This class investigates current understandings of how visuals participate in and extend the rhetorical strategies long associated with speech and writing. Visual Rhetoric is an emerging discipline. with a developing canon of critical texts. In this class, we pair the study of visual rhetoric theories with the practical work of designing and executing documents common to professional and technical communication.
Our readings will survey the work of rhetoricians, graphic designers, commercial artists, fine artists, and technical communicators. I will endeavor to ensure that no one approach is presented as definitive. Rather, our goal should be to identify shared principles that seem constant or at least consistent whenever people pursue persuasion through visual information.
In all these efforts, we will endeavor to move away from the subjective statements of preference that are the hallmark of art criticism, and toward grounded statements about how visual rhetoricians are addressing the needs, attitudes, and expectations of their chosen audiences.
This class will both depend upon and reward active class participation. We will be pursuing complex questions (often with similarly complex answers) and the success of the course may well hinge on our collective commitment to both the readings and our in-class discussions. Please arrive prepared to discuss our assigned reading, to be called upon, and to share your insights with your classmates.
Mondays and Wednesdays • September 5-December 12, 2018 • 4:00-5:15pm • 131A Bruininks Hall