Week Three- Classical Literary Criticism

The lecture from Dr. Kevin O’Neill was very interesting.  I found him to be an entertaining speaker.  Clearly he knows his strengths and is an intriguing speaker.  I like that he gave context before he really dove into the Greeks and their ideals on discourse and persuasion and rhetoric.  I noticed that he did throw in some references that the college crowd would clearly understand and relate to (“Is Mark Zuckerberg or Steve Jobs the new Aristotle? Do they control the art of persuasion?”).  Those kind of references seem to be a necessity in reaching out to the crackberry generation.

I feel that this class period also clarified a lot of the terms that were touched on or will probably be used for the rest of the course.  In community college, I took a beginning philosophy course, but all the terminology that I learned went out the window.  

The use of ‘Wall Street’ to analyze rhetoric was a very intriguing exercise.  Within the realm of scenes that are used to persuade to prove a point, Gordon Gecko is a good way to go.   

On that note, I am also impressed that no clip from this movie were used for the rhetoric analysis:

I think that today’s class lecture also gave me some insight into what I want to write my analysis on.  At first I wasn’t sure as to what direction I wanted to go with it, or even how I was supposed to write it.  I think that the discussion of what is sublime and art and catharsis was very clarifying and it definitely gave me more direction for my analysis. Speaking of Sublime, this is EXACTLY how I felt before coming to class today:

Word Count: 286

Works Cited

Moskowitz, Clara. "How to Tell If You Are Addicted to Technology | LiveScience." LiveScience | Science, Technology, Health & Environmental News. TechMediaNetwork, 25 Jan. 2008. Web. 08 Feb. 2011. <http://www.livescience.com/technology/080125-tech-addicts.html>.

O'Neill, Dr. Kevin. "The Origins and Uses of Rhetoric in Classical Athens: Plato, Aristotle,and the Craft of Persuasion." Manzanita 130, CSUN, Northridge. 8 Feb. 2011. Lecture.

"YouTube - ...And Justice for All (1979) Movie Trailer." YouTube. StreamMovieTrailers, 5 Jan. 2010. Web. 08 Feb. 2011. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUH_iu4SLBw>.

"YouTube - Sublime - Burritos." YouTube. Sublimechick571, 10 Oct. 2007. Web. 08 Feb. 2011. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4h2q3OKjRu0>.