Power of Persuasion, Art of Speaking Wel

Composed of three interwoven strands, this course seeks to introduce students to the dynamic traditions of speaking—and theorizing about speaking—that developed in ancient Greek and Roman cultural milieus and whose legacies continued to influence literary prose and public discourse for centuries afterward.

On Mondays we will undertake a historical survey of ancient rhetoric, supplementing George Kennedy’s A New History of Classical Rhetoric with excerpted primary readings from the sources it covers. 

On Wednesdays we will read and analyze Aristotle’s Art of Rhetoric to examine how a rhetorical treatise from Greek antiquity interacts with evidence from rhetorical practice (or competing works of rhetorical theory!) over the period under consideration.  

On select Wednesdays during the semester, we will intersperse our reading of Aristotle with six “spotlighted” speeches (by Demosthenes, Cicero, Gregory of Nazianzus, Elizabeth I, Thomas More, and Frederick Douglass) that draw on and contribute to the richness of the classical Greek and Roman rhetorical tradition and its afterlives.