Abstract This essay examines the 1959 controversy over whether and how to commemorate the centennial of abolitionist John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry. I argue that the controversy arose because commemorating Brown’s raid challenged prominent U.S. public memories of the Civil War that excluded slavery and the continued existence of white supremacy. I analyze the discursive fields into which the centennial commemoration entered: the heroic, patriotic, and unifying narratives of the war championed by the national organizations tasked with commemorating the Civil War centennial, and discourses of the civil rights movement and the black press that demanded a repudiation of white supremacy and the recognition of African Americans as equal citizens. Ultimately, I contend that the rhetoric that surrounded the Harpers Ferry raid commemoration sheds light on how the civil rights movement not only challenged white supremacy in its conservative form, but also pushed against the moderate and liberal manifestations of white supremacy that were embedded in the commemoration of the Harpers Ferry raid.

Book Review| December 01 2013 Dark Directions: Romero, Craven, Carpenter, and the Modern Horror Film Dark Directions: Romero, Craven, Carpenter, and the Modern Horror Film. By Kendall R. Phillips. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2012; pp. xii + 215. $29.95 paper. Claire Sisco King Claire Sisco King Vanderbilt University Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Rhetoric and Public Affairs (2013) 16 (4): 798–801. https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.16.4.0798 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Tools Icon Tools Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Claire Sisco King; Dark Directions: Romero, Craven, Carpenter, and the Modern Horror Film. Rhetoric and Public Affairs 1 December 2013; 16 (4): 798–801. doi: https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.16.4.0798 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveMichigan State University PressRhetoric and Public Affairs Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. © 2013 Michigan State University Board of Trustees2013 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Abstract In 1951, the American Federation of Labor produced a map of the Soviet Union showing the locations of 175 forced labor camps administered by the Gulag. Widely appropriated in popular magazines and newspapers, and disseminated internationally as propaganda against the U.S.S.R., the map, entitled “‘Gulag’—Slavery, Inc.,” would be cited as “one of the most widely circulated pieces of anti-Communist literature.” By contextualizing the map's origins and circulation, as well as engaging in a close analysis of its visual codes and intertextual relationships with photographs, captions, and other materials, this essay argues that the Gulag map became an evidentiary weapon in the increasingly bipolar spaces of the early Cold War. In particular, “‘Gulag’—Slavery, Inc.” draws on cartography's unique power of “placement” to locate forced labor camps with authenticity and precision, infiltrating the impenetrable spaces of the Soviet Union as a visually compelling mode of Cold War knowledge production.

Abstract Following a democratic uprising in 1998, the Muslim-majority nation of Indonesia embarked on a transition from four decades of authoritarian rule to become the world's third largest democracy. A recent surge in religious intolerance, however, has sparked concern over an apparent backlash against the political and religious pluralism of the new democratic era. As the world looks to this vast country of 237 million as a model for other Muslim nations now rebelling against their own dictatorships, it is important to understand this political turn marked by a growing incapacity to deal with otherness. This article examines public discourse surrounding accelerating attacks on religious minorities in Indonesia to provide insight into a similar rise in intolerance worldwide, and to address a pressing question for many rhetoric scholars: how does religion work to legitimate or eliminate violence?

Abstract Formerly a synonym for oratory and elocution, "public speaking" after 1900 signaled, instead, a paradigm shift whereby extemporaneous-conversational speechmaking replaced declamation and oratorical composition. This study of more than 200 key titles published between 1730 and 1930 demonstrates that the modern public-speaking book emerged, not as an innovation in whole cloth, but rather from a generation-long process of selectively recombining materials extracted from preceding text genres. As a practical revolution, the new public speaking contributed to democratic, argument-rich public affairs and, as an intellectual movement, furthered the emergence of speech as a separate academic discipline.

Book Review| September 01 2012 The Moral Rhetoric of Political Economy: Justice and Modern Economic Thought The Moral Rhetoric of Political Economy: Justice and Modern Economic Thought. Paul Turpin. Josh Hanan Josh Hanan Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Rhetoric and Public Affairs (2012) 15 (3): 549–552. https://doi.org/10.2307/41940616 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Josh Hanan; The Moral Rhetoric of Political Economy: Justice and Modern Economic Thought. Rhetoric and Public Affairs 1 September 2012; 15 (3): 549–552. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/41940616 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveMichigan State University PressRhetoric and Public Affairs Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. © 2012 Michigan State University Board of Trustees2012 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Abstract Air-age glob alism was a discursive phenomenon throughout the development of World War II that accounted for the rapid "shrinking" of the world through air technologies and the internationalization of American interests. Cartography became air-age globalism’s primary popular expression, and journalistic cartographers such as Richard Edes Harrison at Fortune magazine introduced new mapping projections and perspectives in response to these global changes. This essay argues that Harrisons mapping innovations mediate a geopolitical shift in America toward a modern, image-based internationalism. Through recastings of "vision" and "strategy," Harrison’s work offers an opportunity to assess the rhetorical tensions between idealism and realism in midcentury cartographic forms and the larger spatial and perceptual challenges facing U.S. foreign policy during its rise to superpower status.

Abstract This essay examines reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln that were published in the aftermath of his death by those who had interacted with Lincoln personally. An understudied genre y Lincoln reminiscences offered judgments of Lincolns character through a portraiture style designed to make salient private as well as public dimensions of his character. We historicize the rhetoric of portraiture and trace the rise of reminiscence out of biography as a stand-alone genre, which reached unprecedented popularity in the competitive subgenre of the Lincoln reminiscence. We argue that Lincoln reminiscences featured a balance of common and uncommon virtues thought essential for a president, a balance that helped democratize and humanize presidential character.

Abstract The American Colonization Society emerged at a time when some Americans believed that a "moderate" solution to the problem of slavery could be achieved by removing free blacks to Africa. Upon announcing its formation in 1816, the society received a public rejoinder: the Counter Memorial against African Colonization. This essay explores multiple interpretations of the Counter Memorial to demonstrate the instability of colonizationists moderate rhetorical position. More specifically, this essay argues that the Counter Memorial suspends colonization within the uneasy and unresolved tensions manifested by competing depictions of blackness, or black personae, in American public discourse at the time.

Book Review| June 01 2012 Transgression as a Mode of Resistance: Rethinking Social Movement in an Era of Corporate Globalization Transgression as a Mode of Resistance: Rethinking Social Movement in an Era of Corporate Globalization. Christina R. Foust. Bryan Thomas Walsh Bryan Thomas Walsh Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Rhetoric and Public Affairs (2012) 15 (2): 387–390. https://doi.org/10.2307/41940583 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Bryan Thomas Walsh; Transgression as a Mode of Resistance: Rethinking Social Movement in an Era of Corporate Globalization. Rhetoric and Public Affairs 1 June 2012; 15 (2): 387–390. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/41940583 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveMichigan State University PressRhetoric and Public Affairs Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. © 2012 Michigan State University Board of Trustees2012 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal Issue Section: Book Reviews You do not currently have access to this content.

Abstract As the steadily expanding cyberpublic presents both obstacles and opportunities for Communist Party rule in China, the party has responded by adapting the rhetorical strategies of the Model Worker (MW) commendations to a changing political environment Using role model representations to encourage particular kinds of citizen labor, the system has changed from Maoist single-lane authoritarianism to a multilane interaction between the public and the party. This essay investigates the epideicticfunction, adaptation, and modification of MW awards via Kenneth Burkes symbolic labor. Tracing the awards through the periods of leadership from Mao Zedong to Deng Xiaoping to Hu Jintao, I explore how the structure of the MW program has evolved into a rhetorical strategy capable of stabilizing party power through the moralization of party initiatives and the promulgation of party ideals despite increases in new media forms and institutions.

Abstract An unexpected Nobel Peace Prize placed Barack Obama in a difficult position. He was, after all, commander-in-chief of a military currently engaged in two wars, one of which many felt was unjustified. The doubled rhetoric through which Obama managed this situation forecast the strategy he deploys in his Nobel Lecture itself: he invites his audience to attend to war and peace neither as wicked nor ideal but as realistic y interdependenty and indeed comparable modes of human interaction. The result is that war and peace are held in a delicate balance through the force of a somewhat vaguely articulated moral compass.

Book Review| September 01 2011 The President’s Words: Speeches and Speechwriting in the Modern White House The President’s Words: Speeches and Speechwriting in the Modern White House. Michael Nelson and Russell L. Riley. Ashlyn Gentry Ashlyn Gentry Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Rhetoric and Public Affairs (2011) 14 (3): 578–580. https://doi.org/10.2307/41940563 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Ashlyn Gentry; The President’s Words: Speeches and Speechwriting in the Modern White House. Rhetoric and Public Affairs 1 September 2011; 14 (3): 578–580. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/41940563 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveMichigan State University PressRhetoric and Public Affairs Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. © 2011 Michigan State University Board of Trustees2011 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Abstract In this essay, I contend that political culture and campaign journalism during the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign was "pornified." Examination of broadcast journalism, viral videos, online commentary, political pop culture, andget-outthe-vote campaigns reveals the ways in which pornographic metaphors, images, and narratives infiltrated U.S. political culture during the 2008 presidential primary and general election season. I assess the media framing of candidates Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin, as well as that of female voters as a group, arguing that the emergence of the pornification frame signals a backlash against the gains women have made in the U.S. political system.

Abstract The tradition of postcolonial critique has long noted that the construction of an imperial identity of "alterity," the posture of moral superiority that serves to differentiate the imperialist from those under his or her control and thus legitimate the practice of expansion, is a significant characteristic of imperial discourse. For the most party however, this critical practice has focused on the construct of alterity as a justification for imperial oppression on the basis ofracialized images of subject populations. This essay approaches alterity as a property to be maintained by the imperial culture itself as crucial to its understanding of its own identity. Failure to maintain such an identity constitutes the ultimate "sin" of identity slippage, a "sin" that undermines the moral validity of empire. This argument is detailed through an analysis of Edmund D. Morels book-length exposé of Belgian atrocities committed against the peoples of the Congo entitled King Leopolds Rule in Africa. Morels text is not so much concerned with evoking reader pity for the plight of the Congolese as with inciting outrage over the subversion of imperialism by the Belgians’ abandonment of their own imperial alterity.

Abstract In this essay I explore the ways in which the issue/image dichotomy operates as a default criticism of democratic practice by examining its basis in persistent tensions and idealistic theories of democracy. Turning to political practice, I then explore the articulation and value of political image rhetorics offered during the 2008 presidential election, paying particular attention to political advertisements from the Obama and McCain campaigns that appeared after their nominations were assured but before the national nominating conventions. Ultimately I offer a normative justification of political image rhetorics in campaign discourse as beneficial to deliberation about public policy and political leadership.

Abstract Communication scholars interested in presidential rhetoric on public policy are very familiar with the rhetorical presidency, but there is another paradigm worth our consideration: the unitary executive. This model emphasizes the institutional reasons why presidents might not use public discourse to promote theirpolicies, relying instead on the expanding powers of the executive branch. Although there is relatively little discussion of one model within scholarship dedicated to the other, this essay argues for the benefits of considering both models simultaneously. As changes occur within the executive office’s capacity for creating and enforcing public policy, so too must our critical orientation to the study of presidential rhetoric.