Kreuter, Nathan
TR 9:30 AM
Park Hall 0327
Economies of Rhetoric
This course invites us to study rhetoric through an economic lens. In the original written definition of the term Aristotle characterized rhetoric as "the faculty of discovering the possible means of persuasion in reference to any subject whatever." This course takes the term "possible means" both literally and figuratively, and considers the possible or available means of persuasion as a finite or scarce resource. If sand and gold and timber and skilled labor are finite resources with varying degrees of preciousness, then so too might the available means of persuasion be, in different scenarios, scarce or abundant resources. The class seeks to read rhetoric in collision with economics, asking what an economic perspective might teach us about rhetoric, and how we might understand the intangible means of persuasion as resources. We will consider not only the Aristotelian definition of rhetoric in economic terms, but many other definitions as well. Taking as its starting point the juxtaposition of rhetorician Richard Lanham's argument on behalf of an "economics of attention" and economist Deidre McCloskey's articulation of a "rhetoric of economics," students will read broadly in rhetoric, covering texts from the ancient tradition to contemporary theory. Works in rhetoric will be supplemented by complementary readings from linguistics, cognitive science, and economics. The course is humanistic in its approach, and students need not have prior knowledge or reading in economics. Over the course of the semester students will undertake their own research, culminating in a seminar paper or equivalent alternative to be negotiated with the instructor.