Instructor: Dr. Jeff Pruchnic

Untimely Mediations: Ancient Rhetorics and Emergent Technologies

The itinerary for this directed study begins through a solid engagement with sophistry and pre-Socratic rhetorics before branching off into questions concerning the possible return of sophistic strategies in relation to contemporary information technologies. Texts include works by Gorgias, Aristophanes, Isocrates, Plato, Hegel, Foucault, Deleuze, Alexander Galloway, Leroi-Gourhan, Merlin Donald, Jeffrey Walker, Kathleen Welch, Jeffrey T. Nealon, Marx, Bernard Steigler, Werner Jaeger, Derrida, Lacan, Bataille, Isabelle Stengers, and Zizek.

Study participants will be evaluated on the basis of the following:

1. Oral Reports: weekly meetings to discuss readings

2. Written Reports: weekly responses to the texts to be posted on a blog, and

3. Scholarly Article: The significant revision of a previous, single-author work of scholarship for publication submission before the end of the Winter semester