Core Seminars

RCID 801: Histories of Rhetorics
Details historical beginnings from PrePlatonics, Sophists, Plato, Aristotle to early work of K.Burke (c. 1940). Attention given to primary-secondary works, including historiographical principles of rhetorics, "the sister arts" (ut pictura poesis, ecphrasis), and techne (as human faculty and mechanical technology).

RCID 802: Cultural Research Methods
Continues RCID 801 from 1940 to the present. Focuses on rhetorical inventions as traditional memory and innovative counter-memory. Includes such theorists as K.Burke, G.Ulmer and P.Miller; includes algorithmic, heuristic, aleatory procedures; classical, modern, postmodern topoi and ethnographies/ grammatologies; gestual, oral (aural), literate, and electrate logics; graphic/filmic collage-montage; "rhythm science," sampling-remixing.

RCID 803: Empirical Research Methods
Assumptions-applications of empirical method in research. Sampling techniques, measurement, reliability, validity in collecting-analyzing data, using parametric-nonparametric statistical procedures. Approaches to content studies as well as survey and quasi-experimental research. Discussed are philosophic writings of scholars such as Popper and Kuhn, and content-specific work of Lazarsfeld, Lasswell, Hovland, among others.

[802-803 must be taken simultaneously. This requirement will not be waived for Part-time students or others.]

RCID 804: Visual Rhetorics
Examines post-1945 modes of visual rhetoric and differing critical perspectives on their functions. Attention given to key texts and visual creations to gain awareness of how visual codes operate in interior worlds and public life. Topics include, e.g., the Challenge of Abstraction, Culture of Display, Body as Marketing Tool.

RCID 805: Rhetorics, Communication, and Information Technologies
A hands-on examination of communication technologies used widely in academic and industry settings. Focuses on intermedia such as audio, video, Web, MOOs, Blogs, serious computer games, and all emerging technologies. The class will meet regularly in computer classrooms.

[804 and 805 meet respectively in the Mac Lab and a studio in Lee Hall and in the MATRF Lab in Daniels.]

Cognate Seminars

RCID 810: Pedagogy, Administration, and Assessment
Theory and praxis of professional communication in academic instruction and selected methods of pedagogical and programmatic assessment. Emphasis placed on communication-intermedia across the curriculum, academic program administration, and scholarship of teaching and learning.

RCID 811: Perspectives in Information Designs
Presents multiple historical and theoretical perspectives for designing and presenting information in visual, oral, print, digital media. Students apply humanistic-rhetorical models to these media and design multimedia projects that demonstrate transactions among theoretical perspectives. May include such models as homeostasis, autopoesis, virtuality.

RCID 812: Cultural Critiques of Mechanical Reproductions
A study of critiques and ethics of simulation and sham realities, balanced with counter-critiques/ethics. A consideration of the "death" of reality and the birth of third order "virtualities." May include such theorists and commentators as Plato, W.Benjamin, M.Heidegger, J.Baudrillard, R.Barthes, P.Virilio, K.Hayles, A.Fausto-Sterling, F.Kittler, G.Deleuze, A.Ronell, M.Taylor.

RCID 813: Selected Topics in Rhetorics, Communication, and Information Design
Varying topics determined by such rubrics as history, method, criticism, place, time, subjectivity, models, memory, style; or determined by such permutations and combinations of rubrics such as ethos-gender-sex, theory-practice, rhetoric-poetics, politics-poetics, techne-technology, cultural-digital studies, analog-digital.

RCID 831: Independent Research and Study
Supervised reading in areas and concentrations where there is no comparable seminar or course work. May be taken only after completion of core and cognate courses. May be taken three times as needed. Prerequisite: Permission of The Director and the Chair of Student's Committee.

RCID 833: Graduate Readings
Independent research/study. Must focus on preparation of dissertation project, with two support areas. May be taken only after completion of core and cognate courses, and prior to qualifying exams. May be taken three times as needed. Prerequisite: Permission from the Director of RCID and the Chair of Student's committee.

Studios

RCID 880: Applied Experience in Research and Communication in Studio (6hrs)
Students apply their seminar work systematically to individual research projects in a primary area and two support areas. Introduction to applied research in a variety of places, both actual and virtual (archives, labs, studios), and to ever-changing notions of intellectual property and creative commons.

Dissertation Hours

RCID 991: Dissertation Research (0-18)
(Additional seminars such as RCID 831: Independent Research and Study and RCID 833: Graduate Readings may be taken, with permission, during preparations for exams.)

Two-Year Sequence of Seminars/Studios

Beginning Core Seminar Cycle (sample)

First Academic Year . . . New students
Fall (9hrs, GTAs + colloquia):
RCID 801: Histories of Rhetorics (core)
RCID 804: Visual Rhetorics (core)
RCID 810: Pedagogy, Administration, and Assessment (cognate)

Spring (9hrs, GTAs + colloquia):
RCID 802: Cultural Research Methods (core)
RCID 803: Empirical Research Methods (core)
RCID 805: Rhetorics, Communication, Information Technologies (core)
[Core seminars completed first 9-mos]

Summer:
Open to resources. GTAs teaching will have to be enrolled in a Research seminar.

Beginning Cognate Seminar Cycle (sample)

Second Academic Year
Fall (9hrs cognates, GTAs + colloquia): May be offered from:
RCID 811: Perspectives Info Designs (cognate)
RCID 812: Cultural Critiques of Mechanical Reproductions (cognate) or other
RCID Cognates

Spring (9hrs, GTAs + colloquia):
RCID 880: Applied Experience in Research and Communication (6hrs Studio)
RCID Cognate (take 1 of 3 available)
[Cognates completed. Committee must be established. Draft of dissertation prospectus accomplished in studios.]

Summer:
Open to resources. GTAs teaching will have to be enrolled in a Research seminar.

During the fourth semester, students begin focusing toward a specialization, preparing for their exams and, thereafter, working on their dissertations.