This Easter 2024 semester, the Rhetoric department offers a selection of challenging courses that both provide foundation speaking and listening knowledge and engage you mindfully in upper-level courses on public address and oratory. Our courses this semester fulfill a variety of requirements for the Rhetoric minor.

Browser our offerings below for course information, and see them on the University Registrar's page here.

Don't forget the Registration Dates!
Round One: Sunday, November 12 - Monday, November 13
Round Two: Sunday, November 19 - Monday, November 20

 

Public Speaking
RHET101A

T/R 3:00-4:15 p.m.
T 7:30-8:20 p.m. (first three weeks)

Study of the principles, precepts, and strategies of informative, persuasive, and ceremonial speaking. Emphasis is placed on assessing the rhetorical situation and researching, composing, practicing, and delivering a speech. Ethical, political, and social questions raised by speaking in public are considered. Students deliver speeches, practice effective listening, and serve as speech critics and interlocutors. 

*Required for the Rhetoric Minor
*Open only to first-year students and sophomores

RHET101A
Taught by Professor Sean O'Rourke
Public Speaking
RHET110B

M/W 3:30-4:45 p.m.
T 7:30-8:20 p.m. (first three weeks)

Study of the principles, precepts, and strategies of informative, persuasive, and ceremonial speaking. Emphasis is placed on assessing the rhetorical situation and researching, composing, practicing, and delivering a speech. Ethical, political, and social questions raised by speaking in public are considered. Students deliver speeches, practice effective listening, and serve as speech critics and interlocutors. 

*Required for the Rhetoric Minor
*Open only to first-year students and sophomores

RHET101B
Taught by Professor Melody Lehn
Argumentation and Debate
RHET110A

M/W 2:00-3:15 p.m.

Study of the precepts, theories, strategies, and ethics of argument. Students critically analyze arguments found in speeches, public debates, and controversies, newspaper articles and editorials, television news programs, and scholarly texts. Students write argumentative essays, present argumentative speeches, and engage in class debate.

RHET110A
Taught by Professor Melody Lehn
Rhetoric in the Age of Protest
RHET411A

Study of the discursive and non-discursive aspects of protest in the period 1948-1973. Focus on the forms and functions of rhetorics and counter-rhetorics in U.S. controversies over communism, civil rights, free speech, war, students’ rights, women’s rights, farm workers’ rights, Native American rights, gay rights, the environment, and poverty.

RHET411A
Taught by Professor Sean O'Rourke
Public Dialogue and Deliberation
RHET491A

This course will explore theories and practices of public dialogue and democratic deliberation to support important conversations across difference and explore possible solutions to thorny problems in the public sphere. Students will consider the distinctions and appropriateness of different forms of public discourse, and how to best facilitate dialogue and deliberation that promotes mutual understanding and democratic action. Students will gain practical experience in forum design and facilitation. Topics surveyed include forms of constructive dialogue and deliberation, collaborative communication, listening, expertise, representation, agency, voice, equity, issue framing, and analysis of underlying values and adversarial perspectives. 

*This course carries a community engagement designation

RHET491A
Taught by Professor Lydia Reinig, Director of Dialogue Across Difference Programs

Questions about courses?

Professor Sean O'Rourke: sporourk@sewanee.edu
Professor Melody Lehn: mjlehn@sewanee.edu
Professor Lydia Reinig: llreinig@sewanee.edu