This week’s group discussions should be pretty straightforward: you should be talking about the material and your Rhetorical Context Analysis rough drafts. The material is hopefully both interesting and relevant, and I imagine you’ll have a lot to discuss about the ideas presented. (The Vox article is around 5 years old, but it still applies and raises some interesting questions about both language’s ability to navigate different contexts and its ability to hurt others in rather “sneaky” ways. I recommend thinking about it in relation to Scarry’s discussion of the political consequences of pain’s resistance to expression.)
This week’s group tasks
Talk about the Material
This week is all about the limitations of language – how language and memory can work against each other, how the ineffable and fundamentally inexpressible qualia of human subjectivity run up against our desire to understand and be understood. In other words, this week is about when rhetoric (especially in the classical sense of “persuasion”) encounters a subject or experience that isn’t grounded in language, and what the possibilities are for a non-linguistic rhetoric that accounts for subjective experience might be.
Here are also a few optional starter questions if you’re having trouble deciding on something to discuss in your groups or to talk about in the dialectical journals. Again, you don’t have to talk about these questions, so if you’d rather discuss something else about the course content, please do! I am listing these here just in case you would like some suggestions.
- What are your thoughts on Scarry’s points regarding the relationship between pain and language? What do you think about her discussion about the political implications of this relationship? How might this come into play with regard to rhetoric’s aim to persuade an audience?
- While Scarry’s discussion is focused on the inability to express physical pain, what about expressions of mental or emotional suffering? How do you view the concept of the dog-whistle (as discuss in the Vox article) as relating to this discussion? How does this connect with the argument the video on how society treats physical vs. mental pain is making? How does all of this influence/affect the use of rhetoric and the ability to persuade others?
- What connections can you make between the other readings and the video on The Brain and PTSD? How does memory affect one’s understanding of an experience? How might this come into play when we think about rhetorical concepts such as stasis and pathos?
- How do all of these ideas interact with some specific social issues? For instance, the basis for many conversations about rights for LGBT people is often some version of “I am a real person who authentically has my experiences.” Considering how the material this week points to the inability to directly convey experiences to people who haven’t had them, what options are available to those of us who are invested in empathy and justice?
Discuss Rhetorical Context Analysis
This week, I want to encourage you to take some time in your groups to keep talking about the Rhetorical Context Analysis as you start or continue to work on your drafts. As with the Concept Papers, this is a great opportunity to really think about the structure and approach that you’re going to take with your analysis and get some feedback about that. (Make the most of the human interaction and immediate feedback!)
