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Adventurism in Rhetoric

I’m venturing in to an experiment in discipline and perhaps torture. I’ve ventured to follow a UC Berkeley Rhetoric 10 class. Specifically, it is a class taught by Daniel Coffeen from Spring 2008. Rhetoric is one of the oldest disciplines of Western Education (see Aristotelean Rhetoric).

Through some quick googling, I found the UC Berkeley webcast of the course, plus the accompanying blog (with syllabus) and the course reader (See links below).

Rhetoric has been something I find readily applicable when trying to shift to the current landscape of media (production and consumption) and as someone in the field of Marketing. When I attended the Strategic Decision Marking & Risk Management courses at Stanford, we did a lot of framing and seeing situation not in trying to find “the truth” or coldly ambivalent, but rather multi-bivalent. Indeed, for me, this very well relates to Rhetoric.

As far as what is Rhetoric, I will take from Coffeen’s description of the course as the definition:

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I’ve listened to the first two classes and while I’m very much a visual learner, Coffean’s energy and style translates well to a mere, simply podcast. There are 30 podcast (~1hr in length), so it means I should be able to “complete” the class in 2-3 months, reading and essay writing aside.

References:

• UC Berkeley Rhetoric 10 Blog:
  http://arhetorslife.blogspot.com/2008/01/introduction-to-class.html
• Rhetoric 10 Reader via CopyCentral:
  http://www.copycentralreaders.com/shopping/pgm-more_information.php?id=1159&=SID#MOREINFO
• iTunes University Berekely Webcast for Rhetoric 10:
  http://webcast.berkeley.edu/course_details.php?seriesid=1906978535

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