Course Description
Classical rhetoric, with special attention to Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero.
Athena Title
Classical Rhetoric
Equivalent Courses
Not open to students with credit in CLAS 3070
Non-Traditional Format
This version of the course will be taught as writing intensive, which means that the course will include substantial and ongoing writing assignments that a) relate clearly to course learning; b) teach the communication values of a discipline—for example, its practices of argument, evidence, credibility, and format; and c) prepare students for further writing in their academic work, in graduate school, and in professional life. The written assignments will result in a significant and diverse body of written work (the equivalent of 6000 words or 25 pages) and the instructor (and/or the teaching assistant assigned to the course) will be closely involved in student writing, providing opportunities for feedback and substantive revision.
Prerequisite
CLAS 1000 or CLAS 1000H or CLAS 1010 or CLAS 1010H or CLAS 1020 or CLAS 1020E or CLAS 1020H or CLAS 3000 or CLAS 3010 or CLAS(ANTH) 3015 or CLAS(ANTH) 3015E or CLAS 3030 or CLAS 3040 or CLAS 3050 or permission of department
Semester Course Offered
Not offered on a regular basis.
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
Students completing classical rhetoric will have been introduced to significant authors and concepts of argument and persuasion from ancient Greece and Rome. Lecture topics will include history of rhetoric, origins of rhetoric, rhetoric versus dialectic, role of rhetoric in ancient Greek and Roman culture. The course will be lecture-discussion format. Students will be graded on the standard A to F grading scale, and will provide end-of-course evaluations on the instruction and course content following classics department course evaluation procedures. Students will engage in critical analysis of the methods, functions, and results of classical rhetoric. Students will produce writing appropriate to the subject of classical rhetoric and to the discipline of classics. Writing Assignments: In order to understand the fundamentals of argumentation, we spend time reviewing both the parts of a speech and the steps necessary to create a successful argument. This process entails a series of steps, ranging from low stakes to high. At first the students will choose a topic they feel passionate about. As we study the discipline of rhetoric, I will ask the students to try their hands at fitting the theory to practice by approaching their topic through the methods proposed by the ancient theoreticians. Initially this writing will be low stakes: short, one-page drafts that demonstrate a stage of argumentation (invention to style) applied to their topic. At the end the students will be asked to present a full, formal version (high stakes) of their argument, together with the drafts that demonstrate the stages of the process.
Topical Outline
I. Introduction to Rhetoric A. Strategies of argumentation, present, and past II. Origins of Rhetoric III. Rhetoric in Greece A. Presocratics B. Plato C. Aristotle IV. Moving from Greece to Rome V. Rhetoric in Roman Culture A. Republican B. Imperial C. Early Christian