English 680V: Visual Rhetoric in a Technological Age (Purdue)

Two lightboxes:

http://www.istockphoto.com/my_lightbox_contents.php?id=232096

http://www.istockphoto.com/my_lightbox_contents.php?id=140617

One of the purposes of the Exploration Project (Step 4) is to open up a subject, in much the same way that Montaigne manipulated his subject matter in his famous Essais.

In the open essay, you exploit the ways in which your subject is connected to other subjects. The "open" essay expands a subject into a general meditation, and reveals the ways in which ideas and information can be connected. When we "essay," we practice deliberative associative thinking.

To fully understand a subject, it is important to consider it from alternative perspectives, ones that may not be immediately obvious. The prompts and questions below should help you think of ways to formulate new and interesting questions about your subject. For the Exploration Project (Step 4), answer at least 10 of these questions, with a variety of terms and a paragraph devoted to each.

Here's an announcement of interest. Maybe we can spend some time in class discussing and blogging in response . . .

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An open invitation to participate in the online “Ekphrasis” exhibit:

Purdue University Galleries invites you to visit a special “blog-style” exhibition page, featuring selected works from the current exhibition, “Ekphrasis: Writing on the Collection.” The webpage can be found at:

http://www2.itap.purdue.edu/galleries/ekphrasis/

Topic

Visual Literacy

Author of This Guide

Jessica Clark

Reading/Citation Information

George, Diana. "From Analysis to Design: Visual Communication in the Teaching of Writing." College Composition and Communication 54.1 (September 2002): 11-39.

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Article Abstract

"From Analysis to Design: Visual Communication in the Teaching of Writing." Diana George

Diana George claims that how we think about visual literacy and teaching writing limits the kinds and the scope of our composition assignments.

This image was posted to CNN on October 11, 2001. I remember saving it back then because it was funny (duh) but also because it was revealing that you had these two disparate cultures at war, and here was this slippage of the one into the other. What does the dialectic of Bert and Bin Laden suggest as an image? It makes Bin Laden look like an idiot (as friendly and nice as Bert is). What's funny i

Great story today at CNN on mindreading machines:

"Mindreading scientists predict behavior" http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/03/05/mindreaders.ap/index.html

Here are some of the stunning revelations:

"The fact that we can determine what intention a person is holding in their mind pushes the level of our understanding of subjective thought to a whole new level," said Dr. Paul Wolpe, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania, who was not connected to the study.

[. . .] Tanja Steinbach, a 21-year-old student in Leipzig who participated in the experiment, found it a bit spooky but wasn't overly concerned about the civil liberties implications.

"It's really weird," she said. "But since I know they're only able to do this if they have certain machines, I'm not worried that everybody else on the street can read my mind."

What's next? Hey, let's invent a sure-fire technique not only to read motive, but to actually bend someone's will. Using words alone, make people do things that they wouldn't normally do without some urging. Manufacture desire! Now that is a scary thought if it should ever come to pass.