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Thomas Huckin
is Professor of English and Director of the Writing Program at the
University of Utah. His research and teaching interests include Discourse
analysis, technical/business writing, and applied linguistics. Recent
publications include Genre Knowledge in Disciplinary Communication:
Cognition/Culture/Power (1995), Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition:
A Rationale for Pedagogy (1997), "Critical Discourse Analysis
and the Discourse of Condescension" in Discourse Studies in Composition,
2002, "Textual Silences and the Discourse of Homelessness,"
in Discourse & Society 2002, and The New Century Handbook, ( 1999).
Awards and Recognitions Dr. Huckin has received include the 1995-96
Lowell Bennion Public Service Professorship and the 1996 NCTE Best
Book Award in Scientific and Technical Communication.
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Shading the Truth: Understanding
Contemporary Propaganda
Thursday-Monday February
17-21, 2005
University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK
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Propaganda is not just a tool of tyrannical regimes like the
Nazis or the Soviets – it is all around us, to such a
degree that we often do not even recognize it as such. Anthony
Pratkanis and Elliot Aronson assert in The Age of Propaganda,
that we live at a time of ever-increasing mass communication
and mass persuasion. Every day we are bombarded by messages
that play on our biases and emotions, whether in advertisements,
television programs, newspapers, on the Web, or in any other
form of mass media. If propaganda is defined as “the systematic
propagation of a doctrine or cause or of information reflecting
the views and interests of its propagators” (American
Heritage College Dictionary), it’s easy to see that propaganda
is far more commonplace than conventional wisdom would have
us believe.
In this course we examine the nature of propaganda in today’s
world. Although reference will occasionally be made to propaganda
at other times in history, the main emphasis will be on how
it is used today and why it has the effect it does. Our primary
analytical method will be critical discourse analysis (CDA),
which links the study of texts with the study of discursive
practices and the larger sociopolitical context. Of central
interest throughout the course will be ways in which myths,
cultural models, and other ideological constructs are put to
use in the creation of propaganda. The goal of the course is
to elucidate how such ideological manipulation takes place and
thus make you a more discerning reader/listener.
University of Oklahoma undergraduates: This class qualifies
as upper division Gen Ed Western Civilization and Culture credit.
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The Class Reading List: (These books and articles supplied
by OSLEP)
*Age of
Propaganda, 2nd ed., by A. Pratkanis & E. Aronson,
W.H.
* Oil, Power & Empire: Iraq and the U.S. Global Agenda.
By L. Everest, Common Courage Press, 2004
* Don’t Think of an Elephant by G. Lakoff,
University of Chicago Press, 2004
* 1984 by G. Orwell
* Superpatriotism by Michael Parenti, 2004.
Recommended:
Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age
of Show Business by Neil Postman, 1985.
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