The Chinese Rhetorical Tradition

Catalog description

Study of the rhetorical works in ancient China as well as multiple facets of modern Chinese rhetoric. CHNS 419 The Chinese Rhetorical Tradition (3 per semester/maximum of 6) (IL)(BA) This course meets the Bachelor of Arts degree requirements. This course surveys the Chinese rhetorical tradition dating back two and a half millennia. Rhetoric is defined here as the study and practice of artful means of communication, including poetic, expository, and argumentative modes. The class will first delve into the works of competing intellectual schools in pre-imperial China (pre-221 BCE), which set a corner stone for thoughts and practice of communication in the imperial period (221 BCE - 1918). These schools, including the Daoist, the Confucian, and the Legalist, developed their rhetorical notions through engaging with the political, intellectual, and ethnic Other. From here the class will examine the multiple facets of modern Chinese rhetoric, which has undergone a continual contact and conflation with other rhetorical traditions in the global contact zone. The class will focus on topics such as feminist discourse, Chinese-American rhetoric, and the teaching of writing, which bear direct implications on our contemporary social life.