility of superior aliens to try to get us to see life from a different perspective. Clarke was very sensitive to past British colonial rule, and, prior to WWII, Great Britain was considered a superpower, so Clarke’s cultural context is as a citizen of a world power. The United States is a superpower and is looked to as a beacon of hope and a nation of strength by many people. Of course, not all people look to America that way, but we’d be going out of our way if we denied that a large portion of the world views America that way. This assumption (and I do not imply it’s a false assumption) influences many Americans to see themselves as great, which influences our worldviews. Again, not universally but prevailingly. What if we weren’t the greatest group?

Clarke’s story (and some of his others–Childhood’s End for instance) is more hopeful about the alien other than other Sci Fi writers. In “The Sentinel,” humans are making progress (possibly) to one day be like the superior aliens who left the pyramid for humans to find and signal them once we made sufficient progress. If you’ve read (or seen the movie) 2001: A Space Odyssey, you’ll know that it’s about making contact. “The Sentinel” is the basis for 2001: A Space Odyssey, which expands on this concept of trying to contact the alien other. A more recent film with a similar plot is Christopher Nolan’s 2014 masterpiece Interstellar!

Let’s consider the following from the Anthology blurb:

  • p. 241: Clarke claims “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
  • Monolith from the film 2001: A Space Odyssey
    Beginning
    On the Moon

The Short Story:

  • p. 242: “The Mare Crisium–the Sea of Crises.”
    • Not to be confused with Mari the cat!
  • Knowledge and the superior life form: “They left a sentinel, one of millions they have scattered throughout the Universe, watching over worlds with the promise of life” (p. 249).
  • Progress: “The Egyptians could have done it [created the crystal-looking pyramid]…if their workman had possessed whatever strange materials these far more ancient architects had used” (p. 247).
  • Scientific Speculation: “there are times when a scientist must not be afraid to make a fool of himself” (p.245).
    • Even hypotheses one gets wrong after going about the scientific method are still important for creating knowledge.
  • Technology for good and bad: “It is a double challenge, for it depends in turn upon the conquest of atomic energy and the last choice between life and death” (p. 249).
    • The sentence immediately following the one above is “Once we had passed that crisis…”
    • Clarke alludes to the double-edged sword of nuclear energy. It can be used for civilian purposes or warfare. In 1951, the thought of nuclear annihilation was on the rise.
  • Role of Women: “I stood by the frying pan waiting, like any terrestrial housewife, for the sausages to brown” (p. 243).

Bradbury’s “There will Come Soft Rains” (1950)

This is a post-apocalyptic narrative, but it doesn’t have human characters–they’re all gone. This setting is worse than those of the Fallout video game series. What’s left behind is a robotic house that can’t keep the dog alive or a fire from spreading. The Anthology editors tell us the author, Raymond Bradbury, doesn’t trust science and technology (p. 234). For him, scientific and technological pursuits aren’t necessarily good–we can harm the planet. He provides a warning to readers about blindly accepting technology will fix everything.

Key things to consider

  • p. 236: The Family’s silhouette and Hiroshima
    • The normal routine for the day…looks like Leave it to Beaver in 2026
    • There might have just been a nuclear war, but at least the household technologies keep the place clean.
    • Most likely there’s a comment here about shutting out nature through technology.
  • p. 236: Notice the house has “an old-maidenly preoccupation with self-protection which bordered on a mechanical paranoia”
  • p. 237: The nursery was an artificial “nature,” recreating bugs, grass, and animal sounds.
  • p. 238: The house reads Sara Teasdale’s “There will come Soft Rains” (1918…after World War 1)
    • The penultimate stanza: “Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
      If mankind perished utterly.”
    • Ouch! That’s the overall theme. We aren’t significant to nature (except what we destroy). We have to create meaning to make ourselves masters of the environment.
    • Teasdale’s poem most likely refers to a battle, but Bradbury’s short story (1950) uses the imagery from the poem to highlight nuclear apocalypse.
    • In Western culture circa 1920, a growing sense of human insignificance and general meaninglessness of life begins to influence cultural products.
    • Existentialism, which has a long history, is the idea that humans solely create meaning in a meaningless world (this is an introductory definition and doesn’t capture the entire philosophy).
    • By 1950, the idea of nuclear annihilation was very much on the minds of most people in the United States and much of the world.
  • The Fire
    • p. 239: Even with all these safety features, the house still caught fire.
    • p. 240: All that technology couldn’t save the house. Why would we think our technologies will automatically save us?
    • Of course, to answer that, we’ll need to discuss whether or not technology is neutral…
  • Fallout 3‘s Mister Handy recites Sara Teasdale’s “There will come Soft Rains”
    • Mister Handy is a version of the in-home computer of the house
    • In Fallout 3, there’s a religious cult, Children of Atom, that worships a nuclear bomb… (video should open at 2:45)

Next Class

We’ll cover whatever we missed from Ray Bradbury’s “There Will Come Soft Rains” and move onto discussing post-apocalyptic worlds and William Tenn’s “The Liberation of Earth.”

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