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English 301: Themes and Topics - Coggle Diagram
English 301: Themes and Topics
Appeals to Organized Cognition
Understanding the Mind
Leslie Jamison, “The Empathy Exams”
Discusses emotions as a foil for truth and understanding of the self
Lili Loofbourow, “The Male Glance”
Seeks to understand the mind and how it interacts with issues of gender biases in media
Morrison, “Preface” and “Romancing the Shadow,” in Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination
Analysis of thinking and imagination and how it can affect the mind and perceptions of thinking
Francis Bacon, “Of Truth”
Analyzes the truth and how it interacts with the free minded thinker
François Rabelais, prologue to Gargantua
Understands the mind may not always take seriously what must be taken seriously, and that there are different ways to experience and understand things
Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility”
Art is freely interpreted by the mind, and this leads to many different facets of understanding
Understanding the World
Literally
Williams, “Medium,” “Mediation”
Discusses how different forms of media alter how the reader understand and interacts with it
Raymond Williams, “Advertising: The Magic System”
Discusses how advertising is used in media to affect how people interact with the world
Stuart Hall, “Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse”
Analyzes how the world encodes information, and how operations decode it for use.
Kenneth Burke, “Persuasion,” “Identification,” “Other Variants of the Rhetorical Motive,”“Formal Appeal,” “Rhetorical Form in the Large,” and “Imagination” in A Rhetoric of Motives
Analyzes rhetorical forms and how they are used to write
Marianne Constable, “How to Do Things with Law,” in Our Word is Our Bond
Analysis of the world as existing through laws, and how this affects the world
Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin, excerpt from Remediation: Understanding New Media
Understanding how media can be refreshed or interpreted differently in different forms
John Donne, excerpt from Devotions
Appeals to emotions to strongly lament the reality of the world for mankind
Figuratively
Susan Sontag, excerpt from AIDS and Its Metaphors
Analyzes metaphors as an aid for conveying figurative ideas about aspects of the world
Marie de Gournay, “Ladies’ Complaint”
Seeks to show understanding of the world through the eyes of a different gender's perception of the world
Understanding the Metaphysical
Franz Kafka, “Before the Law”
Shows and understanding of the metaphysical world, the world after death or before it, and discusses the consequences of this
Michel de Montaigne, “To the Reader,” “Of the Art of Discussion,” “Of Liars”
Demonstrates organized understanding of conveying speech
Erasmus, excerpt from “On Copia”
Analyzes how the different forms of speech can change or be maintained
Appeals to Human Biases
Appeals to Race
Shakespeare, Othello
Kim F. Hall, “Othello and the Problem of Blackness”
Analyzes Othello as a type of artificial racial discourse
Toni Morrison, Desdemona
Divergent of the concepts of Race in Othello, and expands upon the impact of Gender on characters
Othello as an analysis of race in media, and the impacts of perceived perceptions and emotions
Toni Morrison, “Recitatif”
Race as a significant influence in interpersonal interaction
Lisa Delpit, “No Kinda Sense”
Code-switching as a significant impact of race
Appeals to Gender
Gayle Salamon, “Introduction,” “Comportment,” and “Movement” in The Life and Death of Latisha King: A Critical Phenomenology of Transphobia
Gender as a form of self expression, self understanding, and identity
Appeals to Emotion
Appeals to Memory
Merrill “Farewell Performance”
This poem is exceptionally poignant, and keenly relates to the first hand memories of the author to create emotions in the reader.
Merrill “Christmas Tree”
Nearly everyone has seen media depicting Christmas trees and Christmas, and it brings to mind emotions relating to memories from that time of year.
Merrill, “Key West Aquarium: The Sawfish,”
This text appeals to the emotions of the reader through memory. Many readers can relate to going to an aquarium and pondering the fish that live in vastly different circumstances, that have existed in some form before humans. It brings to mind existentialism and pondering.
Aphra Behn, “The Willing Mistriss”
The text describes moments between two people, that can create similar emotions in those people who have experienced similar things, while also relating to the intimacy between the sexes
Chris Ofili, Othello (etchings)
Visually appeals to emotions carried out through the play of Othello
James Merrill, “b o d y”
Appeals solely to Emotion as an introduction to poetry
Andrew Marvell, “To His Coy Mistress”
Strongly appeals to emotions that cause a visceral reaction in the reader from dramatic imagery