Geographically and historically situate and examine figures, movements, traditions, and productions in rhetoric and public argument.

Examines the role of sophists and sophistry in the development and practice of rhetoric as an art, from antiquity to modern times.

Introduction to kairos, a key concept in rhetorical theory from ancient to modern times, that focuses attention on making a text appropriate for its historical situation. Explores why some writing succeeds at attracting attention and inspiring action, while some writing fails.

Studies the recurrent means of making arguments for and against war, and the role of rhetoric in public deliberation.

Explores theories of rhetoric by examining arguments about group identity, from Athenian discussions of "barbarism" in the fourth century BC to nineteenth-century arguments about citizenship.

A survey of the practice and theory of argumentation, with particular attention to its civic and political uses and implications.

Surveys the works of major rhetorical theorists and practitioners in the Western tradition from the ancient Greeks to the present.

Survey of figures, movements, and debates in the history of rhetoric and exploration of the rise of revisionist historiography and comparative rhetoric in the twenty-first century.

Study of the co-emergence and subsequent split between rhetoric and philosophy in the classical period and their potential reunification in a contemporary context.

Examination of how the art of rhetoric, developed in ancient times by the Greeks and Romans, was understood and debated during the European Renaissance, particularly in England.

A survey of liberal political theory from the late seventeenth through the twentieth centuries with special attention to theories and practices of public argumentation.

An exploration of Marcus Tullius Cicero's writings on rhetoric, his major political speeches, and his philosophical dialogues in the context of the late Roman republic and the Roman Revolution (ca. 133-40 BCE).

Examine how popular rhetorical theories and pedagogies were adapted to fit specific social, cultural, and political contexts and thus shaped the communication practices of girls and women in 19th and early 20th century America. Consider why females were excluded from the rhetorical tradition and the challenges scholars face in writing historical accounts.

Study Augustine's writings on language, rhetoric, and epistemology with attention paid to contemporary Roman and Greek philosophical and rhetorical movements, such as skepticism, Platonic idealism, the second sophistic, and the Christian homiletic tradition.

Examine Latinx social movements and their rhetorical features in the Americas from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries.

Explore the intersection between feminism and rhetoric with emphasis on historical figures.

Examine rhetorics that (re)shape normative and transgressive conceptions of gender, emphasizing their effects on the lives of transgender people

Explore American conservative political tradition with special attention to the 1964 Barry Goldwater presidential campaign.

Examine how health and illness are defined through rhetorics about and within medicine. Focus on race and gender, consider how communication and language shape understandings of health, access to health care, and experiences of illness and disability.

Explore the rhetoric of liberation in the United States in the 1960s, looking in detail at the words and actions of activists in the Civil Rights movement, the anti-war/anti-imperialist movement, Black Power, women's liberation, gay liberation, the Chicano movement/el movimiento, and other noteworthy phenomena of the era.