Ricardo is a UCI PhD who has returned to UCI after many years teaching at Cal State Fullerton. A medievalist by training, his main focus of studies is historical rhetoric (medieval and premodern) and its relationship to romance. Proud that he has a PMLA article that resulted in both controversy and an award. Currently he has a book under review on the medieval prosimetrum (narratives that include inserted lyrics). He also loves Argentine soccer, Angels baseball, LSU and the Saints.

Courses Typically Taught:

  • Writing 50
  • Writing 60

Themes Typically Taught:

  • WR 50 (Hollywood), WR 60 (The City in Trouble)

Course Descriptions:

  • Our class theme will be “Hollywood.” For those of us living in Southern California, we can identify with the allure of “Tinseltown,” whether as a dreamer hoping to make it big in “show business,” or as a viewer enjoying the latest movies and TV shows, or as a workers putting in long hours to rise up in the ranks of “the Industry.” There have also been a lot of writers who have responded critically to this “town” in a variety of genres, from a bitter German exile, Bertolt Brecht, writing poems about how much he hates California, to an Italian-American, grateful he is in warmer climes than Colorado, John Fante, writing a novel about his first breaks as a screenwriter. We’ll learn how certain expectations are built into a genre identified as the Hollywood novel, as well as how it relates to another genre, the L.A. novel, and what happens when it is adapted into other media like film. We will also learn how to write generically by studying the art of the film review from a variety of rhetorical contexts.

Textbooks Needed:

  • A novel (John Fante's Dreams of Bunker Hill) and a play (David Mamet's Speed the Plow), plus some short works and essays.

Email: matthewr@uci.edu