Victor J. Vitanza
HUMA. 5302
(Theory of Discourse)

This seminar may be taken by Ph.D. students in English, Rhetoric Track, for credit toward the degree, with the Graduate Adviser's approval (Tim Morris).

Course Description:

We will begin with a fairly standard as well as a nonstandard set of theories concerning discourse(s), examining what is called the "Communications Triangle" of encoder, decoder, reference, and code. Thereafter, we will focus on N. Katherine Hayles's mapping of three waves: that of homeostasis (the ability of an organism to maintain itself in a steady-state, an equilibrium), of autopoiesis (i.e., self-organization of the body, reflexivity), and of virtuality (in which emergence, or evolution, becomes unpredictable; in which human becomes post-human).

In examining this triangle and the three waves--read semiotically across each other--we will be concerned with two conceptual starting places:

• the role of "noise" in communications and
• the changing roles of the three basic proofs (ethos, logos, pathos), as put forth by Aristotle in his Rhetoric. We will be concerned, more specifically, with what has happened to subjectivity, agency, ethics; with reason, rationality, discourse itself; with emotions, audiences, politics.

In final words, we will be concerned with what has been and will have been happening when (post-)human beings in the Humanities confront "noise." When they confront noise as invention.

Michel Serres puts the 'happening' well: "To hold a dialogue is to suppose a third man [sic] and to seek to exclude him; a sucessful communication is the exclusion of the third man. The most profound dialectical problem is not the problem of the Other, who is only a variety--or a variation--of the Same, it is the problem of the third man. We might call this third man the demon, the prosopopeia of noise" ("Platonic Dialogue").

Noise? Jacques Attali writes: "More than colors or forms, it is sounds and their arrangements that fashion societies. With noise is born disorder and its opposite: the World. With muisic is born power and its opposite: subversion. In noise can be read the codes of life, the relations among men. Clamor, Melody, Dissonance, Harmony; when it is fashioned by man [sic] with specific tools, when it invades man's time, when it becomes sound, noise is the source of purpose and power, of the dream--Music" (Noise: The Political Economy of Music 6).

Texts:

• J. Kinneavy, Theory of Discourse. (out of print!)
  
• J[eremy]. Campbell, selections from Grammatical Man: Information, Entropy, Language, and Life (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982).
  
• N. K. Hayles, "Boundary Disputes: Homeostasis, Reflexivity, and the Foundations of Cybernetics." Configurations 2.3 (1994): 441-67.
  
• R. Barthes, S/Z.*
  
• M. Foucault, selections from Language, Counter-Memory, Practice.
  
• J. Kristeva, selections from Desire in Language.
  
• G. Deleuze, selections from The Logic of Sense.
  
• J.-F. Lyotard, The Differend: Phrases in Dispute.*
  
• R. Rorty, Contingency, Irony, Solidarity.*

* = to be purchased.

Assignments and Grades:

Students will be expected to write 5 positions statements based on the readings. The statements should be approximately 5 double-spaced pages. Each paper will count 1/5 of the final grade.

Attendance:

Being-t/here is important. Don't miss unless very sick or incapacitated.

Syllabus:

June 1st (Tue), General Introduction to Selective Models (with implied Theories) of 'Communication' in respect to orality, literacy, and 'electracy.'

June 2nd (Wed) - June 3rd (Thur) . . . Primary concern will be on the first two chapters from J. Kinneavy, Theory of Discourse. 1-72; R. Darnton, "What Is the History of Books?" in Reading in American. Ed. Cathy N. Davidson. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1989. 27-52. Additional concerns will be on Ian Kott, "The Sexual Triangle." Partisan Review.

For background, read the first three chapters of J. Campbell, Grammatical Man: Information, Entropy, Language, and Life. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982. 15-52.

Additionally, you might want to eventually read the following:

• Timoth W. Crusius, Discourse: A Critique and Synthesis of Major Theories. New York: MLA, 1989 (which is a discussion and synthesis of Kinneavy's taxonomy of discourse along with Moffett's, Britton's and D'Angelo's taxonomies).

• Michel Serres, The Parasite. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1982 (which is a fable concerning 'communications' dealing with the triangle of host, guest, interrupter the excluded third man).

  _____. Hermes: Literature, Science, Philosophy. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1982 (especially "Platonic Dialogue" and "The Origin of Language: Biology, Information Theory, and Thermodynamics").

June 7th (Mon) . . . Primary concern will be on N. K. Hayles, "Boundary Disputes: Homeostasis, Reflexivity, and the Foundations of Cybernetics." Configurations 2.3 (1994): 441-67.

June 8th (Tue) and 9th (Wed). . . Primary concern will be on Campbell, 127-99; M. Foucault, "A Preface to Transgression" from Language, Counter-Memory, Practice; J. Kristeva, "The Ethics of Linguistics" from Desire in Language; and G. Deleuze, selections from The Logic of Sense.

June 10th (Thur) . . . Primary concern will begin on R. Barthes, S/Z.

June 14th (Mon) - 17th (Thur) . . . Primary concern will be on R. Barthes, S/Z.

June 21st (Mon) - 24th (Thur) . . . Primary concern will be on J.-F. Lyotard, The Differend: Phrases in Dispute.

June 28th (Mon) - July 1st (Thur) . . . R. Rorty, Contingency, Irony, Solidarity.

Rhetoric Seminars
Rhetoric, Composition, Critical Theory HP & Program
The English HP || Graduate Humanities HP
Victor J. Vitanza's HP.