Hey all,
You should have received an email about the rescheduling of today’s class. We’ve gone virtual for the day.
As I said in the email, you should post your response to chapter 3 of The Rhetoric of Agitation and Control
If you have any problem posting, you can post your response as a comment to this post.
Welcome to the first running of ENG 316: Rhetoric, Democracy, Advocacy!
Over the course of this semester we will be looking into what might be called a “citizen discipline.” That is, the kind of skills and practices required for effective, critical citizenship in the early 21st Century. One 0f the things that became clear to me as I was preparing for this class was that we will be studying only the tip of the iceberg. What I hope this course can do is open up lines of inquiry and passions for future work in this “citizen discipline.”
Here’s the basic argument. Most of our education is devoted to professional, scholarly, or technical discipline. Put another way, colleges and universities generally devote the bulk of their resources to educating individuals for a) the workplace; and, b) further research or scholarly work. What they do not do well is educate individuals in the theories and practices of citizenship participation. Most colleges and universities claim to be educating students to be “good” citizens, what is meant by “good citizens” is rather vague.
One way of looking at how a college or university prepares individuals to be critical citizens is to look at the institutions missions, goals, and strategic plans. For example, we could look at Kutztown’s mission, goals, and strategic plans and ask: how are students being prepared to take an active part in sustaining and deepening democracy and democratic practices in the 21st Century? Or, we could ask: how are students being trained to advocate for social change? How are students trained to protect the principles and practices of a democratic culture?
It’s common to find several courses on how to advocate for institutions (e.g. corporations) but less common to find courses on how citizens can effectively participate in a process of democratic self-rule. For example, I can minor in Public Relations, which trains you how to advocate for corporations and other institutions. However, I can’t find a course that trains me in how to effectively change or resist corporations. How do I prevent a corporation from polluting the ground water in my community? How can I effectively organize to prevent work place abuses? You can imagine a long list of questions like these.
A good question with a couple of simple answers. First, there is a historical answer. In the United States (and many other countries) higher education has always had a dual role. On the one hand, to train individuals for the work place. On the other hand, to train citizens to participate in and support democracy. Both of these missions recognize that education is a necessarycondition for a) an effective workforce; and, b) a healthy democracy. While that may be self-evident to many, these two missions have always been in tension. I would argue that in the beginning of the 21st Century, education for democracy barely registers in our everyday notions of what college is for.
Yet, I would argue that education for democracy is absolutely critical at this historical moment. With the continuing process of globalization and fundamental changes in our notions of work and community, our traditional notions of democracy are, put mildly, out-of-date. It’s time to re-prioritize education for democracy and ask basic questions like: How can we effectively participate in a global world? Who is a citizen in a this global world? Who decides the direction of this globalizing world? Are there alternatives?
That’s a little bit of a taste of the kind of issues that provoked this course.
I’ll shut up for now…we’ll see you in a little bit!
Kevin Mahoney
iMarcheskie
mblan481
ashleymarchunsky
amandaweigle
hmill1
eikalynn
dai4884
jtipt939
joecirio
wolfgrl89
Heather Payne
simonov
cararhet
cscinfici
kwhite1988