SPRING 2007
036:176 ADVANCED RELATIONAL THEORY:
RELATIONAL RHETORICS AND
EPISTEMOLOGIES
Class Instructor: Steve Duck, Daniel and Amy Starch Distinguished Research Chair http://myweb.uiowa.edu/blastd
Class
meets: 1.05-2.20 Tu and Th in 201 BCSB
Office
hours: 11.30-1.00 Tu and Th in 151 BCSB or by arrangement
Instructor
contacts: 335-0579 or steve-duck@uiowa.edu
Department
Office is 105-BCSB; DEO Kristine Fitch, 105B-BCSB Phone 353-2264 kristine-fitch@uiowa.edu
For each semester hour credit in this course, students should
expect to spend two hours per week preparing for class sessions (This is a
three-credit-hour course, and so standard out-of-class preparation per week is
six hours).
Collegiate Policies: This course is given by the
Students with Disabilities: Reasonable accommodations will be made for anyone
with a disability that may require some modification of seating, testing, or
other class requirements. Students must contact Student Disability Services
(3101 Burge Hall, 335-1462) and obtain a Student Academic Accommodation Request
form (
COURSE DESCRIPTION AND OBJECTIVES
This course is based on the premise that relationships are
far more than emotional attachments or bonds.
They are not merely happy, emotionally satisfying elements of our lives
but they significantly shape our experiences of the world and contribute to our
senses of identity, our outlook on life, and even the way in which we think
about experiences and life in general.
The course deals with such questions as “How do people know their
world?”, “How much of what we know is individual knowledge and how much comes
from groups and our personal relationships to other people?” and “How does
membership of relationships structure our experience, affect our ranges of
knowledge, and organize our daily lives?”.
The course introduces a variety of communicative situations
by means of which individuals establish, reconstitute, and demonstrate their
membership of communities and relationships.
However, the course will develop the idea that these relational
activities serve epistemic
functions, which is to say that they construct, constrain, or facilitate means
through which a person knows and experiences the world. Relationships are more than satisfying
reliable alliances with others; rather they are communicative loci where the
person's knowledge of life is shaped, formed, and interpreted. Thus relationships are both an influence on
our ways of thinking and also are places where we sculpt our identity and learn
or modify our worth to others.
Course Objectives:
(1) To gain basic knowledge of advanced theoretical concepts
in relational communication research, in relation to epistemic and rhetorical
functions of relational communication.
(2) To develop the ability to analyze a variety of
relational theories through application of relevant research concepts and everyday
life examples.
(3) To develop an understanding of the role of
relationships in the broader activities of communication in a variety of
settings.
Dragon, W. & Duck, S. W. (2005) Understanding research in personal
relationships: A text with readings. SAGE:
A brief reading package will also be available.
For advanced enthusiasts a number of other original sources
may also prove useful or interesting but are not required. Graduate students taking this bridge course
will be assigned advanced supplementary
reading each week.
Davis, M. S. (1983). SMUT: Erotic
reality/obscene ideology.
Duck,
S. W. (2007). Human Relationships 4th
Edition. London, SAGE Publications Ltd.
Milardo, R. M. and B. Wellman (1992). “The
personal is social.” Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 9:
339-42. (And the rest of the Special Issue of that Journal where it appeared)
Stone, L. (1990) The family, sex and
marriage in
Course requirements and
grading
Course grades will be assigned on the basis of points
accumulated throughout the semester. I
do not curve the scores: what you earn is what you get. Standard point cutoffs will be used to
determine final course grades: A = 90% or above; B = 80% - 89%; C = 70% -79%; D
= 60 % - 69%; F = 59% and below. I will use + and - grades for scores that are
within 3 points near these cutoff values. A maximum of 100 points is possible.
Point accumulation will be as follows:
Essay
assignments due Feb. 20th and April 5th 30
points each
Class
presentation due April 17 thru May 3* 20
points. [The rest of the class will
award Class presentation
points]
Short
Note assignments due Jan 30th and March 27th 10 points each
*Graduate students in the class will complete an additional
essay assignment, research project or lecture in lieu of presentation and this
work will be due on the last day of class.
Assignments:
1. Essays: Two
essay assignments will be given. The objective in these essays is to apply
class material, whether it be readings, films, or other materials of your own,
to a couple of theoretical questions listed later here.
2. Class
presentation: You will work on a project, either alone or
in a small group, and present the results to the class at the end of
semester. Class members will grade the
presentation for a) difficulty; b) quality of preparation; c) quality of
presentation, and the resulting points will be calculated into each person's
final grade. In the case of group
presentations, all members of each group will assess the contributions that
their group members make to the final product and will give those comments to
me privately. The results of this
assessment will be used to weight the points awarded by the rest of the class
when the presentation is delivered.
3. Short Note
assignments: Two short note
assignments, described more fully below,
will be given and you will comment specifically about positive and
negative relationships that you have, in light of course reading and lecture
notes.
Students’ Rights and
Responsibilities:
Your responsibilities to this class
-- and to your education as a whole -- include attendance and participation.
You are also expected to be honest and honorable in your fulfillment of
assignments and in test-taking situations (the College's policy on plagiarism
and cheating is on-line in the College's Student Academic Handbook, at http://www.clas.uiowa.edu/students/academic_handbook/).
You have a responsibility to the rest of the class-and to the instructor-to
help create a classroom environment where all may learn. At the most basic
level, this means that you will respect the other members of the class and the
instructor, and treat them with the courtesy you hope to receive in turn. Specific rights and responsibilities include
the following:
1. All recording of class notes and the timely completions
of assignments are the responsibility of the student.
2. Group presentations are due on the day that will be
arranged for each group. No assignments
will be accepted after the class period for which it was assigned, and a zero
score will be entered for all missed assignments.
3. If you are registered with the Office of Student
Disability Services (3101 Burge Hall, 335-1462) and need to make special
arrangements for any of the assignments or need special seating or other
adjustments, please see me as soon in the semester as possible.
4. All students in the College have specific rights and
responsibilities. You have the right to adjudication of any complaints you have
about classroom activities or instructor actions. Information is available in
the College's Student Academic Handbook (http://www.clas.uiowa.edu/students/academic_handbook/).
You also have the right to expect a classroom environment that enables you to
learn, including modifications if you have a disability. If you are
dissatisfied with any aspects of the course please discuss them with me. If,
after we have talked, you feel that your concerns have not been adequately
addressed, then contact Kristine Fitch , the Department Executive Officer, in
BCSB-105 (353-2255 or 353-2264). If, after meeting with the DEO, you still
believe that your grievance has not been handled in a satisfactory manner you
should contact the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in 120 Schaeffer Hall.
5. If you have questions about a grade you receive, please
express those concerns in writing. The written appeal should provide your
reasons for why the grade is too high/low. After I have reviewed your appeal
and your work, we will meet to discuss your concerns.
Academic Fraud,
Dishonesty, and Cheating
The
If you are unclear about the proper use and citation of
sources, or the details and guidelines for any assignment, you should discuss
the assignment and your questions with me. All forms of plagiarism and any
other activities that result in a student presenting work that is not really
his or her own are considered academic fraud. Academic fraud includes these and
other misrepresentations:
Cheating
on assignments and other work also interferes with your own education as well
as the education of others in your classes. If you are unclear about the
guidelines for any assignment, you should discuss your questions with me.
Academic cheating includes all of the following, and any other activities that
give a student an unfair advantage in course work:
I am fully aware that there is a growing problem of misuse
of electronic data sources and devices; a large number of free and for-profit
sites offer term papers and techniques for cheating. You should be aware that
the University is licensed to use of the "Turn-It-In"
plagiarism-detection service and that I have access to other resources for
identifying electronic sources.
Grade
posting policy
In order to comply most easily with the legal requirements of FERPA (Family Education Rights and Privacy Act), I will NOT be posting individually identifiable grades at any time during this course nor will I release them over email. If you wish to obtain your grade in advance of its official release by the Registrar’s Office then you may come to see me during office hours. Don’t blame me. This is your Government in action.
Reminders, warnings and
advice
You are all responsible adults who do not need me to be
your parent and chase you up to do your work.
I am here to educate you (from the Latin, meaning “to draw out” [your
potential]) and it is my job to help you to learn, if you wish to do so.
Attendance at lectures is expected. If you attend classes then you will learn
more than if you don’t. I do not
formally check attendance (though I have an exceptional memory for faces and
names) because it is up to you, not me, whether you fulfill your responsibility
to attend class or not. Class
assignments will require you to include material covered only in lectures in class.
I do not post lecture notes on the Web nor do I use ICON for this
course, so you can get the lecture material ONLY by coming to the
lectures. This is a pedagogical choice
appropriate for an advanced level course, because I want this to be an
interactive course and one where lectures are responsive to issues raised by
students at the time. This means, in
effect, that if you were there you will know what was covered; if you weren’t
there, you won’t. It’s your choice and
the consequences are yours.
Class participation is up to you and is expected. If you have questions or answers and want to
have them discussed then please feel free to offer them. If you just want to sit there, that’s fine with
me, though I will learn your name and will ask people for their opinions about
reading material or aspects of lectures during the classes. You won't get credit for participating and
you won't get penalized for not participating, because voluntary participation
is part of education, not something extra that is worthy of extra reward. You participate, you learn; you don’t, you
don’t. It’s up to you.
Deadlines are
meaningful. If you miss them then you will not score as
well as if you meet them. In the real
world when you leave here if you are repeatedly late with a report for your
boss, you will be fired. Your boss will not care how much work you put into the
project nor how good YOU think it is nor how much you need to be
rewarded for it. If you are late, you
are late. If it is no good, it is no
good, however much you want to argue the point.
Working hard is not a guarantee of a good grade but it is probably a
necessary condition for one. That’s
life.
I do not change grades because people come to tell me they
worked hard, nor because they think that they really deserved a higher grade or
that they need a higher grade to graduate.
I grade what you give me, using my 30 years of expertise as a teacher,
and I grade it on quality and evidence of learning and relevance to the course,
not on your effort alone nor on your need.
That, again, is life in the real world of adulthood that you have
already entered.
Tues. Jan 16th Course introduction: Relationships and communicating
as ways of seeing or knowing
We often treat “communication” as obvious, self-evident, use of words or nonverbal signaling and “relationships” as things we are “in”. By contrast, this course focuses on the non-obvious forms of communication that occur in patterns of relating to other people (for example, the physical limits on the embodiment of relational forms, the effects of low power in a relationship upon the things that we are allowed to know). The ways in which we interact with others convey and communicate messages about many different aspects of life, all connected to our ways of creating and understanding the structures of social experience. Basic notions of such understandings and assumptions are introduced in this lecture.
Thurs Jan 18th Theories of relating and knowing: What has
Personality got to do with it?
Although we may perhaps understand “personality” as the way a person is, this course proposes that personality is a way in which people understand their circumstances and respond to that understanding. Taking the point of view of Attachment Theory (a theory that presumes that later patterns of relationships are based on the sort of relationship formed with early love figures) this lecture proposes the view that personality is a form of knowledge of other people. Hence personality influences our ways of dealing with others, communicating with them, and understanding social situations.
Tues Jan 23rd
Reasons for relating: The seven provisions
of relationships
Traditional theories of the basis of relationships assume that relationships are based on attraction to others, similarity and personal and human needs. This lecture takes some of those understandings, based on Weiss’ Provisions of Relationships, and exposes the underlying importance of communication in satisfying interpersonal needs but also in creating membership and hence a sense of identity that is central to our understanding of the world.
Week’s Reading Dragon Ch 2 [Attraction]
in RP [Grads also read Weiss in Grad packet]
Thurs 25th
No Class Meeting as such so that you can do the following assignments
1)
List all your important
relationships (you decide what “important” means); classify them into groups
that make sense to you
2)
Find a newspaper
clipping, magazine article or other media (song, TV, Ad …) that shows how
relationships shape our understanding of the world and experience in it.
3)
Identify 3 key
differences between the Byrne reading in Dragon & Duck and the
Communication in Everyday Life reading from week 1 and write a brief report (1
page) on one of your important relationships based on these ideas.
4)
Be ready to hand in
the above at class next time (Tues Jan 30th).
Tues Jan 30th Communication and relating
A fundamental human tendency is to talk, and moreover to talk about oneself. People in close relationships evolve their own ways of talking about themselves in their relationship and often adopt communication patterns that are unique to their particular relationship. This lecture explores the ways in which relational communication channels our thoughts and hence our understanding of the outside world through our inner discourse. NOTES FROM THE ASSIGNMENT LAST WEEK ARE DUE AT THIS CLASS.
Thurs. Feb. 1st Everyday rhetorics and relationships
This lecture looks at the ways in which relationships create a symbolic form and structure through which we can perform certain sorts of social tasks, for example persuasion. We will also consider some ways in which relationships are offered to the outside world as symbolic and persuasive or ritual forms of reinforcement of social order (for example, we will examine the wedding ceremony and look at the rhetorical forms which it highlights and the symbolisms of social structures which it communicates).
Tues Feb. 6th
George Herbert Mead and the bodily materiality of relating
George Herbert Mead emphasized the materiality of knowledge, that is to say the ways in which our physical and material circumstances influence our ways of understanding things. This class will explore the material side of relating and the ways in which, for example, forms of relationship differ between the young and the very old, the sick and the well, those who have easy access to one another and those living in Long-Distance Relationships. How (and why?) do these material differences affect our senses of self, of relationship, of our satisfaction with life, and our communication patterns?
Thurs. Feb. 8th
Identity as a consequence of the physical and spatial materiality of life
How is the ability to conduct relationships affected by physical aspects of self, such as Physical Attractiveness or physical illness (especially chronic illness or disability) and how does that material restraint affect a person’s styles of communication, sense of self, and ability to be a member of the social community? We will also briefly consider the relationship patterns of physically attractive people and consider the role of physical appearance in the accessibility of relationship forms and styles.
Tues. Feb. 13th:
Use of symbols of relating
Tomorrow is St Valentine’s Day, so this lecture will deal with some of the communicative forms of relationship such as symbols of connectedness, “tie-signs” (e.g., wedding bands), patterns of communication that suggest competing loyalties in relationships, and the redistribution of time during the building up of new relationships.
Thurs. Feb. 15th: Love and the double
sexual standard as ways of knowing
It is all too easy and simple to see love as an emotion
that we just feel the way it is, but in fact love is experienced in some
different ways by men and by women, indicating that even this is a relational
way of knowing. This lecture will
explore those things and consider also the existence of sexual double standards
as ways of knowing and being in the world.
Some recent work on “hook-ups” will also be considered.
Next TWO weeks’ reading Dragon Chapter 3 (Love) and Chapter 4 (Sex) [Grads also read Duck & VanderVoort 2002; Baxter, Mazanec et al; VanderVoort & Duck, 2004; Paul 2006]
Tues Feb 20th
Class will not meet
Feb 20th as such
and you are assigned to complete the essay due today
Assignment Essay One is due at the latest by 5.00PM,
delivered to my office BCSB 151 or to the Main Office, BCSB 105 or sent as an
email attachment to steve-duck@uiowa.edu. (Essays sent via email will be returned via
email ) Essays may be submitted early.
Essay topic: In what ways are relationships
NOT about “Emotion”? Take any relationship
that is important to you and – with reference to the material covered in the
lectures and the readings that you have done – indicate ways in which you can
reformulate or have reconsidered its meaning, performance or status. The more theory-based your answer the more
points you will get. The number of pages
you write is up to you but more than 7 is overenthusiastic.
Thurs Feb. 22nd
Involuntary relationships at work and home
Not all relationships are with people with whom we choose to associate: indeed in many cases we have little or no choice but to interact with them whether we wish to or no (teachers and classmates, In-laws, friends of friends, neighbors, for example). At more extreme locations are such relationships as those between prisoners and guards. This lecture will explore the implications of such relationships and will examine ways in which these relationships are regulated informally and as ways of enacting knowledge.
Tues. Feb 27th Ritual symbols in relationships
Many behaviors and forms of communication in relationships are based on the celebration of the relationship itself. This class will examine the importance of family rituals and rituals of gift giving in the maintenance and structuring of relationships. The role of religious forms in representing relational forms is also considered (for example the Tudor belief that the family was a microcosm of the order of the World’s relationship to God).
Thurs Mar 1st Sense and sexuality: The relationship between
sexual activity and knowledge of the world
Curiously, society chooses to regulate the public enactment of sexual behaviors. The reasoning often offered for this is that it would break down the structure of society if such regulation were not carried out. This class will explore the relationship between “private behaviors” and “public structure”, examining the ways in which sexual behavior is represented as a way of knowing the world and therefore as something in which society at large has an interest.
Tues. Mar 6th
Stories as symbols: The narrative and the epistemic in stories of breakdown
Most couples have a story about the way in which they met, and the form of those stories itself communicates to other people the key elements of their relationship as well as the basis for that relationship (love, friendship, support, common fate, and many other “reasons”). When people tell stories about their relationship they are also communicating something about the nature of the relationship and its structure. During the reporting of the breakdown of a relationship, people restructure their narratives in order to communicate something about the reasons for the breakdown and their sense of loss. We will look at these complex, but interestingly informative, issues.
Thurs Mar 8th
Relational Rhetorical Terms (RRTs) and persuasion/education/knowledge
acquisition
In some communication the “who” is as important as the “what”. Our relationships to specific other people structure our reactions to and performance of various social tasks. For example we are more likely to be persuaded by a friend than by a stranger to do something inconvenient. Also the fear of being gossiped about is a persuasive social experience and one that moderates behaviors. How do relationships communicate a sense of the propriety of certain behaviors and why?
March 13th
and 15th Spring Break
Conduct your own fieldwork/beachwork on relationships.
Tuesday Mar 20th
and Thursday Mar 22nd are set aside from lectures so that you can
prepare your coming assignments
On Tuesday groups
should meet for the class time in order to plan their presentations and begin
work on these
On Thursday prepare
your second note assignment as follows: SKIM Dragon chapters 8 [Jealousy], 9
[Conflict],10 [Disturbance], 11 [Loneliness].
Read these for some basic understanding but do not get too hung up on
the details of the studies.
1)
List all your
important negative relationships (you decide what “important” means and what is
negative about them); classify them into groups that make sense to you
2)
Find a newspaper
clipping, magazine article or other media (song, TV, Ad …) that shows how
negativity in relationships shapes our understanding of the world and
experience in it.
3)
Identify 3 key
differences between the last two week’s reading in Dragon & Duck and the
Communication in Everyday Life reading from week 1 and write a brief report (1
page) on one of your important negative relationships.
4)
Hand in the above at
the next class (27th March)
Tues. Mar 27th Wealth, place and the structure of social
experience
The
notion that close relationships are private enclaves away from the sight of
others has already been challenged earlier in the semester, but the notions
that relationships should be “intimate” and that they are based on privacy are
also relatively modern. Until only some
200 years ago, people conducted all of their lives in the gaze of other folks
and had virtually no privacy, as we understand the term today. Furthermore, they often believed that
relationships were based on loyalty rather than liking. Also, poverty changes one’s access to places
for conducting relationships, which necessarily occur in more public and open
places, since one lacks the resources to seclude oneself in a big mansion or
private grounds. This class will
consider the restrictions on communication that are imposed by access to
“place”. SECOND NOTE ASSIGNMENT DUE TO BE HANDED IN AT
CLASS
Thurs Mar 29th
Interconnectedness and embedding
We have already seen that we live our lives not only in dyadic pairings but also as members of larger networks of association. Such networks can be supportive in times of need and are resources for advice and guidance, but also impose demands on us to respond to others’ needs. In these cases the link between the epistemic (how we know the world or think about particular issues) and our membership of personal relationship is quite direct: our associations influence our beliefs.
Tues April 3rd
: Membership and membering:
Relational contracts in business
The corporate world, into which many of you will depart in the future, has a growing interest in the forms of relationships. Some companies are trying extra-hard to establish “friendly” relationships with customers and some are going even further to try and treat customers as friends. We will look at some of the research on these issues and consider how the circumstances of consumption communicate something about the brand and the product to would-be consumers.
Thurs. April 5th Talking and maintenance
We maintain relationships in all sorts of ways, some ritual
(“We always call each other at noon”) and some unconscious (routines of daily
life can structure our behavior). Even
politeness is both a relationship and a way of knowing (… one’s place, for
example). We will look at the ways in
which maintenance of relationships is a manner of conduct and simultaneously a
way of understanding the world.
Assignment Essay Two is due at the latest by 5.00PM,
delivered to my office BCSB 151 or to the Main Office, BCSB 105 or sent as an
email attachment to steve-duck@uiowa.edu. (Essays sent via email will be returned via
email ) Essays may be submitted early.
Essay topic: How do material
circumstances and communication within material constraints influence
relational processes?
Tues April 10th Language, power, inclusion and exclusion
We are going to look at relationships of power, not just in terms of how they are executed but also in terms of the implications for knowledge. Relationships of power affect not only how you talk with others but how you feel about them, what you get to know and what you are permitted to do or know. Included in this class are slavery and “performance” of masculine and feminine, as done in particular physical settings. But we will go wider than that and explore some of your own experiences.
Thurs. April
12th Talking about life: Intermedia, Internet and TV
In this (post) modern age, one of the omnipresent influences on life is TV and other media/small media and technology as relationship boundary smudgers. Programming on TV can affect our relational lives in a number of ways: for one thing TV presents us with examples of the ways in which relationships can be conducted; for another, the scheduling of TV programs can affect our social life (“Not tonight, Josephine, I am going to watch my favorite TV show”); for another the shared experience of watching TV together can bring people together; finally the discussion of (and reference to) TV programs forms a large part of our social activity and we are expected to know things about TV programs as we move about the world. We’ll talk about the influences of TV and other media on relationships and vice versa.
Tues April 17th
through May 3rd
Presentations by class members
Presentation assignments: Present a talk that relates this course to some other area in which you have an interest. For example (but do not feel restricted to this list of ideas) how would you now reconceptualize relationships in business organizations? What relationships are there between different companies in business or between businesses and their clients or potential clients? How should social workers rethink issues of child abuse or family relationships? What are the Public Relations implications of this course? How should teachers modify their work on the basis of this course? What can organizational consultants take from this course?