The Rhetorics of Drugs
“As
soon as one utters the word ‘drugs,’ even before any ‘addiction,’ a
prescriptive or normative ‘diction’ is already at work, performatively, whether
one likes it or not. This ‘concept’ will
never be a purely theoretical or theorizable concept. And if there is never a theorem for drugs, there
can never be a scientific competence for it either, one attestable as such and
which would not be essentially over-determined by ethico-political norms” (Points…
239).
Jacques
Derrida, “The Rhetoric of Drugs”
This
section of composition and rhetoric will focus on rhetorical strategies,
representational effects, and affective modes by focusing on “the drug” as a
socio-political rhetorical figure. Each
section of this three-part course will focus on “drugs” and their
representations across and through different mediums and cultural
instantiations. From the internet and
popular culture, to scientific taxonomies, to the function of drugs in literary
fictions as effects of literature, we
will attempt to trace the transcultural, transdiscursive values of this
rhetorical substance, as it figures multiple ways-of-knowing in modern thought,
citizenship practices, and global politics.
“The drug” will provide a lens and a focus through which we can analyze
and critically engage the uses and strategies of rhetorical composition.
The popular representation of drugs across
media formats will enable our definition of “rhetorical strategies” to include
multimodal reading, presentation, and composition skills, as we seek to define
a nexus of drug-effects that highlights the transections and interpenetrations
of multiple mediums.
Course
Requirements
1)
Homework:
Each student will be required to complete ALL homework assignments, posting their
responses to our class sessions and assigned readings on the class blog. Importantly, blog posts will not be evaluated
according to letter grades. Students
will receive credit for doing them accordingly, but this credit will contribute
to the overall participation grade. The
only way blog posts will affect a student’s grade negatively is if he or she
does not complete the assignment by posting; points will be subtracted every
time a student misses a post. Blog and
homework assignments CAN ONLY HELP YOUR GRADE.
Please stay on top of them.
2)
Peer Evaluations:
For some of our modules, students will be asked to do
250 word responses to their colleague’s presentations. These are not meant to be nasty or overly
critical. These responses are meant to
let students make connections across topics and participate in a respectful and engaged conversation with
their colleagues. These evaluations will
be TURNED IN at the beginning of class.
Please DO NOT post them to the blog.
Evaluations will be graded based on the ability to respond to
presentations thoughtfully, by situating the material in critical and
conceptual language that allows us to draw more general conclusions.
3)
Papers and Portfolios:
Students will write a total of three papers for this
class, which will be produced over the course of our three different
modules. Within each module, paper
drafting will be broken up into multiple activities: free writing, diagrams,
student presentations, “readings,” “contextual research,” and
critical/conceptual vocabulary. Papers
WILL BE graded accumulatively. This does
not mean that each and every task is graded separately, but rather, that you
will turn in your “final draft” with a portfolio of the materials you have used
and developed along the way. Draft portfolios may include blog posts, peer evaluations, or even comments made in
class. If you use someone else’s post or
comment, you MUST document this. The
best papers will include a portfolio that shows their work and how the idea
developed over the course of five weeks.
4)
Class Participation:
Students
are required to attend and participate in class. Additionally, 50% of the participation grade
will be based on blog posts. It is as
important to post to the blog and complete homework as it is to attend class,
because most of our in-class activities build upon this work done outside
class.
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