The Official, Word-For-Word, Higher-Education-Level Independent Study in All It's Formal Glory
Rationale:
I will apply a range of rhetorical concepts to specific local/regional artifacts. This work is formal extension of the curriculum in English 223, which “applies rhetorical principles and analytical tools to the persuasive language of everyday life.” As a formal extension, the proposed independent study will focus on local/regional artifacts in Luxembourg-i.e. those tangled in local networks of interpretation. As a student abroad, I will not have automatic access to the deeper layers of shared presuppositions: the common discursive reflexes that shape what is real, good, bad, and so on. Instead, I will have to examine them as a guest presence. That process, too, will be at the center of this study. The practice of applying rhetorical terms/concepts in a new space will yield gaps in understanding. And those gaps will inevitably become a source of reflection. In other words, I will attempt to transport and apply rhetorical apparatus to a new cultural context while formalizing my own immersion.
Sources/Text
Crowley, Sharon and Debra Hawhee. Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students. New York: Pearson/Longman, 2009.
Description of Proposed Outcome or Product:
I will post bi-weekly observations that seek to call out shared presuppositions-those that seem familiar and foreign. Through the initial weeks, I will try to home in on particular commonplaces and salient rhetorical patterns that emerge from my reading (in the above text) and my experience with the texts of everyday life. Finally, as the semester progresses, I will narrow my focus to a particular artifact-one that has cultural currency in Luxembourg. I will apply concepts from the above text and generate a final written project (at least 2000 words) that examines how the artifact functions within and for an ideology.