The Rhetorics of War and Peace

Catalog description

This course explores how war and peace are advocated. CAS 373 The Rhetorics of War and Peace (3)In The Wealth of Nations (1776), the first classic of capitalism, Adam Smith speaks of "the art of war," deploying a phrase from Sun-Tzu's The Art of War that would later appear in Baron von Clausewitz's On War and also in contemporary U.S. military handbooks. This course argues that war is indeed an art, and a thoroughly rhetorical one in which the political economy of persuasion is as important as high-tech weaponry and whiz-bang battle plans. By considering some of war's most thoughtful theorists, by discussing wars past and present, and by reading powerful defenses and trenchant critiques of war, this course will help students understand how wars are managed rhetorically. This course satisfies a grave need: for living in the post-9/11 world requires the critical rhetorical skills necessary to understand not just how war is waged or how it structures our lives but how war is advocated and defended. The trajectory of this course will thus make the full arc from war to peace. Perhaps most importantly in this time of grave post-modern warfare, this semester's readings and discussions will make us all better rhetorical scholars capable of imagining alternative futures. From the realities of war comes the possibility of peace.