Rhetorical and Colonial Theory
In this class, we will revisit the histories of rhetorical theories from multiple angles. Of interest, we will delineate, differentiate, and relate two organizing concepts: the “rhetorical” and the “colonial.” What do we mean by “rhetoric”? What do we mean by “colonial”? How are these two concepts related? How are they different? Why rhetoric? Why colonialism? The aim of this course is to juxtapose rhetoric and colonialism to stretch theory to its limit and thereby create methodological, imaginative, and theoretical insights for the aftertimes.
This class is divided into three modules: history, theory, and creativity. The History Module will help you trace rhetoric and colonialism before the invasion of what came to be named the “Americas.” The Theory Module will help you delineate key concepts necessary for informing rhetorical and colonial theories. Though not exactly historical, this module is situated from the invasion of the “Americas” to the structural effects we still face today. Finally, the Creative Module will help you situate, inform, and inspire your paper for this class. Even though this module requires less reading to help you write, the poetic and creative writing and art of these authors will hopefully carry the weight of what we have learned throughout the semester.
Introductions
Week 1: Theory, Rhetoric, and Colonialism
History Module
Ancient Greece
Week 2: Rhetoric in Ancient Athens
Aristotle, Rhetoric
Plato, Phaedrus
Pernot, Rhetoric in Antiquity, Greece Chapter
Week 3: The Colony in Ancient Greece
Aristotle, Politics
Thucydides, Melian Dialogues
Jarrat, Chain of Gold
Christianity
Week 4: Rhetoric and Colonialism in Christianity
John 1, Bible
José Acosta, Natural and Moral History of the Indies
Porter, Paul of Tarsus and his Letters
France
Week 5: Ego Conquiro
Descartes, Discourse on the Method
Dussel, Philosophy of Liberation, Introduction
Maldonado Torres, “Coloniality of Being”
Glissant, Poetics of Relation, Chapter One
Theory Module
Language
Week 6: Language I
Rousseau, “Essay on the Origins of Languages”
Derrida, Of Grammatology, Introduction
Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, Chapter One
Week 7: Language II
Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?”
Shome, “Postcolonial Interventions”
Cortez, “Of Exterior and Exception”
Decolonization
Week 8: Decolonization I
Mignolo, Local Histories/Global Designs, Introduction
Quijano, “Coloniality”
Lugones, “Toward a Decolonial Feminism”
Cushman, “Translingual and Decolonial”
Wanzer-Serrano, “Delinking Rhetoric”
Week 9: Decolonization II
Tuck & Yang, “Decolonization is not a Metaphor”
Fanon, Wretched of the Earth
Césaire, Return to My Native Land
Hu-man
Week 10: The Anthropoi, Man, and the question of the Human
Wynter, “Unsettling the Coloniality of Being”
García & Cortez, “The Trace of a Mark that Scatters”
Wheheliye, “After Man”
Towns, “Open Letter”
Land
Week 11: Land, Earth, and Territory
Byrd, Transit of Empire
E Cram, Violent Inheritance
Aguilar Gil, “The Map and the Territory”
Mbembe, “Necropolitics”
Slavery
Week 12: Afterlives of Slavery
Garba & Sorentino, “Slavery is a Metaphor”
Hartman, Lose Your Mother
Bridges, “Roots”
Ore, Lynching: Violence, Rhetoric, and American Identity
Sharpe, In the Wake
Creative Module
Rhetoric
Week 13: Rhetoric, Now
Chávez, “Rethinking”
Flores, “Between”
Na’Puti, “Speaking”
Week 14: Rhetoric, Future
Powell, et al. “Our Story”
Ore & Houdek, “Cultivating Otherwise”
Mbembe, “The Universal Right to Breathe”
Week 15: Rhetoric, Beyond
Brand, A Map to the Door of No Return
Study the art of Najee Dorsey, Torkwase Dyson, and Preston Singletary.
Week 16: Now, What Do We Do?
Brown, We Are Owed
Díaz, Postcolonial Love Poem
