Time Schedule:
Georgia M. Roberts
CHID 496
Seattle Campus
Credit/no credit only.
Class description
Public Rhetorics and Permanent War
This focus group will be offered in conjunction with a year long lecture series of the same name, and will consist of readings that frame the broader theoretical and historical context of the lecture series. As a year long focus group, the sets of readings for each quarter will be structured around a particular theme: “Empire and Permanent War” (fall); “Permanent War and Mass-Incarceration” (winter); and “Public Rhetorics and Permanent War” (spring). However, as a group we intend to creatively intertwine these themes in our discussions and readings during each quarter. The objective of the lecture series and focus group is to generate a dialogue on the production and the role of public culture and rhetoric during what increasingly appears to be a state of globalized permanent war. How does public rhetoric become a site through which productive political contest emerges and becomes effective? We will seek to have broader transformative discussions on what it means to perform critical cultural work which engages with pressing political questions, debates and concerns. Key readings for the course will include texts from Michel Foucault, Loic Wacquant, Angela Davis, Stuart Hall, W.E.B. Du Bois, Arundhati Roy, Saul Williams, Suheir Hammad, Michael Denning, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri.
Student learning goals
General method of instruction
Recommended preparation
This focus group will meet Thursday afternoons from 3:30-5:20pm
Class assignments and grading
