Troping Difference

Description from DukeHub

At a juncture where foundational categories of identity are under urgent revision, this seminar investigates how difference is written, troped, and deployed. Reopening questions often prematurely archived under the 'linguistic turn,' we will consider how language, materiality, and the mark of difference demand a rigorous reckoning with structural power. We will navigate several theoretical coordinates: deconstructive formulations of the trace structure (or general writing); rhetorical readings of metaphor, analogy, and catachresis; and theorizations of racial, colonial, feminist, and queer grammars and rhetorics that condition marked difference.

Skills

• writingdescription: "written" and 1 more
• public speakingdescription: "rhetorical" and 1 more
• languagesdescription: "linguistic" and 1 more

AI-resilient: 1 of 5 1/5

• No: Physical, lab or field work
• No: Live work with people
• No: Judgment someone is accountable for
• No: A craft you practice with your hands or body
• ✓Yes: Small, in-person format · seminar, 18 seats per section

The checks lean on Microsoft Research, Working with AI (2025), which found generative AI applies least to physical work and hands-on work with people. A signal, not a promise. How the score works

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