SPCM 201 1st Edition Lecture 28The NEW NOW NEXT of Rhetoric Rhetorical Trends in the 21st Century Visual Culture Materiality and Affect Post-Humanism Fragmentation and Attention Others: Globalization, Transgender Studies, Digital Humanities, Rhetoric of Sciencesand Economics Visual Rhetoric Increasingly transitioned to a Visual Culture Mimics Plato’s laments from Oral to Written Culture The Image has become a powerful form discourse Visual Rhetoric Texts: Photos, Screens Maps, Signs, Advertising, Billboards, Ways of Seeing, Visual Strategies Visual Rhetoric Goals: (1) Analysis and Visual Literacy (Hyper-reality) (2) Producing Visual Argumentation Materiality and Affect A rebuke of Cartesian Dualism Materiality Recognition that materials (the body, movement, enactment, physical substances,etc.) have persuasive and consequential effect Affect Take pathos and the precognitive seriously as something that shapes our view of the world (includes somatic appeal) What kind of things can be studied differently through these turns? How do these change rhetorical question? Post Humanism A critical rethinking of assumptions about human beings in Western thought Particularly from the Renaissance Examples Has “human nature” been replaced by our new techno-culture? Should humans be the measure of all things? Animal Rights The Cyborg (seriously) Fragmentation We live in a World of Fragments Memes, sounds bites, information overload The Attention Economy The end of the stable, discrete text, subject, or discourse (McGee) The end of our ability to know everything Now, we can only hope to know fragments We need tools to process our information overload (SEO) What does this say about knowledge? Truth? Rhetoric? In Summary For more than 2500 years, rhetoric has been an indispensable art for human existence A tool for self-defense A process for winning justice A Threat to the powerful A chance at self-determination and freedom A means of control The guarantor of liberty and freedom In all cases, rhetoric is a situated art: it gives us the skill to act in a changing world So the question becomes: in what ways will you and your generation rely on
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