The primary objective of this course is to offer an alternative focus on the rhetoric of popular culture in today’s globalized and mediated society. Rhetoric of Popular Culture presents an historic range of rhetorical and critical intellectual approaches, including media, feminist, queer, and Marxist theories. In this class, we examine popular culture and the texts that are produced within it to unveil rhetoric that comments on or portrays issues such as consumerism, fashion, socio-political propaganda, gender issues, transgression, new media use, and other issues of social or political sensitivity and concern. We address national obsessions with celebrity and consumerism, trash culture and junk politics, and whether or not popular culture offers unique opportunities for progress and political engagement. We also question, explore, explain, analyze, develop, and critique ideas effectively, undertake writing projects that have depth and complexity, and make appropriate decisions about argument, structure, and rhetoric.