Tue. 10/29 Ivor Beddoes, “Episode V Storyboards: Battle on Hoth, Degobah, & Cloud City” & Imaginary Worlds Podcast, “The Expanded Universe”

(NOTE: The Imaginary Worlds Podcast is no longer freely available online, so this isn’t required listening; however, if you have access to Stitcher or Spotify Premium, then you may want to give them a listen)

Thurs. 10/31      Project Pitches (4-minutes)

Abstract Due

“A rhetorician,” writes Kenneth Burke, “is like one voice in a dialogue. Put several such voices together, with each voicing its own special assertion, let them act upon one another in co-operative competition, and you get a dialectic that, properly developed, can lead to views transcending the limitations of each” (“Rhetoric—Old and New”). To achieve such transcendence, one must (in the words of Joseph Harris), “respond to the work of others in a way that is both generous and assertive” (1). Despite the fact that an abstract is quite brief, about 250 words, it must do almost as much work as the multi-page article that follows it. There are a number of required elements to any successful abstract which must be stylistically combined to create an engaging piece of prose for your intended audience (in this case, an anthology editor). This means providing a bit of background information––what is the ‘gap’ in current Star Wars scholarship that you hope to fill? What is your original argument? What approach will you take in your textual analysis? And what are the implications of your research?