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Urban sprawl is omnipresent in America and has left many citizens questioning their ability to stop it. InDistant Publics,Jenny Rice examines patterns of public discourse that have evolved in response to development in urban and suburban environments. Centering her study on Austin, Texas, Rice finds a city that has simultaneously celebrated and despised development.Rice outlines three distinct ways that the rhetoric of publics counteracts development: through injury claims, memory claims, and equivalence claims. In injury claims, rhetors frame themselves as victims in a dispute. Memory claims allow rhetors to anchor themselves to an older, deliberative space, rather than to a newly evolving one. Equivalence claims see the benefits on both sides of an issue, and here rhetors effectively become nonactors.Rice provides case studies of development disputes that place the reader in the middle of real-life controversies and evidence her theories of claims-based public rhetorics. She finds that these methods comprise the most common (though not exclusive) vernacular surrounding development and shows how each is often counterproductive to its own goals. Rice further demonstrates that these claims create a particular role or public subjectivity grounded in one's own feelings, which serves to distance publics from each other and the issues at hand.Rice argues that rhetoricians have a duty to transform current patterns of public development discourse so that all individuals may engage in matters of crisis. She articulates its sustainability as both a goal and future disciplinary challenge of rhetorical studies and offers tools and methodologies toward that end.

A timely collection of essays by prominent scholars in the field--on the past, present, and future of rhetoric instruction.From Isocrates and Aristotle to the present, rhetorical education has consistently been regarded as the linchpin of a participatory democracy, a tool to foster civic action and social responsibility.

The goal of this book is to formulate a modern theoretical approach for rhetorical studies in a variety of disciplines in the humanities, media research, and other cultural studies. The discipline of rhetoric originally concerned itself with linguistic forms of communication, and its basic theory was developed with such cases in mind. With respect to this ancient tradition, there are numerous books that provide a historical overview of the field. There is also a wide array of introductory works and research contributions that deal with the practice of political rhetoric. On the other hand, only a few 20th century academics have attempted to theoretically rehabilitate rhetoric (after its decline as an academic discipline in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries) and to give rhetorical theory a modern, new, and further reaching perspective. Two notable examples have been Kenneth Burke and Brian Vickers. The book begins with the assumption that rhetoric is not merely limited to linguistic action, but rather is present everywhere in the communicative world. Against this background, this work develops a modern theory of rhetoric, and demonstrates in twelve chapters how methodical rhetorical analysis can be done in selected practical fields of application (Literature, Music, Images, and Film).

Genuine Teachers of This Art examines the technê, or \"handbook,\" tradition—which it controversially suggests began with Isocrates—as the central tradition in ancient rhetoric and a potential model for contemporary rhetoric. From this innovative perspective, Jeffrey Walker offers reconsiderations of rhetorical theories and schoolroom practices from early to late antiquity as the true aim of the philosophical rhetoric of Isocrates and as the distinctive expression of what Cicero called \"the genuine teachers of this art.\" Through a study of the classical rhetorical paideia, or training system, Walker makes a case for considering rhetoric not as an Aristotelian critical-theoretical discipline, but as an Isocratean pedagogical discipline in which the art of rhetoric is neither an art of producing critical theory nor even an art of producing speeches and texts, but an art of producing speakers and writers. Walker grounds his study in pedagogical theses mined from revealing against-the-grain readings of Cicero, Isocrates, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Walker also locates supporting examples from a host of other sources, including Aelius Theon, Aphthonius, the Rhetoric to Alexander, the Rhetoric to Herennius, Quintilian, Hermogenes, Hermagoras, Lucian, Libanius, Apsines, the Anonymous Seguerianus, and fragments of ancient student writing preserved in papyri. Walker's epilogue considers the relevance of the ancient technê tradition for the modern discipline of rhetoric, arguing that rhetoric is defined foremost by its pedagogical enterprise, the project of producing rhetors capable of intelligent, effective, and useful civic engagement through speech and writing. This groundbreaking vision of the technê tradition significantly revises the standard picture of the ancient history of rhetoric with ramifications for the contemporary disciplinary identity of rhetoric itself.

InAmbient Rhetoric,Thomas Rickert seeks to dissolve the boundaries of the rhetorical tradition and its basic dichotomy of subject and object. With the advent of new technologies, new media, and the dispersion of human agency through external information sources, rhetoric can no longer remain tied to the autonomy of human will and cognition as the sole determinants in the discursive act.Rickert develops the concept of ambience in order to engage all of the elements that comprise the ecologies in which we exist. Culling from Martin Heidegger's hermeneutical phenomenology inBeing and Time,Rickert finds the basis for ambience in Heidegger's assertion that humans do not exist in a vacuum; there is a constant and fluid relation to the material, informational, and emotional spaces in which they dwell. Hence, humans are not the exclusive actors in the rhetorical equation; agency can be found in innumerable things, objects, and spaces. As Rickert asserts, it is only after we become attuned to these influences that rhetoric can make a first step toward sufficiency.Rickert also recalls the foundational Greek philosophical concepts ofkairos(time),chora(space/place), andperiechon(surroundings) and cites their repurposing by modern and postmodern thinkers as \"informational scaffolding\" for how we reason, feel, and act. He discusses contemporary theory in cognitive science, rhetoric, and object-oriented philosophy to expand his argument for the essentiality of ambience to the field of rhetoric. Rickert then examines works of ambient music that incorporate natural and artificial sound, spaces, and technologies, finding them to be exemplary of a more fully resonant and experiential media.In his preface, Rickert compares ambience to the fermenting of wine-how its distinctive flavor can be traced to innumerable factors, including sun, soil, water, region, and grape variety. The environment and company with whom it's consumed further enhance the taste experience. And so it should be with rhetoric-to be considered among all of its influences. As Rickert demonstrates, the larger world that we inhabit (and that inhabits us) must be fully embraced if we are to advance as beings and rhetors within it.

Anyone who has heard of chiasmus is likely to think of it as no more than a piece of rhetorical playfulness, at times challenging, though useful for supplying a memorable sententious note or for performing a pirouette of syntax and thought. Going beyond traditional rhetoric, this volume is concerned with the possibility of using the figure of chiasmus to model a broad array of phenomena, from human relations to artistic creation. In the process, it provides the first book-length study not of chiasmus, the rhetorical figure, but of chiastic thought. The contributors are concerned with chiastic inversion and its place in social interactions, cultural creation, and more generally human thought and experience.They explore from a variety of angles what the unsettling logic of chiasmus (from the Greek meaning “cross-wise”), has to tell us about the world, human relations, cultural patterns, psychology, and artistic and poetic creation.

Speeches of praise and blame constituted a form of oratory put to brilliant and creative use in the classical Greek period (fifth to fourth century BC) and the Roman imperial period (first to fourth century AD), and they have influenced public speakers through all the succeeding ages. Yet unlike the other classical genres of rhetoric, epideictic rhetoric remains something of a mystery. It was the least important genre at the start of Greek oratory, but its role grew exponentially in subsequent periods, even though epideictic orations were not meant to elicit any action on the part of the listener, as judicial and deliberative speeches attempted to do. So why did the ancients value the oratory of praise so highly?In Epideictic Rhetoric, Laurent Pernot offers an authoritative overview of the genre that surveys its history in ancient Greece and Rome, its technical aspects, and its social function. He begins by defining epideictic rhetoric and tracing its evolution from its first realizations in classical Greece to its eloquent triumph in the Greco-Roman world. No longer were speeches limited to tribunals, assemblies, and courts—they now involved ceremonies as well, which changed the political and social implications of public speaking. Pernot analyzes the techniques of praise, both as stipulated by theoreticians and as practiced by orators. He describes how epideictic rhetoric functioned to give shape to the representations and common beliefs of a group, render explicit and justify accepted values, and offer lessons on new values. Finally, Pernot incorporates current research about rhetoric into the analysis of praise.

From two leading scholars in the field comes this landmark assessment of the shifting terrain of feminist rhetorical practices in recent decades. Jacqueline Jones Royster and Gesa E. Kirsch contend the field of rhetorical studies is being transformed through the work of feminist rhetoricians who have brought about notable changes in who the subjects of rhetorical study can be, how their practices can be critiqued, and how the effectiveness and value of the inquiry frameworks can be articulated. To contextualize a new and changed landscape for narratives in the history of rhetoric, Royster and Kirsch present four critical terms of engagement—critical imagination, strategic contemplation, social circulation, and globalization—as the foundation for a new analytical model for understanding, interpreting, and evaluating feminist rhetorical inquiry and the study and teaching of rhetoric in general. This model draws directly on the wealth of knowledge and understanding gained from feminist rhetorical practices, especially sensitivity toward meaningfully and respectfully rendering the work, lives, cultures, and traditions of historical and contemporary women in rhetorical scholarship. Proposing ambitious new standards for viewing and valuing excellence in feminist rhetorical practice, Royster and Kirsch advocate an ethos of respect and humility in the analysis of communities and specific rhetorical performances neglected in rhetorical history, recasting rhetorical studies as a global phenomenon rather than a western one. They also reflect on their own personal and professional development as researchers as they highlight innovative feminist research over the past thirty years to articulate how feminist work is changing the field and pointing to the active participation of women in various discourse arenas and to the practices and genres they use. Valuable to new and established scholars of rhetoric, Feminist Rhetorical Practice: New Horizons for Rhetoric, Composition, and Literacy Studies is essential for understanding the theoretical, methodological, and ethical impacts of feminist rhetorical studies on the wider field.

This book combines stylistic analysis with corpus linguistics to present an innovative account of the phenomenon of speech, writing and thought presentation - commonly referred to as 'speech reporting' or 'discourse presentation'. This new account is based on an extensive analysis of a quarter-of-a-million word electronic collection of written narrative texts, including both fiction and non-fiction. The book includes detailed discussions of: The construction of this corpus of late twentieth-century written British narratives taken from fiction, newspaper news reports and (auto)biographies The development of a manual annotation system for speech, writing and thought presentation and its application to the corpus. The findings of a quantitive and qualitative analysis of the forms and functions of speech, writing and thought presentation in the three genres represented in the corpus. The findings of the analysis of a range of specific phenomena, including hypothetical speech, writing and thought presentation, embedded speech, writing and thought presentation and ambiguities in speech, writing and thought presentation. Two case studies concentrating on specific texts from the corpus. Corpus Stylistics shows how stylistics, and text/discourse analysis more generally, can benefit from the use of a corpus methodology and the authors' innovative approach results in a more reliable and comprehensive categorisation of the forms of speech, writing and thought presentation than have been suggested so far. This book is essential reading for linguists interested in the areas of stylistics and corpus linguistics. Elena Semino is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Linguistics and Modern English Language at Lancaster University. She is the author of Language and World Creation in Poems and Other Texts (1997), and co-editor (with Jonathan Culpetter) of Cognitive Stylistics: Language and Cognition in Text Analysis (2002). Mick Short is Professor of English Language and Literature at Lancaster University. He has written Exploring the Language of Poems, Plays and Prose (1997) and (with Geoffrey Leech) Style in Fiction (1997). He founded the Poetics and Linguistics Association and was the founding editor of its international journal, Language and Literature. 1. A Corpus-Based Approach to the Study of Discourse Presentation in Written Narratives 2. Methodology: The Construction and Annotation of the Corpus 3. A Revised Model of Speech, Writing and Thought Presentation 4. Speech Presentation in the Corpus: A Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis 5. Writing Presentation in the Corpus: A Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis 6. Thought Presentation in the Corpus: A Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis 7. Specific Phenomena in Speech, Writing Presentation 8. Case Studies of Specific Texts from the Corpus 9. Conclusion