Author: Steve

  • For the Rhetoric & Composition teachers

    Thinking about you . . .   

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  • Weekend Waste?

    Didn’t really do much this past weekend, and now thinking about it on a Monday morning. I probably should have done a bit more in prepping for the week, writing, doing research, but I really just took it easy. I feel a little panicked about it, but that’s just holdover from a time when I…

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  • Perspective by Incongruity

    Kenneth Burke has this great tool, or method or heuristic device – I’m not sure what to call it. He calls it “perspective by incongruity” and what it does it help you see something in a disturbingly new way. You use the wrong sort of heuristic or perspective in order to understand, or convey understanding…

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  • Vlogging or Blogging?

    Here’s an attempt at a weekly vlog I’m going to try to put out on Fridays to complement what I post here. I hope it’s a complement and not something that replaces what I’m writing here, but the temptation is very real. As someone who studies rhetoric and argumentation from the speech communication tradition, it’s…

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  • We Decide Supreme Court Appointments in the Worst Way

    The headline shouldn’t surprise anyone after checking out what our so-called government thinks is the best way to proceed in making appointment decisions. We elect people who believe that seeing into a person, seeing who they are deep inside, is going to be helpful in determining if they will be able to fulfil a role.…

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  • Montana is a Great Place to Experience British-style Debating

    For the sixth time (maybe?) I travelled up to Montana to do a workshop and run a small BP tournament for those amazing people from the snowy west in Montana. I really like going out there, although this time I had some reservations about it. I always have reservations about it though. The first reservation…

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  • New Semester and a New Perspective

    The new semester is here and it’s time to They have renamed all the donuts in the on-campus Dunkin’ Donuts and I cannot deal with it. The names are just too much and I keep taking pictures of them. Now that we are jelly-brating, some news you may have heard already: I am no longer…

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  • Who Do We Praise? A Tale of Two Passings

    The eulogies will never end. Everyone is talking about the death of John McCain using the strangest language about “service” and “honor” and the like. It’s no surprise – as Aristotle tells us praising Athens before the Athenians is barely a challenge. Tropes of hard work, dedication, loyalty, honor, love of country, self-sacrifice, and others…

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  • Where Does Rhetoric Begin in Courses?

    where should we start in class? With organization? Research? Developing an audience profile?   Wherever you start teaching in a speech or argumentation or debate course, that is where you are positing the start of rhetoric.  The question of a start is the establishment of ends. What is the purpose of rhetoric? Why learn and…

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  • Refreshing

    Queens Boulevard yesterday afternoon I wanted to write this post on the subway and the bus however my mobile wireless was giving me problems. It wasn’t until I got to about where I needed to go that it cut back on. I don’t know if there was a tower issue with T-Mobile or if it’s…

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