Communication 6001
Introduction to Graduate Studies in Communication
Fall 2000
Prof. Gil Rodman
Office Hours: Tu, Th 5-6p and by appointment
CIS 3040 // gbrodman@mindspring.com // 813-974-3025
course description and objectives
As its title implies, this course is an introduction to many things, including:
- the field of communication (i.e., communication as a discipline, as the focal point for scholarly work, etc.)
- the department, the faculty, and the ways that our various research and teaching practices relate to the field as a whole
- the pleasures and perils of living the academic life (as a graduate student and beyond)
This course doesn't pretend to be a comprehensive survey of the field (no one semester course could accomplish such a thing anyway) or even of the department (as none of us could adequately sum up everything we do in a handful of readings and a single 90 minute presentation), but it should provide you with enough of a sense of who we are and what we're about to move forward with your graduate program in productive fashion.
required course materials
- Photocopied essays.
There are no books for this course -- only articles. These will be distributed via a photocopying "tree" that we'll set up during our first class meeting.
- Reliable, regular access to the World Wide Web.
We'll conduct a significant amount of course discussion and business online using an instructional software package called "CourseInfo." In theory, the CourseInfo interface should function with any web browser that supports frames, Java, and Javascript. Versions 4.0 or later of Netscape, Internet Explorer, and Opera (my browser of choice) should all work fine -- though it's possible that one or more of these will have minor problems handling certain pages and/or features. AOL's browser (versions 4.0 or later) should also handle CourseInfo properly, but you have to configure it to cope with Java first (if you want/need this information, let me know and I'll send you a copy of Academic Computing's instructions on how to do this).
papers
You will write three papers over the course of the semester, each roughly 2000-2500 words (~8-10 pages) in length. Papers #1 and 2 -- due by October 12 and November 30, respectively -- will focus primarily on the assigned readings and discussions, while the final paper (due December 14) will require you to immerse yourself in (and report on) a scholarly journal relevant to the discipline. Further details re: these assignments will be made available on separate handouts.
CourseInfo Discussion Board participation
The primary purpose of the Discussion Board is to provide an informal space that's always available for discussion of the issues raised by the assigned readings and our class sessions. Prompts intended to spur on the dialogue will be posted as necessary. I expect everyone to participate in these discussions on a more or less regular basis. While there's no hard and fast rule here for what constitutes "enough" participation, if the bulk of your contributions consist of one-line replies to other people's longer messages (e.g., "Well said, Chris. Thanks.") or if more than 7-10 days go by between your posts, you're probably not pulling your weight here.
Additionally, the CourseInfo site may occasionally be used to make important course-related announcements (e.g., "please add everything on the third floor of the USF library to next Thursday's reading") or to pass word on about other topics that may be of interest to the class (e.g., calls for papers, upcoming conferences, recently published articles and books, etc.). So check the site frequently.
grading policy
I'm not a big fan of grades at the graduate level. Presumably, your main reason for being here is that you have a genuine desire to learn something about communication, not whether you can maintain a 4.0 GPA. Assuming you show up for class consistently, participate in our discussions (both in class and online) on a regular basis, and complete the assigned papers in satisfactory fashion, you should get an A. That being said, in cases where people are clearly slacking off, I reserve the right to go deeper into the alphabet when I fill out my final grade sheet (and I've actually done so in the past). Under such unfortunate circumstances, your grade will be calculated as follows:
| Attendance/participation |
15% |
| CourseInfo Discussion Board participation |
15% |
| Paper #1 |
20% |
| Paper #2 |
20% |
| Paper #3 |
30% |
N.B.: As of late August, the schedule below seemed to work for all the guest speakers concerned -- but real life is never as tidy as the syllabus makes it out to be, so the specific speakers and readings listed below are subject to change. Insofar as I have advance notice of such changes, I'll make sure y'all do too.
31 August
7 September
- James Carey, "A Cultural Approach to Communication"
- Meaghan Morris, "Publishing Perils, and How to Survive Them: A Guide for Graduate Students"
- Elizabeth Bell, Kim Golombisky, G'han Singh, and Krista Hirschmann, "To All the Girls I've Loved Before: Academic Love Letters on Mentoring, Power, and Desire"
14 September
guests: Beth Goodier, Elena Strauman
21 September
guest: Carol Jablonski
- Bryant, "Rhetoric: Its Functions and Scope"
- Bitzer, "The Rhetorical Situation"
- Carol Jablonski, "Declining Honors: Dorothy Day's Rhetorical Resistance to the Culture of Heroic Ascent"
28 September
guest: David Payne
- Kenneth Burke, "Rhetoric of Hitler's Battle"
- additional readings t.b.a.
5 October
guests: Ken Cissna, Fred Steier
- Floyd W. Matson and Ashley Montagu, "The Unfinished Revolution"
- Martin Buber, "Elements of the Interhuman"
- Rob Anderson and Kenneth H. Cissna, "Criticism and Conversational Texts: Rhetorical Bases of Role, Audience, and Style in the Buber-Rogers Dialogue"
- Gregory Bateson, "Form, Substance, and Difference"
- Gregory Bateson, "Men Are Grass"
- Frederick Steier, "From Universing to Conversing: An Ecological Constructionist Approach to Learning and Multiple Description"
12 October
Paper #1 due
19 October
guests: Barney Downs, Larry Russell
26 October
guests: Carolyn Ellis, Art Bochner
- Erving Goffman, "Introduction" [from The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life]
- Carolyn Ellis, "‘There Are Survivors': Telling a Story of Sudden Death"
- Michael Pacanowsky, "Slouching Towards Chicago"
- Arthur P. Bochner, "It's About Time: Narrative and the Divided Self"
2 November
guest: Jane Jorgenson
9 November
NO CLASS [NCA]
16 November
guests: Eric Eisenberg, Loyd Pettegrew
- Peter Senge, "Moving Forward: Thinking Strategically About Building Learning Organizations"
- Eric M. Eisenberg, Alexandra Murphy, and Linda Andrews, "Openness and Decision-Making in the Search for a University Provost"
- Eric M. Eisenberg, "Building a Mystery: Toward a New Theory of Communication and Identity"
- additional readings t.b.a.
23 November
NO CLASS [Thanksgiving]
30 November
guests: Mark Neumann, Gil Rodman
Paper #2 due
- Walker Percy, "The Loss of the Creature"
- Mark Neumann and Timothy Simpson, "Smuggled Sound: Bootleg Music and the Pursuit of Popular Memory"
- Lawrence Grossberg, "Cultural Studies: What's in a Name (One More Time)"
- Gilbert B. Rodman, "The Net Effect: The Public's Fear and the Public Sphere"
7 December
guests: Kim Golombisky, Daniel Makagon
- Kim Golombisky, "Ladies' Home Erotica: Reading the Seams Between Home-Making and House Beautiful"
- Daniel Makagon, "A View From the 26th Floor"
14 December
NO CLASS [potluck]
Paper #3 due