Power of Words

When:
October 10, 2018 @ 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm
2018-10-10T13:00:00-05:00
2018-10-10T14:30:00-05:00
Where:
Downtown Library, 2nd Floor Events Room

Instructor: Elaine Frederickson

This course will consider how English speakers talk about race and ethnicity and what affect word choice has on the real lives of people living in the United States. The approach will be scholarly. We will examine theoretical texts from rhetoricians, sociologists, philosophers, and others. Wrestling with these complex texts, we will address important questions: What is race? What is ethnicity? What is rhetoric? What is the impact of legal language? Further, we will discuss how race and ethnicity relate to social class and immigration rhetoric. We will look at the historical phenomenon of “passing,” and other instances of visual rhetoric.

If you are eager for an intellectual challenge and want to become more discerning about what you hear, read, and say, this is a class you won’t want to miss.