Professional Documents
Culture Documents
SCIENCE +
MEDICINE
ENGLISH 7879 | CHRISTA TESTON
Fall 2016
Wed 12:40-3:40 pm
419 Denney Hall
Seminar Description
Classical and contemporary rhetorical theory offer a set of unique
affordances for the study of scientific and medical practiceincluding, to
name only a few: Methods for theorizing the role of matter, movement, and
time when assessing risk and making plans for future action; a wide range of
heuristics for analyzing how deliberative decision-making unfolds; and key
constructs for attuning to how power, place, and precarity intersects with
disease, disaster, and disability.
Contact Info
Course Meeting
Christa Teston
506 Denney Hall
teston.2@osu.edu
Office Hours
Wednesdays 10-12
& by appointment
Learning Objectives
I hope that by December you will have
improved your writing and practiced generous (i.e. generative) reading,
widened your repertoire in rhetorical theory,
gained facility with mobilizing rhetorical theory for the purpose of
analysis,
begun to imagine what sustainable scholarship in rhetorical studies looks
like, and
practiced composing in genres common to our field (e.g. conference
proposals; analytic frameworks; article manuscripts).
Required Books
Ceccarelli, L. (2013). On the Frontier of Science: An American Rhetoric of
Exploration and Exploitation.
Fountain, T.K. (2014) Rhetoric in the Flesh.
Montoya, M. (2011). Making the Mexican Diabetic.
Segal, J. (2005). Health and the Rhetoric of Medicine.
Tsing, A.L. (2015). The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of
Life in Capitalist Ruins.
Required Technologies
Google Drive account.
Course Policies
On Revision. Dont feel crestfallen when I ask you to revise. I adhere to writing research that
suggests that final drafts are still merely drafts and that our best writing comes from multiple and
iterative revisions. Accept that this is a part of our course (and your life).
Additional Needs. The University strives to make all learning experiences as accessible as possible.
If you anticipate or experience academic barriers based on your disability (including mental health,
chronic or temporary medical conditions), please let me know immediately so that we can privately
discuss options. You are also welcome to register with Student Life Disability Services to establish
reasonable accommodations. After registration, make arrangements with me as soon as possible to
discuss your accommodations so that they may be implemented in a timely fashion. SLDS contact
information: slds@osu.edu; 614-292-3307; slds.osu.edu; 098 Baker Hall, 113 W. 12th Avenue.
Contact Information
Disability Services
614-292-3307
slds@osu.edu
Attendance. I expect you to be in class every day we meet, and to arrive prepared and on time.
Missing class will negatively affect your grade.
Class Cancelations. In the unlikely event of class cancelation due to emergency, I will request a
note be placed on our classrooms door and I will email you. Following the cancelation, I will
contact you via email as soon as possible to let you know what will be expected of you for our next
class meeting.
Academic Misconduct. It is the responsibility of the Committee on Academic Misconduct to
investigate or establish procedures for the investigation of all reported cases of student academic
misconduct. The term academic misconduct includes all forms of student academic misconduct
wherever committed; illustrated by, but not limited to, cases of plagiarism and dishonest practices in
connection with examinations. Instructors shall report all instances of alleged academic misconduct
to the committee (Faculty Rule 3335-5-487). For additional information, see the Code of Student
Conduct (http://studentaffairs.osu.edu/info_for_students/csc.asp).
Deadline
Students choices:
1. _________
2. _________
3. _________
4. _________
Construct paper #1 9/14
Construct paper #2 10/12
Construct paper #3 11/9
Ongoing
Proposal: 9/28
Analytic Framework: 11/2
Full Analysis: 12/12
Class Plan
Rationale. It is tempting to design this course as a survey of relevant scholarship in
medicine and science studies. However, because the course is a rhetoric seminar, Ive chosen
to centralize rhetorical theory by ensuring each week we have readings from scholars whose
work aligns explicitly with rhetorical studies in some way. In almost all cases, their objects
of study are science or medicine. This body of scholarship should provide us with a
common disciplinary language from which to work throughout the semester.
However, because it is still a relatively new field, rhetorical scholarship in science and
(especially) medicine has a lot of gaps. In order to attend more explicitly and responsibly to
the intersectional conditions that bear up and make possible contemporary biomedical
practice, Ive also included what I see as really important scholarship that exists outside the
boundaries of rhetorical studies (e.g. science and technology studies; race and ethnic studies;
womens studies; medicine; anthropology; philosophy; history; queer theory; native studies;
law).
Reading Schedule. Subject to change; DL=discussion leader.
AUGUST 24. ONTOLOGIES + EPISTEMOLOGIES
Rhetorical Studies Scholarship
Barnett & Boyle (2016) Rhetoric Through
Everyday Things intro.
Hartelius (2009) Sustainable Scholarship
and the Rhetoric of Medicine
DL:
Extra-Disciplinary Scholarship
Andrews (2015) Black Feminisms
Minor Empiricism: Hurston,
Combahee, and the Experience of
Evidence
Barad (1998) Getting Real:
Technoscientific Practices and the
Materialization of Reality
DL:
Extra-Disciplinary Scholarship
Harding (1986) The Science Question
in Feminism
Haraway (1988) Situated
Knowledges: The Science Question in
Feminism and Privilege of Partial
Perspective
DL:
Extra-Disciplinary Scholarship
Murphy (2011) Corporeal
Vulnerability and New Humanism
Alaimo (2008) Trans-Corporeal
Feminisms and the Ethical Space of
Nature
DL:
Extra-Disciplinary Scholarship
Greenhalgh & Russell (2006)
Reframing Evidence Synthesis as
Rhetorical Action in the Policy
Making Drama
DL:
Extra-Disciplinary Scholarship
Squier (2008) The Sky is Falling:
Risk, Safety, and the Avian Flu
Mustafa (2011) Pinning Down
Vulnerability: From Narratives to
Numbers
DL:
Extra-Disciplinary Scholarship
Puar (2007) Terrorist Assemblages intro,
ch. 1, conclusion
DL:
Extra-Disciplinary Scholarship
Foucault Abnormal: Lectures at the
Collge de France, 1974-1975, pp. 1-54
DL:
Extra-Disciplinary Scholarship
Berlant (2011) Cruel Optimism, ch. 3
Mbembe (2003) Necropolitics
DL:
Extra-Disciplinary Scholarship
Montoya (2011) Making the Mexican
Diabetic
DL:
Extra-Disciplinary Scholarship
Brown (2015) Being Cellular: Race,
the Inhuman, and the Plasticity of
Life
TallBear (2013) Genomic
Articulations of Indigeneity
DL:
NOVEMBER 9. EXPLOITATION
CONSTRUCT PAPER #3 DUE
Rhetorical Studies Scholarship
Ceccarelli (2013) Intro, Chs. 1, 4, 5,
Conclusion
DL:
Extra-Disciplinary Scholarship
Hikins & Cherwitz (2011) On the
Ontological and Epistemological
Dimensions of Expertise: Why
Reality and Truth Matter and How
We Might Find Them
DL:
Extra-Disciplinary Scholarship
Willey (2016)
Selections from Washingtons (2008)
Medical Apartheid
DL:
Extra-Disciplinary Scholarship
Jasanoff (2003) Technologies of
Humility: Citizen Participation in
Governing Science
Braidotti (2014) Writing as a
Nomadic Subject
Ehlers (2014) The Dialectics of
Vulnerability: Breast Cancer and the
Body in Prognosis
DL:
Extra-Disciplinary Scholarship
Mol, Moser, and Pol (2010) Care:
Putting Practice into Theory in Mol
et al.s Care in Practice
Winance (2010) Care and Disability
in Mol et al.s Care in Practice
DL:
DECEMBER 7. DISASTER
Tsing (2015) Mushroom at the End of the World
DL: Christa
Recommended Reading
Barad, K. (2007). Meeting the Universe Halfway.
Berg, M. 1998. Differences in Medicine: Unraveling Practices, Techniques, and Bodies. Durham, N.C.:
Duke University Press.
Bowker, G., and S. L. Star. 1999. Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences. Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press.
Callon, M., P. Lascoumes, and Y. Barthe. 2009. Acting in an Uncertain World: An Essay on Technical
Democracy. Translated by G. Burchell. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Cartright, L. 1995. Screening the Body: Tracing Medicines Visual Culture. Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press.
Ceccarelli, L. 2001. Shaping Science with Rhetoric: The Cases of Dobzhansky, Schrodinger, and Wilson.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Collins, H., and T. Pinch. 2008. Dr. Golem: How to Think about Medicine. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Derkatch, C. 2016. Bounding Biomedicine: Evidence and Rhetoric in the New Science of Alternative
Medicine. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Fleck, L. (1979). Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact.
Garcia, A. 2010. The Pastoral Clinic: Addiction and Dispossession along the Rio Grande. Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press.
Gieryn, T. F. 1999. Cultural Boundaries of Science: Credibility on the Line. Chicago, IL: University of
Chicago Press.
Grosz, E. 1994. Volatile Bodies: Toward a Corporeal Feminism. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University
Press.
Harding, S. 2006. Science and Social Inequality: Feminist and Postcolonial Issues. Urbana-Champaign, IL:
University of Illinois Press.
Knorr Cetina, K. 2009. Epistemic Cultures: How the Sciences Make Knowledge. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press.
Latour, B. & Woolgar, S. (1986). Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts.
Mol, A. 2002. The Body Multiple: Ontology in Medical Practice. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Mol, A., I. Moser, and J. Pols. 2010. Care in Practice: On Tinkering in Clinics, Homes and Farms.
Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag.
Parthasarathy, S. 2012. Building Genetic Medicine: Breast Cancer, Technology, and the Comparative Politics
of Health Care. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Porter, T. M. 1996. Trust in Numbers: the Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.
Prelli, L. J. 1989. A Rhetoric of Science: Inventing Scientific Discourse. Columbia, SC: University of
South Carolina Press.
Prentice, R. 2012. Bodies in Formation: An Ethnography of Anatomy and Surgery Education. Durham,
NC: Duke University Press.
TallBear, K. 2013. Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science.
Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Teston, C. 2016. Rendering and reifying brain sex science. In S. Barnett & C. Boyle (Eds.), Rhetoric,
Through Everyday Things (42-54). Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press.
Teston, C. 2016. Rhetoric, precarity, and mHealth technologies. Rhetoric Society Quarterly 46(3), 251268.
Teston, C., Graham, S.S., Baldwinson, R., Li, A. & Swift, J. 2014. Definitional multiplicity:
Negotiating clinical benefit in the FDAs Avastin hearing. Journal of Medical Humanities, 35,
149-170.
Teston, C. & Graham, S.S. 2012. Stasis theory and meaningful public participation in
pharmaceutical policy-making. Present Tense: A Journal of Rhetoric and Society, 2(2), 1-8.
Teston, C. 2012. Considering confidentiality in research design: Developing heuristics to chart the
un-chartable. In P. Takayoshi & K. Powell (Eds.) Practicing Research in Writing Studies:
Reflections on Ethically Responsible Research (303-326). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.
Teston, C. 2012. Moving from artifact to action: A grounded investigation of visual displays of
evidence during medical deliberations. Technical Communication Quarterly, 21, 187-209.
Walsh, L. 2013. Scientists as Prophets: A Rhetorical Genealogy. New York, NY: Oxford University
Press.