In this review essay, we look back at the evolution of the rhetoric of science by reviewing the Case Studies and Issues and Methods volumes edited by Randy Harris. We conclude by reflecting on the past, present, and future of the discipline.

Rhetoric is a resilient art.Its stability and mutability across centuries attest to its dynamism as a domain of knowledge production and engaged practice.While resilience is understood differentially across scholarly and popular domains, it nearly always addresses questions of how to respond, adapt, and persist through adverse circumstances (for a review of this diverse literature, see Flynn, Sotirin, & Brady, 2012).For example, resilience has become a key trope for describing the practices of (bio)security, sustainability, human health, child development, infrastructure, technological systems, and other common sites of study in rhetorics of science, technology, and medicine (RSTM).Recently, rhetoricians have also taken up resilience; these scholars are interested both in using rhetoric to understand resilience and using resilience to understand rhetoric.This special issue of POROI is intended to further the scholarly conversation on resilience rhetorics.In particular, we hope to highlight the deeply rhetorical, critical, cultural, and materialsemiotic work being done by and with theories and metaphors of resilience.The collection of articles assembled here initially arose from our experience co-chairing the Association for Rhetoric of Science, Technology, and Medicine's (ARSTM) second annual preconference at the biennial Rhetoric Society of America (RSA) conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 2018.The ARSTM preconferences at RSA and the National Communication Association (NCA) meetings always focus on a core theme; other themes have included trust, evidence, and translation (ARSTM, 2019).

A review of work being published in our journals establishes that we most often think of ourselves as passive intellectuals, engaged in critical reflection about rhetorics of science and technology. But another persona lurks in that scholarship as well—the rhetorician as agent of change making the world a better place. This paper argues that rhetoricians of science and technology need to think harder about how we take the academic understandings developed in our primary internal discursive genre and transform them into productive engagements with external publics. Whether we encounter those publics in the classroom or in civic forums or in scientific or technical organizations, we need to be able to translate our research findings to these empowered stakeholders in ways that are meaningful and constructive. By sharing best practices for pedagogy and public engagement, rhetoricians of science and technology can improve our chances of making an impact with our research.

NCA-affiliated rhetoric, as they see it, is under threat from within and without the field of communication studies. 3 That my review should have been singled out for their expression of disciplinary angst stems apparently from my enthusiasm for rhetoric's increasing globalization and for my failure to appreciate how that intellectual movement further undermines NCA-rhetoric's already weakened position relative to its real and imagined rivals. But much that I had to say in the review essay in support of a globalized conception of rhetoric and of an expanded role for civically oriented rhetoricians goes unaddressed by my colleagues. Of central concern to them are issues of