Com 195-1: Seminar on African Rhetoric

COM 195-1: African Rhetoric Syllabus

Instructor: Dr. Omedi Ochieng Office: Deane Hall 106

Class Time: TH 3:15-6:05Phone: (805) 565-6018

Class:VL 307Email:

Office Hours: 3:00-:5:00Monday 2:00-5:00 Wednesday

Defining African Rhetoric:

This classoffers an entry to students on fundamental questions at the intersection of rhetoric and philosophyon ontology, epistemology, politics, ethics, and aesthetics. This will be conducted through an intensive engagement with major themes and debates in African rhetoric; themes and debates which are very germane to and illuminative of similar debates in other contexts (such as, say, “American” or “European” contexts). The course will cover five main themes over the course of the semester: 1) the meaning and significance of the appellation “African”; 2) the existence and boundaries of African rhetoric and philosophy; 3) the nature and variety of African politics and power; 4) ethics in the African context, with a particular engagement of feminist ethics; 5) African aesthetic forms and the interpretation of mass communication.

African Rhetoric as Liberal Arts “Common Context” Course:

This course satisfies the General Education curriculum’s common context course “philosophical reflections on truth and value.”The objectives of this course include:

i) It focuses on how we can establish and know truths: Rhetoric is epistemic; that is, it is a way of knowing (Robert L. Scott, “On Viewing Rhetoric as Epistemic,”). Rhetoric is defined as a praxis – a theory and practice – of discovering, articulating, and critiquing the assumptions, reasons, and evidence engaged in a variety of subjects and contexts. This definition follows from Aristotle’s definition of rhetoric as "the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion.” The rhetorician Wayne Booth glosses this definition of rhetoric as “the art of appraising the warrants for assent in any symbolic exchange”(Wayne C. Booth, The Vocation of a Teacher: Rhetorical Occasions 1967-1988).All scholarly inquiry is therefore “rhetorical” insofar as inquiry discovers available evidence for grounding a variety of claims.

ii) “Understand the nature and strength of competing truth claims”: This course articulates a critical understanding of the nature and strength of competing truth claims in two major ways: first, by articulating truth claims as “rhetorical” it illuminates the justifications for these truth claims. Second, in drawing attention to truth claims in the African context, it not only servesto explain truth claims from a context students are not likely to be very familiar with, but also articulates the relationship of these truth claims to those in students’ own (American) contexts. An engagement with truth claims in and about Africa will also shed light on the processes – historical and cultural – from which present ideas have emerged.

iii) “Recognize the possibility and importance of drawing meaningful conclusions about matters of truth or ethical value”: Wayne Booth has spoken of a world caught between, on the one hand, “modern dogmatists” – what he calls the “scientismists” – who would “sharply separate values from fact,” and the “irrationalists” who “feel free to assert any value that ‘feels’ right”: “The characteristic debate of modernists is a kind of meaningless logomachy between the adherents of reason or knowledge or science and the adherents of values or faith or feeling or wisdom or ‘true knowledge.’” (Booth, Modern Dogma and the Rhetoric of Assent). Into this breach, Booth argues, falls the study of rhetoric. This course follows Booth in pointing a way toward a more productive conversation in matters that the scientismists have too quickly dismissed as “superstition” and the irrationalists have rendered unintelligible. In African rhetoric, students will wrestle with the complexities of belief in a culturally diverse world, encounter difficult questions of “cultural relativism,” and ponder the possibilities and limits of agency.

iv) “Emerge with a sense of how to think Christianly about critical, normative, and evaluative questions of truth and values”: To think Christianly, among other things, is to acknowledge our own limited horizons, to enter into the complexity of other worlds, and to appreciate the diversity of human thought. This course in African rhetoric will be an exercise in testing the “virtues of truth” – humility, patience, and empathy. It will be the argument of this course that a course in “African rhetoric” is an apprenticeship in Christian liberal arts education. As Booth puts it: “Everything we value in our society depends, directly or indirectly, on our ability to teach one another how to think about what people say – to teach not only the defensive rhetoric of smoking out the liars and thieves, but the affirmative art of sorting out the maybes, discovering true friends and true interests, as we find them. I see no escape from the conclusion, self-centered or not, that liberal education as the study of rhetoric is our best hope for preserving free activity of any kind, including all other kinds of study, and thus any chance we have of improving our schools.” (Wayne Booth, The Vocation of a Teacher: Rhetorical Occasions 1967-1988).

Major Topoi of African Rhetoric

1. The meaning and significance of the interpellation “African”

In this section, students will gain an understanding of the debate over what constitutes “African” identity. There will be two major strands to this section. The first will focus on the ontologies proffered by various (African and non-African) authors – for example, conceptions of “reality” as consisting of essences, as objective or socially constructed.A major point of discussion will be about whether “identity” is rhetorically constructed. The second will focus on the role these views have played in the conception of or constitution of African identity. As students will learn, the discussion of African identity raises questions about what constitutes other identities as well (such as “American” and “Western” identity).

Field in Rhetoric: Debates on definitions of rhetoric; rhetoric and ontology; representation

Field in Philosophy: Ontology and Metaphysics

Readings: What is “African” identity? What do Africans believe?

Kwame Gyekye, “The Concept of a Person.”
Mbiti, John S. African Religions and Philosophy.
Davidson, B. The African Genius
Appiah, Kwame Anthony. In My Father's House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture.
Bernal, Martin. Black Athena.
Eze, Emmanuel Chukwudi. “The Color of Reason: The Idea of `Race' in Kant's Anthropology”
Eze, Emmanuel Chukwudi. “Hume, Race, and Human Nature.”
Masolo, D. A. “African Philosophy and the Postcolonial: Some Misleading Abstractions about `Identity.'”
Mudimbe, V. Y. The Idea of Africa.
Ranger, Terence. “The Invention of Tradition in Colonial Africa.”
Southall, Aidan. “The Illusion of Tribe.”

Additional Reading:

Haslanger, S., 1995, “Ontology and Social Construction”, Philosophical Topics 23 (2): 95–125.

2. Philosophical questions on the existence and boundaries of African Philosophy:

Students will be introduced to the debate on the existence of African philosophy. This section will deal primarily with epistemological questions: what is “knowledge”? How is rhetoric epistemic? This discussion will then examine particular epistemological questions in African philosophy: Can Africans philosophize?What are the different schools of thought in African philosophy?

Field in Rhetoric: Epistemic Rhetoric; Argumentation; Media and Literacy; Power/Knowledge; postmodern rhetoric

Field in Philosophy: Epistemology

Readings:

Appiah, Kwame Anthony. In My Father's House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture.
Bernasconi, Robert. “African Philosophy's Challenge to Continental Philosophy.”
Evans-Pritchard, E. “Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande.”
Goody, J. The Domestication of the Savage Mind.
Horton, R. “African Traditional Religion and Western Science.”
Hountondji, P. “African Philosophy: Myth and Reality.”
Wiredu, J. E. (Kwasi). “How Not to Compare African Thought with Western Thought.”

Additional Reading:

Taylor, Charles. Sources of the Self.

3. African Politics and Power

This toposengages questions on the nature and variety of African political systems and culture. This section will focus on major political philosophies – Liberalism, Communalism, and Marxism; how these political philosophies conceive of “speech acts” and/or “the public sphere”; and how these political philosophies have been debated and practiced in the African context.

Field in rhetoric: Rhetoric in the public sphere; Rhetoric and Law; Argumentation

Field in Philosophy: Political Philosophy

Readings:

Allen, Judith Van. “Sitting on a Man: Colonialism and the Lost Political Institutions of Igbo Women.”
Appiah, Kwame Anthony. “Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers.”
Fanon, Frantz. “On National Culture.”
Presbey, Gail. “Critic of Boers or Africans? Arendt's Treatment of South Africa in The Origins of Totalitarianism.”
Wiredu, Kwasi. “Democracy and Consensus in African Traditional Politics: A Plea for a Non-party Polity.”

4. Ethics in the African Context :

Students will engage with ethical philosophies such as Aristotelianism, Kantianism, Utilitarianism, and Feminism and reflect on how African scholars and thinkers have engaged these philosophies. Some of the major topics tackled include “cultural relativism,” “evil,” and “forgiveness and reconciliation.”

Readings:

Anyanwu, C. “Cultural Philosophy as a Philosophy of Integration and Tolerance.”
Harding, Sandra. “The Curious Coincidence of Feminine and African Moralities: Challenges for Feminist Theories.”

5. Aesthetics:

In this section, students will engage questions on African aesthetics: what are African concepts of beauty? How does aesthetics relate to ethics, politics, economics, and culture? What are the major genres of African literature, film, music, and art?

Onyewuenyi, Innocent C. “Traditional African Aesthetics: A Philosophical Perspective”

Objectives of the course

1. Students should gain an understanding of the rhetorical philosophies --ontologies, epistemologies, politics, ethics and aesthetics – attributed to, proclaimed by, or emergent from Africans. This will also involve significant engagements with the rhetorical philosophies of other contexts (say, “North American,” or “European”).

2. Students should gain an appreciation of the centrality and power of rhetoric in our lives.

3. It is expected that students will establish and build on three of the most important skills of good rhetorical criticism: to evaluate the truth and falsity of knowledge claims; to be able to discern and analyze the methods, styles, or strategies used to establish these knowledge claims; to be able to evaluate the effectiveness or impact of these knowledge claims on audiences. It is also expected that students will put these skills in practice in their writing and speaking.

Course Texts:

Reading Packet
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Purple Hibiscus (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2003).
Philip Gourevitch, We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families (New York: Picador USA, 1998).

Class Assessment:

Ontology and Identity Essay50 points

Feminism Essay50 points

Representation Essay50 points

Ethics Essay50 points

Reflective Essay and Presentation50 points

Engagements50 points

Mid-Term Exam100 points

Final Exam100 points

Assignments:

1. Ontology and Identity essay:

Drawing on your ontology, reflect on what “makes you you” (and why this is so); or a reflection on the one “identity” that is most significant to you and what this significance consists of. You have to have a thesis and you must endeavor to make an argument about it.

2. Rhetorical Criticism on Representations of Africa:

Select a rhetorical artifact – such as a newspaper, a novel, or a movie – that focuses on Africa or is emergent from Africa and conduct a rhetorical critique its representation of Africa or Africans. Examples include: How The New York Times covered the Mau Mau rebellion; representations of Christianity in The Poisonwood Bible; gender and race in Out of Africa.

3. Paper on political philosophy:

Reflect on your political philosophy – be it Liberalism, Marxism, Communalism, or Conservativism. Analyze the movie “Lumumba” using this political philosophy. In what way does the movie portray the strengths and weaknesses of the particular political philosophy chosen?

4. Ethics paper:

Reflect on the theme of “evil” in response to the movie “Hotel Rwanda.” Draw on thinkers who have made arguments about the nature of evil and on questions of responsibility and agency.

5. Feminist paper:

Reflect on the question of African feminismin relation to the novelThe Purple Hibiscus. Your reflection should involve identifying a thesis and making an argument in defense of it.

6. Reflective Essay:

This is a reflective essay on what you have learned in this class. It should be more than just a catalogue of items learned. Rather, it should be a meditation on what was insightful, troubling, or worthy of further research.

Student Needs:

If you have special circumstances (such as a learning disability, academic or athletic team schedule) that I should be aware of, please inform me before the second week. Arrangements to accommodate your need must be made well in advance of any exams or assignments.

Academic Integrity:

Westmont is committed to the highest standards of ethical conduct and academic excellence. Any student found guilty of plagiarism, fabrication, cheating on an exam, copying or purchasing papers or other assignments will immediately receive a failing grade in the assignment (if it is the first offense) and a failing grade in the course (for a second offense). The student will then be reported to the Westmont administration for further disciplinary action. Falsified excuses fall within the guidelines of this policy.