Readings

Readings

The lion's share of readings for Core II you will assign yourself to read and respond to during Stage 2 of the course; the only readings I have assigned for you will be during Stage 1. The purpose of these readings is to engage in an inquiry that will reveal for us our current relationship to research and to open us up to new possibilities for research and writing, which you will then explore according to your plan.

Along the way, I expect you to learn a set of specialized terms together with the statements that use those terms.

Week 1

These readings have been instrumental in my teaching of writing: these are the “scales,” as in “musical” scales, I have been playing, and from which I “riff” endlessly, in all the classes I teach, and in everything I write. I request that you begin the semester having read these two carefully so that we can construct a ground and vocabulary from which to work the rest of the semester. 

McKee, Robert. "Structure and Meaning." Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting. New York: Regan, 1997. 110-131. ​

Gallop, Jane. "The Ethics of Reading: Close Encounters." Journal of Curriculum Theorizing (Fall, 2000): 7-17.

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Week 2

Jensen, Michael. "Integrity: Without it, Nothing Works." Rotman Magazine (Fall 2009): 16-20.

Seitz, James E. "A Rhetoric of Reading." Rebirth of Rhetoric: Essays in Language, Culture, and Education. By Richard Andrews. London: Routledge, 1992. 141-55. ​

Rabinowitz, Peter. "Truth In Fiction: A Reexamination of Audiences." Critical Inquiry. 4.1 (1977): 121-141. ​

Seitz and Rabinowitz will provide the remaining terms and definitions filling out the basic methodological approach to all of your research efforts for the semester (including McKee and Gallop).

The interview with Jensen will provide us with the ground of workability for success in completing the work of the course: integrity.

I recommend for further reading:

Butler, Robert Olen. “Cinema of the Mind.” From Where You Dream: The Process of Writing Fiction. Edited by Janet Burroway. New York: Grove, 2005. 63-84.

Kopp, Drew. “The Risk of Rhetorical Inquiry: Practical Conditions for a Disruptive Pedagogy.” In Disrupting Pedagogies and Teaching the Knowledge Society: Countering Conservative Norms with Creative Approaches. Ed. Julie Faulkner. Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 2011.

Mamet, David. "Countercultural Architecture and Dramatic Structure." On Directing Film. New York: Viking, 1991. 57-66. 

Phelan, James. “Introduction”. Living to Tell About it: A Rhetoric and Ethics of Character Narration. Ithaca. Cornell University Press. 2005. 1-30.

Week 4

Spinosa, Charles, Fernando Flores, and Hubert Dreyfus. "Introduction," and "Chapter 1." Disclosing New Worlds: Entrepreneurship, Democratic Action, and the Cultivation of Solidarity. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1997.

While we will only be reading the introduction and chapter one of Disclosing New Worlds, I highly recommend acquiring your own copy and read it in its entirety. In this book, Spinosa, Flores, and Dreyfus present the history-making practices of articulation, reconfiguration, and cross-appropriation, and the correlative ways of being we enact when performing these practices. The authors claim that a culture figure articulates a dispersed or lost value that contending views could share, allowing for solidarity to emerge; an entrepreneur reconfigures a commonplace perspective by amplifying some overlooked, but unique aspect therein that then competes with the original perspective; and a political activist cross-appropriates or reiterates practices from one arena of activity to another to effect social change. In each case, employing the history-making practice brings members of a given community to undergo a transformation in their understanding of themselves and the world. 

I recommend reading:

Culler, Jonathan. “Story and Discourse in the Analysis of Narrative.” The Pursuit of Signs: Semiotics, Literature, Deconstruction. Ithaca: Cornell U.P., 1981.

Culler brings us to confront the unsolvable problem at the heart of narratology: is the source of the significance we see the events, or are events a reflex of the significance we see?

I also recommend:

Nietzsche, Friedrich. "On Truth and Lie in a Nonmoral Sense." Trans Taylor Carman. New York: HarperCollins, 2010. 

Nietzsche's essay provides us with an example of the genre of the vision/mission statement in the sense that the author is seeking to articulate the value of creative production and providing reflective argumentation as the means to open up that possibility. 

Further recommendations:

Campbell, Joseph. "The Impact of Science on Myth." Myths to Live By. Dallas: Spring Publications, 1970. 138-175.

Campbell, Joseph. ​"Mythological Themes in Creative Literature and Art." In Myths, Dreams, and Religion. Dallas, TX: Spring Publications, 1970.

Butler, Judith. "Preface," "Subversive Bodily Acts," and "Conclusion." From Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity.

​Kopp, Drew. “Cutting the Edge of the Will to Truth; Or How Post-Process Pedagogy is Biting its Own Tail.” JAC: Rhetoric, Writing, Culture, Politics. 32.1-2 (2012): 145-184.

Pender, Kelly. Chapter 4: "Closing Down and Opening Up: Techne and the Issue of Instrumentality." In Techne, From Neoclassicism to Postmodernism: Understanding Writing as a Useful, Teachable Art. Anderson, S.C.: Parlor Press, 2011.

---. Chapter 5: "Closing Down and Opening Up: Techne and the Issue of Teachability." In Techne, From Neoclassicism to Postmodernism: Understanding Writing as a Useful, Teachable Art. Anderson, S.C.: Parlor Press, 2011.

Ijsseling, Samuel. Rhetoric and Philosophy in Conflict: An Historical Survey. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1976.

​Kopp, Drew. “Nietzsche’s Teacher: The Invisible Rhetor.” Rhetoric Review. 32.4 (2013): 437-454.

Week 5

Recommended:

Chapter 16 from Martin Packer's The Science of Qualitative Research. 2nd ed. Cambridge: University Press, 2018.

Immersion Journalism

Institutional Review Board (IRB)

St. Pierre, Elizabeth Adams. "Writing Post Qualitative Inquiry." Qualitative Inquiry Vol. 24-9 (2018): 603-608.

Saldaña, Johnny. "Introduction." The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers. 2nd Ed. Los Angeles, CA: Sage, 2013.

Weiss, Robert S. "Introduction." Learning From Strangers: The Art and Method of Qualitative Interview Studies. New York, NY: Free Press, 1994.