Category Archives: English 584 Rhetoric Writing and Identity (Fall 2008)

584: Weekly Position Paper #5: The Future of Typified Bodies and Identities

Posted on September 27, 2008 by Michael

In Chapter 3 of The Ethics of Identity, Kwame Anthony Appiah notes that there are two interrelated questions we should ask regarding identities: “how existing identities should be treated; and what sort of identities there should be” (108). According to … Continue reading →

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educated souls and goth makeup in schools

Posted on September 27, 2008 by Michael

I love coincidence — it’s not “mere” as we would like to think, but instead useful. Just after finishing reading Chapter 5 of Kwame Anthony Appiah’s The Ethics of Identity, in which he devotes space to “Educated Souls” — the … Continue reading →

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Newcomb: “Totalized Compassion” (2007) and responses

Posted on September 19, 2008 by Michael

In “Totalized Compassion: The (Im)Possibilities for Acting out of Compassion in the Rhetoric of Hannah Arendt” (2007), Matthew J. Newcomb works with Hannah Arendt’s dismissal of compassion, “call[ing instead] for a more critical form of compassion” (107). He does so … Continue reading →

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584: Weekly Position Paper #4: Problematizing Empathy

Posted on September 16, 2008 by Michael

In Where We Stand: Class Matters, bell hooks describes various times in her life when she does not want to be understood, or moments when empathy does not do enough. While not a central focus of her book, these are … Continue reading →

Posted in Empathy, English 584 Rhetoric Writing and Identity (Fall 2008), Ethics, Identity and Identification | 6 Comments

Shepard: Teaching “The Renaissance” (1998)

Posted on September 13, 2008 by Michael

Shepard discusses his experiences as a gay son of a Midwestern farmer studying and teaching Renaissance literature. He focuses on the class aspects of the literature, often choosing cultural artifacts over “art,” a distinction he admits is artificial (217). He … Continue reading →

Posted in Class, English 584 Rhetoric Writing and Identity (Fall 2008), Queer issues and theory | Leave a comment