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 2213-110: Science, Technology, and Society » November 9th: Boulle, Pierre. Planet of the Apes, Ch. 18-26

November 9th: Boulle, Pierre. Planet of the Apes, Ch. 18-26

Plan for the Day

  • Canvas Post Issues
    • Draft these in a Google or Word Doc; then, copy + paste them into the Canvas textbox
    • Then, check to make sure the post makes it to the Discussion page
  • Soror Humans and technology
  • Nova and Ulysse
  • More on Planet of the Apes (below)
  • Charts, artist renditions, scientific authority…
    • “NASA’s Kepler Discovers First Earth-Size Planet In The ‘Habitable Zone’ of Another Star”
  • Read the following reviews of Planet of the Apes for next week
    • The Complete Review’s review of The Planet of the Apes
    • Tor.com’s Review of The Planet of the Apes

Your Canvas discussion post is due Friday (11/11) by 11:11 pm. Of course, you already knew that and have calendar reminders set, right?

The Politics of Language–Veterans Day Edition

Although any day is a good day to discuss language use and etymology when you’re an English professor, on or around Veterans Day/Armistice Day, I like to show the class this discussion of word usage from the great philosopher George Carlin. Not required watching but it is relevant to our discussion on satire…

Literary Terms to Consider

It might help to revisit a few literary terms for discussing this novel. Below I have a few that will help you better understand why fiction is relevant for a class on science and technology:

  • metaphor/metaphoric: figures of speech or associations (as in texts) that require abstract meaning and not concrete interpretations; something representative or symbolic of an abstract concept
  • figurative: metaphoric use of words; not literal
  • literal: actual, dictionary definition of a concept
  • allusion: indirect reference to an event or concept usually through story telling
  • allegory: a text that refers to a deeper meaning of interpretation; political, moral, symbolic reference

Evolution

We’ve talked about devolution and slow advancements in science and technology in The Time Machine. Below are some key quotations regarding evolution.

  • p. 127: “Apes and men are two separate branches that have evolved from a point in common but in different directions.”
  • p. 130: Zira on ape superiority—“ [O]ur being equipped with four hands is one of the most important factors in our spiritual evolution.”
  • p. 137: “[P]edestrians crossed the street” via “passages consisting of a metal frame to which they clung with all four hands.”
  • p. 142: Zira explains why they experiment on humans—“Man’s brain, like the rest of his anatomy, is the one that bears the closest resemblance to ours.”

Copying Knowledge but Not Creating It

What does the excavation reveal? What comment on scientific/technological advancement is Boulle making? Obviously, science is established based on (or in contrast to) previous science, so, in reality, scientists don’t just copy. Metaphorically, however, what is Boulle’s satire getting at? Think about this for a bit. One interpretation is that science doesn’t progress when stifled by old thinking. If a group doesn’t open up to new approaches, they’ll only get the same old experiments and results. Boulle might also be commenting on science or politics here (or both): if you keep electing the same kinds of people, we get the same kinds of governments…

They might be Giants

Several years ago, I saw a movie during a Sherlock Holmes film series (conducted by the great film professor, Sam Shapiro) that had an interesting reference to science. The quote from the movie made me think about how discoveries are often pursued along unlikely paths. Maybe science on Soror advances slowly because the scientists aren’t thinking radically enough. Let’s read the quote from the film They Might be Giants (1971).

In the scene, Justin Playfair (really Sherlock Holmes) comments on Don Quixote’s foolish idea of attacking windmills as if they were giants. He says,

Of course, he carried it a bit too far. He thought that every windmill was a giant. That’s insane. But, thinking that they might be…Well, all the best minds used to think the world was flat. But, what if it isn’t? It might be round. And bread mold might be medicine. If we never looked at things and thought of what they might be, why, we’d all still be out there in the tall grass with the apes.

Planète des Singes

Pierre Boulle, a former prisoner of war (POW), might have channeled his experience into Ulysse’s captivity. The gorillas could easily be seen as prison guards. Part Two of the novel begins with Ulysse dealing with life in a cage. How does he make sense of his surroundings? Any particular method that looks familiar?

  • p. 77: “I needed this intellectual exercise to escape from the despair that haunted me, to prove to myself that I was a man, I mean a man from Earth, a reasoning creature who made habit to discover a logical explanation…”
  • p. 87: “The two warders with whom I had dealt were probably lowly underlings incapable of interpreting my movements, but there surely existed other apes who were more civilized.”
  • p. 88: Monkey see, monkey do…
  • p. 91: “I was beginning to feel proud of being the exceptional subject who alone deserved privileged treatment.”
  • p. 95: Conditioned reflex experiements.
  • p. 103: “there was nothing [Ulysse] could do to convince the orangutan [he was intelligent]….[Zaius] was a methodical scientist; he refused to listen to such nonsense.”
  • p. 104: Zaius was firm in believing humans weren’t capable of complex thought—“[N]othing could shake his stupid skepticism.”

By the way, does anyone else notice that Zira seems to have learned French pretty quickly. How come?

  • It’s possible that she mimics Ulysse because that’s one definition of “ape.”
  • Perhaps there’s an assumption that French, once consider the lingua franca, is a universal language.
  • The above two are both good interpretations, yet I think there’s another interpretation based on the author’s native language, French.
    • We’re biased towards our own native languages and consider them easy to learn.
    • I encourage you to learn a second, third, fourth, etc. language for your own enrichment.

Professor Antelle

Professor Antelle, the wise mind behind this voyage, becomes more like the Soror humans, that is, animal-like. I have some questions for you as to why this is the case. Could it be he’s lost without his society? Could it be he’s not able to adapt to a new culture (the Ape culture as a reference to a foreign culture)? His captivity doesn’t produce the same results as Ulysse’s.

Key quotations about the Professor

  • p. 13: “[T]he professor….often admitted he was tired of his fellow men.”
  • p. 29: On seeing Nova for the first time—“Levain and I were breathless, lost in admiration, and I think even Professor Antelle was moved.”
    • Ulysse was surprised to see him play games in the water. Maybe he’s supposed to always be serious.
    • Aren’t all professors supposed to be serious?
  • 121: “Professor Antelle….had added…that the Euclidean rules, being completely false, were no doubt for that very reason universal.”
  • 160: “[T]he leader and mastermind of our expedition, the famous Professor Antelle….[H]is behavior was identical to the other men’s.”
  • 185: [Professor Antelle’s] eyes, which had once been so keen, had lost all their gleam and suggested the same spiritual void as those of the other captives.
  • p. 196: “Professor Antelle….still behaves like a perfect animal.”

Perhaps the professor could only live for his work, which is often a critique of academics—they’re obsessed with their own research and absent minded about everything else.

Next Week

Have Planet of the Apes finished by next week. We’ll finish our discussion of the novel then. Those of you not reading the novel will have a very tough time on the Final Exam. Watching the film adaptations won’t help you on those tests.

Don’t forget your Canvas discussion post is due Friday (11/11) by 11:11 pm–make two wishes!!!

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