English 350-192-006
Freshman Seminar: "Talkin' about Terrorism”
Instr:
Mariann Maris
Office:
CRT 592, 229-4152
e-mail:
sarim@uwm.edu
Office hours: by appointment
Course Information:
TR 12:30-1:45 CRT 321
RECOMMENDED TEXTS:
A History of Warfare against Civilians: Why It Has
Failed and Why It Will Fail Again. Caleb Carr
Reading Rhetorically: A Reader for Writers. John C. Bean,
Virginia
Chappell, Alice Gillam
COURSE GOALS:
To enhance our understanding of the meaning/interpretation of words
associated with terrorist acts through reading, inquiry, and discussion
To discover relationships between words and images that define, describe,
and depict terrorism and acts of terrorism
To increase multi-cultural awareness
To think and write critically
To learn how to survive in college
To make new friends
COURSE DESCRIPTION:
This class invites us to think, read, talk, and write about the rhetoric
of terrorism. We will never forget September 11, 2001. Since
then, many speeches, newspaper and magazine articles, and books have dealt
with the topic of terrorism. How we write and talk about terrorism,
how we decide about causes and consequences, who are perpetrators and who
are victims, and how the word “terrorism” is different from, yet connected
to the term “war” will be topics considered in this class. In other
words, in this class, we will explore the language of terrorism.
What are its characteristics? We will examine words and images that are
related to terror in order to understand more about what “talkin’ terrorism”
really means.
