COML 1136

FWS: Rhetorics of Race

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2021-2022.

The racial violence against people of color in the United States over the past few years has broken a popular contemporary narrative that we are living in a post-racial age. We often look to spectacular events like police brutality in order to confirm what we already know: that the effects of racism are ongoing. But racial violence is not merely spectacular, that is, limited to what we can see. Nor is it merely limited to extreme forms of violence.  In this course, we examine how race penetrates language use through analyzing racial rhetoric in various genres, including news reportage, film, literature, media, and institutional rhetoric. By the end of the course, students will learn how to identify, navigate, analyze, and produce writing in diverse genres and rhetorical forms and develop the critical capacity to identify and respond to raced language.

When Offered Spring.

Satisfies Requirement First-Year Writing Seminar.

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