This course asks, how and why might we understand classical rhetoric as a theory and history of rhetorical education? To explore this question, we move simultaneously in two distinct but related directions. On the one hand, we survey the perhaps expected account of Western classical rhetoric in Patricia Bizzell and Bruce Herzberg’s The Rhetorical Tradition. We notice where and how this account approaches teaching and learning as central, peripheral, or irrelevant. At the same time, we read alongside The Rhetorical Tradition the work of scholars who focus on rhetorical education. Here we consider how scholars take up classical rhetorical theory and history—how they deploy, adapt, and challenge its key ideas, thinkers, and moments—in order to theorize and historicize pedagogy. Like these scholars, each of you will develop an original research project that puts classical rhetorical theory and history in service of your own pedagogical interests and questions. These questions will be explored through primary research—whether via traditional libraries, brick-and-mortar archives at local institutions, or digital archives available online—and may engage classical rhetorical theory to study rhetorical education from any historical period and cultural context.

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