ENC 3312: Advanced Argumentative Writing
It’s Alive! Rhetoric and the Technology of Monstrosity University of Florida
Semester: Summer A 2020
Class Meetings: MTWRF (11:00 – 12:15pm)
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In the introduction to the 1831 edition of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley “bid [her] hideous progeny to go forth and prosper,” and, since its publication in 1818, her novel certainly has with Victor Frankenstein and his Creature becoming icons of the Western cultural mythos and their story being replicated and remixed again and again in everything from movies to comics to boxes of children’s breakfast cereal.
By performing rhetorical analyses of Frankenstein and a collection of its intertexts from a number of different periods and genres (Blade Runner, Young Frankenstein, Black Mirror), this class invites students to consider the ways in which an iconic cultural figure like Frankenstein’s Creature serves as a technology of monstrosity – that is, a rhetorical vehicle in which forms of otherness/sociological metaphor can be interchanged as needed. Further, this class will examine a number of subjects that are both relevant to Frankenstein as a text and to contemporary ethical debates, including the pro/cons of technological/scientific progress, eugenics, racism, artificial intelligence, and representations of the post-human, the monstrous, and normalcy. Because our course is, first and foremost, centered on composition and argumentation, we will also be considering what it means to create an argument and the ways in which a piece of writing, like Frankenstein’s Creature himself, is an assemblage of disparate parts. We will explore the power and limitations of rhetorical strategies such as pathos, logos, alogos, parody, and remix, as well as the importance of mode, genre, and technology when stitching together our own “monstrous progeny.” This course fulfills part of the University Writing Requirement. Students who complete all assignments will earn 6000 words towards the University writing requirement. |
INSTRUCTOR CONTACT INFORMATION:
Office Location: Turlington 4367 Office Hours: MW Period 5 or by Zoom appointment Email: [email protected] TEXTBOOKS:
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