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Program in Rhetoric and Public Culture
This interdisciplinary program of study addresses foundational problems in both the practice of democracy and the conduct of inquiry. “Rhetoric” refers to systematic study of how texts, images, and other media operate as a mode of action. It comprises a civic art, a hermeneutical method, and a continuing challenge to all systems of classification. Historically, this study has ranged from reflection on the practice of public address within the first democratic societies, to a tradition of technical craft and instruction in civic, clerical, and literary composition, to a general theory of the discursive constitution of knowledge and power. Because of the scope of the linguistic turn in the human sciences during the 20th century, “rhetoric” also provides a pertinent basis for reflection on the discursive and organizational conventions of contemporary scholarship. Such reflection is becoming increasingly necessary as scholarship and democracy alike adapt to new communication technologies and related elements of globalization defining the 21st century.
“Public Culture” delineates a fundamental feature of modern civil society. Three basic assumptions guide scholarly study of public culture: First, publics emerge through the interplay of a wide range of arts, media, and other modes of performance. Second, public identity involves specific habits of audience response and social interaction that have contingent relationships to other forms of power. Third, public agency operates through both political institutions and other communicative practices that are more vernacular, nomadic, or transitory. Because they are at once distinctively modern, inherently pluralistic, and inevitably contested, public cultures have become vital political forms in an increasingly interconnected world.
Thus, “rhetoric and public culture” denotes study of the communicative practices by which public culture is created, sustained, modified, and challenged. The program welcomes scholars who wish to be both attentive to rhetoric and engaged with important intellectual and political discourses that cross the disciplines and other institutional boundaries.
Program Structure:
The program in Rhetoric and Public Culture offers two tracks for graduate study: a program of study toward a Ph.D. in communication studies, and an affiliate program for students preparing for a degree in another discipline. All classes and other academic events in the program are open to students in both tracks.
(A) Ph.D. Program: Students must be admitted through the Graduate School and observe all Graduate School requirements for maintaining normal progress and completing the degree. Scholarly training and inquiry in the program is distributed across five areas: (1) A core set of six seminars to be taken in the first two years of study. (2) An individual plan of study comprised of courses offered by faculty within the program and additional courses as needed. (3) Preparation for written and oral exams. (4) A dissertation seminar with other students in the program at that level of progress, facilitated by program faculty. (5) Conferences, seminars, workshops, and public forums.
(B) Affiliate Program: Students from other departments are admitted to the program directly by vote of the faculty. Coursework consists of four seminars: Rhetoric as an Intellectual Tradition, History of Public Discourse, one other core seminar offered by program faculty, and any other seminar offered in the program. Students also are expected to participate in program conferences and other events. Students may elect to participate at the appropriate time in the dissertation seminar.
Areas of Study:
1. Core seminars establish the context, objects, themes, problems, and methods defining the program, with special attention to leading examples of historical movements and contemporary problems.
A. Rhetoric as an Intellectual Tradition: study of the major historical phases and theoretical questions constituting rhetoric as a tradition of erudition. The course will address foundational problems, alternative histories, and recent developments in rhetorical study. Emphasis is placed on canonical texts and theoretical problems with regard to classical, modern, and postmodern contexts.
B. History of Public Discourse: study of the development of public address in respect to major periods of modern political history. The course will cover key features of the production, circulation, and reception of the texts, events, and related civic practices that define public life. Topics include institutional debates and social movements, elite and vernacular discourses, and political argument and other instantiations of civic performance.
C. Textual Analysis: study of the hermeneutical issues and methods for explicating public discourse. Emphasis will be on selecting and creating objects of study, coordinating the analysis of discursive forms with the special predicaments and functions of publicity, and responding to the demands of reflexive criticism.
D. Cultural and Critical Theory: study of key theoretical developments regarding cultural forms, media, and institutions in respect to critical reflection on modernity. Emphasis will be on major programs in 19th and 20th century European social thought and their contemporary extensions. [This course is offered through the Program in Critical Theory.]
E. Media and Democratic Practices: study of a series of specific cases to identify and explain key relationships among media, culture, and democracy in the 21st century. Topics include print versus other media, publics and counterpublics, spectatorship and citizenship, and culture industries and audiences.
F. Publics in a Global Context: study of specific articulations of public culture as they are developing within the context of globalization. Emphasis is placed on detailed analysis and comparative study of situated texts, events, practices, or movements in a variety of national and demographic locales, as well as cross-cultural and trans-national dynamics of globalization.
2. Additional courses: Each degree-track student will develop, in consultation with an advisor and the consent of the program faculty, a plan of curricular study to maintain normal progress toward completion of a Ph.D. It is assumed that many of the courses will be in the home department but that others will include offerings by program faculty and other faculty that contribute to the student’s scholarly development.
3. Additional requirements: Students without an M.A. or equivalent degree must complete either a Master’s thesis or written exam en route to the Ph.D. Requirements for the Ph.D. include successful completion of a dissertation prospectus, written exam, preliminary oral exam, dissertation, and final oral exam. Exams are administered by the advisor in consultation with other faculty; for the Ph.D. exam, those faculty are from the student’s dissertation committee. Students are responsible for timely completion of the degree according to University, School, Department, and Program rules, procedures, and deadlines, and should review the written regulations of the Graduate School and the School of Communication regarding these and any other pertinent requirements.
4. Dissertation Seminar: Students who are completing their dissertations will meet periodically to discuss draft chapters, as facilitated by program faculty. Discussion will focus on the conceptual, theoretical, and rhetorical dimensions of the work in order to encourage critical reflection and revision.
5. Additional programming, which is provided by the program, allied departments, and University centers, includes:
Additional information:
The required number of all courses (core seminars, additional seminars, any directed independent study, and dissertation seminar) typically is twenty-seven quarter courses for students entering with a B.A. and eighteen for students entering with a M.A. Students typically take three courses per quarter for a total of nine per academic year.
Seminar study is supplemented by frequent conferences and summer workshops, such as recent institutes on Multiple Modernities, Dissenting Rhetorics, the Visual Citizen, and Deliberation and Difference. The program also enjoys Northwestern University’s rich intellectual environment of public lectures, workshops, and conferences.
Students have the opportunity to pursue interdisciplinary opportunities through The Graduate School Interdisciplinary Cluster Initiative. Visit http://www.tgs.northwestern.edu/academics/interdisciplinary/ for more information about the different areas of study and their activities.
Students receive twelve-month funding for four years and other support as well, with teaching obligations in the second and third years. Northwestern’s location offers excellent access to the Chicago urban scene.
Program Faculty:
Kate Baldwin, Program in American Studies
Brian Edwards, Department of English
Dilip Gaonkar, Department of Communication Studies
Robert Hariman, Department of Communication Studies
Patrick Johnson, Department of Performance Studies
Gary Saul Morson, Department of Slavic Languages
Helmut Mueller-Seivers, Department of German
Angela Ray, Department of Communication Studies
Irving Rein, Department of Communication Studies
Keith Topper, Department of Communication Studies
David Zarefsky, Department of Communication Studies
Joint Faculty:
Ernesto Laclau, University Professor of the Humanities and Rhetorical Studies
Dwight A. McBride, Leon Forrest Professor of African American Studies. Departments of African American Studies and English
Benjamin I. Page, Gordon S. Fulcher Professor of Decision Making, Department of Political Science
Charles Taylor, Board of Trustees Professor of Law and Philosophy
Contact information: Kate Baldwin
Master's Requirements
PhD Requirements
- For information about the Rhetoric area, contact Kate Baldwin.
- For information about the application process, contact Ms. Karen Kelly.
