orality (oral culture),
literacy (print culture),
and electracy (electronic cultures).

I further assume that a coverage model is impossible. Though what we will attempt might appear 'to cover all,' what we will look at is only a small part of what is and can be possible (and incompossible). I have developed the seminar in such a way that you will be given a tour of some important issues that you will have to go back over (circle back around) and study (repeatedly), if you so wish, in depth on your own or with others at a different time. Though the seminar has "Foundations" in its title, please understand that I personally and professionally--ethically and politically--do not believe in and therefore am not an advocate for the conditions for the possibility of "Foundations." In making this point, I am not an "Anti-Foundationalist Foundationalist." I will do everything that I can to put forth the idea of Foundationalism. This is not difficult to do as long as the right warrant is called upon and used to inform the conceptual basis of thinking-Foundationalism. I will as your tour guide(less) or tour guileful(ness) spend less time attempting to persuade you and more time attempting to get you to identify with (have sympathetic understanding for) what is being variously called and becoming "Rhetoric."

The Objectives will be (Or, During the semester 'You' should learn effectively How ...)

to sketch in a synoptic view the relationships between something(less) called 'rhetoric' and something(less) called 'composition' (we will interweave and suture the two in a variety of ways on the way to something[thirdless]);

to sketch in a synoptic view the evolution of the conflict between rhetoricians and philosophers (we will begin with two Socratic dialogs, the Phaedrus and Gorgias, and then go on to other texts whose authors argue, contrary to Plato/Socrates, that rhetorical theory provides a basis for epistemic--in this case, socially-constructed --knowledge);

to distinguish and trace the aims or ends of rhetoric, both the classical tenets and modern and postmodern developments (this series of tenets and developments will not necessarily be read as unfolding in a periodic manner);

and (in a "parallel" mannerism) to examine what we call variously Aims or Pragmatics such as the communications triangle (Kinneavy), or systems of rhetoric (R.Scott, Enhinger), or 'parasitics' including the paramodel 'host/guest/interruptions' (Serres);

to trace the development of conceptual starting places (topoi) and goals (ends) from classical (Aristotle, to persuade) through modern (K. Burke, to identify-understand) to postmodern (Derrida & Greg Ulmer, to construct paralogical relationships);

more specifically to study how rhetoric can be seen as "an architechtonic productive art," that is, how rhetoric, as a "metadiscipline," informs other disciplines (not only those disciplines that comprise the human sciences--e.g., history, anthropology, linguistics--but also the natural-physical sciences); yes, we will talk on occasion about science itself as a rhetorical transaction;

and (in a "contrary" mannerism) to speculate on how rhetoric is "nondisciplinary," "nonfoundational," that is, how rhetoric questions the very conceptual bases, foundations of what is called knowledge, whether certain or probabilistic, objective or personal ("we," in other words, will even discuss the demise of the "Humanities" and "Agency"); and to examine how pararhetoric(s) and the paratexts--that they mis/inform--explode into hypertextual discourses (Bolter and, more so, Ulmer);

and finally to be able to communicate these and other growing issues, as stated in the above objectives, in a rhetorically effective manner and in the three scholarly media of discourses (orality, e.g., at Conventions; literacy, in Journals and Books; electricy, in scholarly online discussions).

A Specific: 'You' will, therefore, be expected to give a great deal of time to developing effective methods of communication with colleagues in the profession. You will re/learn how to communicate effectively so that 'you' might contribute collaboratively to productive (ethical-political) change in your field and in societies. We will not be practicing in this seminar a mere armchair or classroom rhetoric but rhetorics for the Polis. (It is the case that to be rhetorically effective, the rhetor does not have to use what goes for the standard scholarly research and writing protocols, but 'you' will be expected, nonetheless, to know and demonstrate effective uses of these and other protocols.)

Of primary importance to this seminar and these objectives will be the value system that will inform our examination of rhetoric and composition (for all media). The starting value that we will adopt will be that of Liberal Education, specifically, Tolerance in the exchange of ideas. The more that you as a thinker, writer, etc., can vary your assumptions, the easier that it will be for you to see what awaits you in its variety. We will examine, therefore, the values of the political right and political left, in their various manifestations. We will take up with the methodology of dissoi logoi, arguing both sides of the issue so as to understand both sides or any additional third or more sides. While this is not a course in Rhetorical Criticism (as practiced in Communications), we will nonetheless have to spend time intermittently on examining this full spectrum of values and any that might be excluded.

What this seminar is designed to do is to locate for you some of the important crucial issues (hot spots) in the development of rhetoric and/or composition; to point out and familiarize you with the various conversations that have been going in a changing 'endeavor' roughly called "rhetoric." We will begin with the question, "What is Rhetoric?" But quickly realize--I hope--that this very question, questioner, assumes a particular warrant and a particular view of rhetoric. We might just as easily ask, "How is Rhetoric?" Or assume in asking that rhetoric is not a singular issue, but multiple. Or a radical multiple. Hence, "What are Rhetorics?" Or "What are Rhetorics becoming?" The ways of beginning to rethink about this thing called rhetoric and composition are highly comPLIcated. There are many ways to fold or unfold or refold the question. And each can perpetuate (perpetrate?) a condition or open up a radically different condition for Rhetorics.

Often we will see these words and combinations variously used:

"rhetoric and composition"
"composition and rhetoric"
"rhetoric"
"composition"
"rhetoric and communications"
"rhetoric and writing"
"writing"
Etc. ...

The word "composition" means so many different things as well, depending on who is using the word and by way of what set of predispositions. Simply going to the dictionary will only get you started in seeing some of the prejudices. To get a fuller idea requires examining the various (possible or incompossible) layers within an academic discipline and across academic disciplines and then on to fields or nondisciplines.

Each of the above words and phrases is capable of being read as a code for some specific take on answering the implied questions and on the relationship (coordinate, subordinate, or disassociated; privileged or supplementary, or disassociated) between or among the parts, if parts.

So, as KB has said, Welcome to "the Human Barnyard"!

(See Kenneth Burke, A Rhetoric of Motives. Berkeley: U of CA P, 1952. 23.)