Rhetorical Theory and Criticism: Rhetorical Theory – Topics in “Anthroperiphery”

This course addresses conceptions, traditions and narratives in which humans are cast as (increasingly) marginal. This includes a broad array of subjects, from topics in the histories and discourses of the natural sciences and mathematics (among them, cosmology, astrobiology and probability), to conceptualizations and contestations of the figure of the human (as with critiques of the rise of the human and social sciences and deliberations over the anthropocene). Student writing and research is the focus of the course, together with scholarship their writing and research engages. Students share and workshop writing broadly relating to course themes, as well as relevant publications and materials informing their work.