Rhetorics of Space and Place

Catalog description

This course is an examination of the role of public space in contemporary civic life. In this course we will consider what it means to study spaces/places as communicative and rhetorical. In doing so, we will explore the following inquiries: How do places communicate in material, symbolic and discursive ways? What is the role of space in shaping, maintaining and transforming social interactions and political orders? How do places enact differential relationships of publicity, prescribe models for participation in public life and determine who counts as a legitimate member of “the” public? What happens when public space is reproduced electronically or virtually? The first section of the course will introduce students to a rhetorical approach to the study of space and place, while the second half of the course will focus on scholarship that applies rhetorical theory to the study of public space, exploring such topics and spaces as: museums, monuments and memorials, capitols, free speech zones, infrastructure, border spaces and travel, digital interactivity and data mining, the privatization and securitization of public space, new urbanist and pseudo/semi-public spaces as well as temporary public spaces. Satisfies Communication Studies major and minor requirement. Satisfies Literary Studies, Creative Writing and Rhetoric requirement.