Imagining Rhetoric: from Plato to Television: course description
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Willem Witteveen, Odile Heynders, Alkeline van Lenning, Sanne Tekema - Tilburg University
The course will be the joint responsibility of all four teachers. They will each spend a three week period in Venice and also be present for the introductory sessions and the examinations. The courses are coordinated by Prof. Witteveen. The teachers take full responsibility for the examinations.
The courses will consist of four parts that take up three weeks each. The first and second parts of each course are taught by Prof. Witteveen and Dr. Taekema. After the second part of the courses, there will be an examination, supervised by them. The third part is taught by Dr. Heynders and the fourth part by Dr. Van Lenning. After the fourth part of the course there will be a final presentation, supervised by these teachers.
Rhetoric, the art of persuasion, is in this course portrayed as a cultural invention of the Greeks, rooted in democratic practices in Athens and further perfected during the heydays of the Roman republic. The system of classical rhetoric has developed over the centuries but its basic categories are remarkably constant and many of the insights of the classical rhetoricians in the arts of effective communication are still highly relevant in modern times and in completely different social conditions. How was this possible and what does it say about the state of our democratic practices and our culture of persuasion? In this course, we will read some of the classical sources and follow the debate about the effectiveness and the ethics of the rhetorical art. Already Plato, in his influential dialogue Gorgias, created a picture of rhetoric that went beyond the actual rhetorical practices of his time and place, raising troubling questions about the relation between language and power and between action and justice that occupy the agenda of philosophical reflection since then. We will read Plato and other classical texts, but from there on we will focus on modern manifestations of persuasion, especially in the fields of politics, law, media and poetry. Part I and II are taught by Witteveen and Taekema, Part III by Heynders and Part IV by Van Lenning.
The courses will consist of four parts that take up three weeks each. The first and second parts of each course are taught by Prof. Witteveen and Dr. Taekema. After the second part of the courses, there will be an examination, supervised by them. The third part is taught by Dr. Heynders and the fourth part by Dr. Van Lenning. After the fourth part of the course there will be a final presentation, supervised by these teachers. Rhetoric, the art of persuasion, is in this course portrayed as a cultural invention of the Greeks, rooted in democratic practices in Athens and further perfected during the heydays of the Roman republic. The system of classical rhetoric has developed over the centuries but its basic categories are remarkably constant and many of the insights of the classical rhetoricians in the arts of effective communication are still highly relevant in modern times and in completely different social conditions. How was this possible and what does it say about the state of our democratic practices and our culture of persuasion? In this course, we will read some of the classical sources and follow the debate about the effectiveness and the ethics of the rhetorical art. Already Plato, in his influential dialogue Gorgias, created a picture of rhetoric that went beyond the actual rhetorical practices of his time and place, raising troubling questions about the relation between language and power and between action and justice that occupy the agenda of philosophical reflection since then. We will read Plato and other classical texts, but from there on we will focus on modern manifestations of persuasion, especially in the fields of politics, law, media and poetry. Part I and II are taught by Witteveen and Taekema, Part III by Heynders and Part IV by Van Lenning. 
