SPAN798L

The classical liberal arts were the quadrivium's four subjects (which morphed into today's sciences, plus musicology) resting on the examination of grammar, logic, and rhetoric. All those disciplines have clearly evolved, with the arguable exception of rhetoric, which is often even frowned upon as the most "trivial" among the trivium's offerings. This course examines the subject through the language sciences, delving into the field's foundations. It is argued that, at the relevant level of abstraction, effective rhetoric is, in fact, routinely used by the best communicators and has found its unconscious niche in public discourse. But how will it fare in a hypertextual world?