Documentary Rhetorics In this course students will explore the rhetorical performances of documentary film—in terms of production, ethics, and editing—and how documentaries are used for different means: investigation, activism, and even propaganda. After watching contemporary documentaries and reading reviews, interviews, analyses, and theories of filmmaking, students will analyze specific films (with cultural rhetorics and social consciousness lenses), conduct and transcribe interviews, and write a code of ethics for documentary filmmakers. The final project has students either produce or storyboard their own short documentaries.

Documentaries & Social Justice In this course, students will explore how contemporary documentaries perform social justice via different rhetorical filmmaking styles—including direct cinema, verité, and investigations—and specific social justice tactics—including explicit and implicit calls for change, social pressure, and activism. After watching documentaries and reading reviews, interviews, and theories of filmmaking, students will write various analyses and codes of ethics for documentary films. The final project has students either produce or storyboard their own short social justice-oriented films.

Writing and Power Power: who has it, who doesn’t, and what does it have to do with your writing? This course both instructs students in how to access power in academic contexts and to critique power structures. We’ll learn how power connects to literacy, and how it's shaped through rhetorical contexts. Students will explore their own power as writers and thinkers while engaging in meaningful personal, reflective and argumentative writing. The professor will work with each student extensively on their writing process and development, and we'll create a writing community. This course bears elective credit but does not fulfill the college writing requirement.

Investigative Storytelling In this course students will learn skills for analysis and creation of investigative storytelling, using a project-based curriculum for students. Students will analyze and explore investigations in popular mediums—such as the podcast Serial by Sarah Koenig and Julie Snyder, the book Catch and Kill by Ronan Farrow, the documentary series OJ: Made in America by Ezra Edelman, and investigations that stem from The Boston Globe Spotlight team. They will also work on their own investigative storytelling projects. Through their discussions and research, students will better understand how investigative storytelling texts function rhetorically to hold truth to power and can—and sometimes cannot—create individual, collective, and institutional change.

Race, Rhetoric, and Protest In this course we will study the theoretical and rhetorical underpinnings of racial protest in America. We will begin by studying movements from the 1950s and 1960s, moving from bus boycotts to Black Power protests, and will build to analyzing recent protests in Ferguson, Dallas, and New York. Readings will include texts from Charles E. Morris III, Aja Martinez, Shon Meckfessel, Gwendolyn Pough, and various articles and op-eds. Students will write analyses of historical and contemporary protest, op-eds about the local culture, and syntheses on the course readings. 3 hrs. Lect

The Rhetoric of Public Memory This course focuses on public memory and the various statues, memorials, sites, and spaces that construct public memory in contemporary U.S. society. In this course, we will study local Middlebury and Vermont public memories, Civil War and Confederate memories, and spaces of contention and controversy, while visiting nearby memorials and museums. Students in this class will compose analyses on these public memories and create arguments on the viability of memories in different shapes and forms. Overall, students will leave this class with a stronger understanding of not only public memory rhetoric but the various components that keep these memories alive.

Trickery, Bodies, and Resistance: The Tradition(s) of Rhetoric How do female-identifying subjects position themselves (and their bodies) rhetorically in a male-dominated society? How do Black and Latinx rhetorical traditions of call-and-response and code-switching connect with and resist classical traditions of oration and stylistics? In this course we will study the tradition(s) of rhetoric by moving from the trickery of sophists to budding works in feminist rhetorics and cultural rhetorics. Students in this class will learn to synthesize the various traditions of rhetoric in historical and contemporary terms and to critically understand cultural customs that exist outside the white, heteronormative Greco-Roman tradition.

Trickery, Bodies, and Resistance: The Tradition(s) of Rhetoric How do female identifying subjects position themselves (and their bodies) rhetorically in a male-dominated society? How do Black and Latinx rhetorical traditions of call-and-response and code-switching connect with and resist classical traditions of oration and stylistics? In this course we will study the tradition(s) of rhetoric by moving from the trickery of sophists to budding works in feminist rhetorics and cultural rhetorics. Students in this class will learn to synthesize the various traditions of rhetoric in historical and contemporary terms and to critically understand cultural customs that exist outside the white, heteronormative Greco-Roman tradition.

James Sanchez

Reviews and ratings for James Sanchez at Middlebury College.James Sanchez teaches Documentary Rhetorics, Documentaries & Social Justice, Writing and Power and more.  Explore top rated instructors and find the best for you.Is James Sanchez good ? Find out on MiddCourses.

I really enjoyed professor Sanchez! I took the class for the CW and because it has a bunch of distribution requirements, and I would definitely take it again. Light readings, a presentation or two, but mostly papers. He gives you chances to resubmit or earn extra credit all the time, which is good since he is very harsh on first drafts. Outside of that, he was great and I would recommend this class. 

This course was super interesting, it wasn't what I was expecting.  I took it as a CW course and there was definitely an emphasis on writing well and with purpose.  The hardest part of this course was the time you have to commit to watching all the documentaries but I found all of them super interesting personally so it made it easy to contribute in the class discussions.

I loved this course, especially as a CW requirement. It was a fair amount of writing - but that is to be expected from CW requirement but it was on interesting topics. I thought that all of the films were interesting and I watched all of them in their entirety. I will say that as the semester went on, they got progressively more depressing and I would often be really sad, but that is a sign of good filmmaking I think. The final project was to create your own short (less than 10min) doc and it was really really fun. Highly recommend, this course.