This is a course synopsis for a freshman writing seminar.
On March 23, 1775, Patrick Henry delivered a speech at the Virginia House of Burgesses that ended with the famous command, “Give me liberty, or give me death!” The crowd, formerly deeply divided on the subject of war with British, reportedly erupted with a call to arms. The question of rhetoric—how best to convince someone to do, say, or think something—has been a concern throughout human history. To examine strategies of rhetoric in the context of political revolution is to investigate the topic at its extreme; proponents and opponents of revolution are often interested in inciting violence and induce their audience to take significant personal risks. In critically approaching revolutionary texts, we will ask: What rhetorical strategies do they share, and which seem unique to a particular genre, medium or political cause? How does someone become convinced to risk his or her life for a radical cause? How do broader cultural changes manifest themselves in revolutionary movements?
Our course will look at texts from three revolutionary moments in U.S. history. First, we will investigate explicitly polemical writings and speeches from the American Revolution—including Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense,” Patrick Henry’s speech, and the Declaration of Independence—to seek to understand what kinds of arguments led Americans into the seeming folly of launching a war against the most powerful empire on Earth. Next, we’ll look at the rhetorical power of figurative language in selections from two influential literary writings on abolition that helped bring about the Civil War—Frederick Douglass’s Narrative and Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. In our final unit, we’ll delve into the radical rhetorics of the Student Left and Black Nationalism in the 1960s, examining texts from the genres of pop song, poetry and manifesto to look at how revolutionaries configured their causes to each other and the American public in a televised age.
Unit #1 // The American Revolution: Arguing the Case for War
Essay assignment: rhetorical analysis of single text via close reading
Core Readings:
Declaration of Independence
Patrick Henry, “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death”
Thomas Paine, “Common Sense” and selections from Crisis
Unit #2 // The Civil War: Sentiment and Slavery
Essay assignment: figurative language analysis
Core Readings:
Harriet Beecher Stowe, selected chapters from Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Frederick Douglass, selected chapters from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Unit #3 // Modes of Protest in the 1960s: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
Essay assignment: comparative analysis with secondary sources
Core Readings:
Weather Underground, selected communiqués
Students for a Democratic Society, “Port Huron Statement”
Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Jefferson Airplane, selected songs
Diane DiPrima, selected Revolutionary Letters
Eldridge Cleaver, selected chapter from Soul on Ice
Black Panther Party Platform and Program, October 1966 (“What We Want, What We Believe”)