Abstract During the 1924 Democratic National Convention, Will Rogers described the party’s deliberation on Saturday as “the day when I heard the most religion preached, and the least practiced of any day in the world’s history.” The Democrats had been debating over whether to officially condemn the Ku Klux Klan in the party platform. William Jennings Bryan ended his own address offering white supremacist support with an all-too-common appeal for the party to simply “return to Jesus” rather than condemn white supremacy. Among the flurry of religious rhetoric that week, one voice surprised the delegates. Just before Bryan, one son of a Confederate officer and former mayor of the Klan stronghold, Athens, Georgia, spoke. He looked small. His voice cracked. But when he spoke outside the stereotype of a Southern politician and against the KKK, Madison Square Garden erupted with both hisses and cheers. That day Andrew Cobb Erwin gave us a model of how to resist within a politically charged religious climate.

AbstractThis paper aims to address the need in rhetorical scholarship to recognize the obstacles that atheists face in the public sphere. I propose that, within the United States, there is a systematic normalization of theism, which I refer to as theistnormativity. While theistnormativity is advanced through various systems within a society, I argue that presidents reinforce theistnormativity through their use of religious political rhetoric. I reason that the theistnormativity that is prominent in presidential inaugural addresses from 1933 to 2017 contributes an ideal space that privileges theists and marginalizes atheists.

Book Review| June 01 2020 A Way Forward: Reflections on the Presidency and Presidential Campaigns Faking the News: What Rhetoric Can Teach Us about Donald J. Trump. Edited by Ryan Skinnell. Exeter, U.K.: Imprint Academic, 2018; pp. iii + 200. $29.90 paper.The Reinvention of Populist Rhetoric in the Digital Age: Insiders and Outsiders in Democratic Politics. By Mark Rolfe Singapore: Springer, 2016; pp. x + 259. $109.99 cloth; $109.99 paper.Votes That Count and Voters Who Don’t: How Journalists Sideline Electoral Participation (Without Even Knowing It). By Sharon E. Jarvis and Soo-Hye Han. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2018; pp. xi + 208. $79.95 cloth; $32.95 paper. Devin Scott Devin Scott Devin Scott is a Ph.D. student studying Rhetoric and Political Culture in the Department of Communication at the University of Maryland, College Park. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Rhetoric and Public Affairs (2020) 23 (2): 367–379. https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.23.2.0367 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Devin Scott; A Way Forward: Reflections on the Presidency and Presidential Campaigns. Rhetoric and Public Affairs 1 June 2020; 23 (2): 367–379. doi: https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.23.2.0367 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. © 2020 Michigan State University Board of Trustees2020 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

AbstractMayor Hubert Humphrey’s “Sunshine of Human Rights” address, delivered to the 1948 Democratic Convention, is universally acknowledged to be a great speech. Historians and biographers credit it as the major reason why the party adopted a strong civil rights plank and committed itself to the struggle from that point forward. Yet rhetorical critics have generally ignored the speech. In this essay, I argue the rhetorical force of the address is best explained through the concept of copia, or an abundant style. Humphrey’s rhetorical extravagance, in turn, suggests that critics ought to develop a new appreciation for this ancient rhetorical concept.

Other| March 01 2020 Index to Rhetoric & Public Affairs: Volume 16 (2013)—Volume 22 (2019) Mattilyn Egli Mattilyn Egli Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Rhetoric and Public Affairs (2020) 23 (1): 153–167. https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.23.1.0153 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Mattilyn Egli; Index to Rhetoric & Public Affairs: Volume 16 (2013)—Volume 22 (2019). Rhetoric and Public Affairs 1 March 2020; 23 (1): 153–167. doi: https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.23.1.0153 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. © 2020 Michigan State University Board of Trustees2020 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

AbstractThis essay analyzes General Orders No. 100, a U.S. Civil War document considered the fırst modern codifıcation of the rules of war. Recent scholarship praises the humanitarian nature of the legal code, especially as it concerns the emancipation of slaves. Without rejecting these features, I argue that the code marks a key shift in the legal framing of war. The author, Francis Lieber, uses new spatial and temporal boundaries to forge a sprawling and timeless fıeld of battle while amplifying the moral mandate of war to grant legitimacy to numerous acts of harsh violence. The only safeguard to Lieber’s broad mandate for military force is a vague notion of self-restraint that I label “humane nationalism.” Given the enormous influence of the Lieber Code, its rhetoric marks a powerful antecedent to how nations conduct warfare and legitimize what we now call “total war.”

Other| December 01 2020 From the Interim Editor Mary E. Stuckey Mary E. Stuckey Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Rhetoric and Public Affairs (2020) 23 (4): 635. https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.23.4.0635 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Mary E. Stuckey; From the Interim Editor. Rhetoric and Public Affairs 1 December 2020; 23 (4): 635. doi: https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.23.4.0635 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. © 2020 Michigan State University Board of Trustees2020 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

This essay identifies and explicates a key rhetorical form—“redemptive exclusion”—underlying former United States Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley’s efforts to defend barring Syrian refugees from American soil. Through a reliance on ethotic prolepsis, the rhetorical form of redemptive exclusion enables the creation of a transcendent perspective that reconciles seemingly opposite contemporary cultural and political rhetorics: xenophobic discourses of exclusion become coarticulated with the mythic promise of an America open to all. We show how Haley’s rhetoric combines antithetical gestures of inclusion and exclusion by interweaving synecdochic narratives of her own immigrant history; hyperbolic narratives of American benevolence toward immigrants; and stereotypical narratives of terrorist identity that preempt the acceptance of Syrian refugees as even potentially American. We argue that Haley converts the rejection of Syrian refugees from American soil into an opportunity for constraining and qualifying the mythic ideal of the United States as an historical beacon for immigrants around the globe. In the conclusion, we suggest that a close study of how redemptive exclusion takes life in Haley’s discourse offers more general lessons about the rhetorical and ideological character of controversies over U.S. immigration policy.

As honorary president and first speaker at the First Zionist Congress, Dr. Karpel Lippe of Romania embodied continuities in the history of the Jews and of Zionism, but his address also heralded transformations occurring in the movement as its delegates assembled in Basel, Switzerland, in 1897. The speech, given in German, is analyzed with respect to its multiplex audience and other aspects of the rhetorical situation. Lippe declares the Congress to be a gewaltiger Sprung (mighty leap): the “leap” refers to the reinvention of Zionism as a solidly modern, middle-class movement, as shown by its leadership, language, repertoires of action, and values. Those values—positivism with respect to social and historical knowledge; individual self-reliance, secular work, and “civilization”; deprecation of indolence and dependency; and a respectful but assertive engagement with the established political-economic order—are set over against the social and ideological equivocations, administrative paternalism, and political timidity that caused its predecessor, Hibbat Zion, to falter.

In this essay, we examine the complete published speeches of Arne Duncan from his seven years (2009–2015) as Barack Obama’s secretary of education, to understand how his language both defined problems and promoted solutions for our nation’s schools. By looking at Duncan’s rhetoric through close readings and computer-aided textual analyses, we find that his discourse contained paradoxes, particularly through a notion of schooling as a means of achieving both social justice and economic growth, by framing education as both a private and public good, and through assertions about the need for government both to centralize authority over schooling and promote a global educational marketplace. In essence, Duncan used a both/and approach to these purposes, adding to our understandings of the character and functions of educational rhetoric and showing how critical it is for scholars to recognize that such tensions exist in language about what education policy should do. Ultimately, we conclude that Duncan’s rhetoric obscures historic tensions in the purpose of education and highlights the way that policy rhetoric may saddle public education with responsibilities beyond its capacities.

AbstractThis article investigates how slavery tours on the former estates of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison negotiate memories of the presidents as historically revered figures and prominent slaveholders. I argue that these tours recirculate benevolent memories of the presidents that work to sanitize the sites’ slave history and venerate the founders’ legacy. My analysis demonstrates that these tours do not just work to recirculate artifacts and narratives that speak to the presidents’ lives, but they revive a republican culture of remembrance from the nineteenth century through which to justify presidential actions and beliefs. In short, I suggest that this rhetorical negotiation helps craft new narratives of historical U.S. slavery and the early presidents’ lives that appear both more credible and less disturbing.

Research Article| December 01 2019 Robert L. Scott: Memories of a Great Man Martin J. Medhurst Martin J. Medhurst Martin J. Medhurst is Distinguished Professor of Rhetoric and Communication at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Rhetoric and Public Affairs (2019) 22 (4): 673–679. https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.4.0673 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Martin J. Medhurst; Robert L. Scott: Memories of a Great Man. Rhetoric and Public Affairs 1 December 2019; 22 (4): 673–679. doi: https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.4.0673 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. © 2019 Michigan State University Board of Trustees2019 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Research Article| December 01 2019 Tribute to Robert L. Scott Robert Hariman Robert Hariman Robert Hariman is Professor of Communication Studies at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. He had the privilege of delivering the after-dinner speech to honor Robert L. Scott at the Eighth Biennial Public Address Conference, University of Georgia, October 5, 2002. The text provided here has been edited slightly, but it remains a speech given as if the honoree were in the room. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Rhetoric and Public Affairs (2019) 22 (4): 657–662. https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.4.0657 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Robert Hariman; Tribute to Robert L. Scott. Rhetoric and Public Affairs 1 December 2019; 22 (4): 657–662. doi: https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.4.0657 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. © 2019 Michigan State University Board of Trustees2019 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Abstract Opioid addiction and overdose are widely recognized as a contemporary “crisis” across the United States. To address rapidly increasing mortality rates related to this substance use epidemic, the Philadelphia Mayor’s Office announced in January 2018 that it would encourage the development of supervised injection sites or “Comprehensive User Engagement Sites” within city limits. Official communications cited select moments from the region’s past to frame these sites as urgent while constituting a supportive, unified public. Through remediating disidentification, a mode of rhetorical contestation and reformulation, local community members used an alternate historical framing to resist dominant ideology and revise the terms of the related public discourse. By further developing the concept of rhetorical disidentification, this essay demonstrates how the deployment of historical analogy in response to proposed public health interventions can enable the public recognition and potential address of systemic racial inequities.

Abstract Algorithms have never been more influential, yet our collective understanding of how they transform massive networks of cultural power has not kept pace. This is especially true when it comes to economic algorithms, which operate as black boxes largely inaccessible to the majority of citizens whose worlds they continuously reshape. This essay offers a rhetorical approach to reading algorithms—not only to challenge the positivism and mathematical realism that naïvely apotheosizes algorithms and algorithmic culture but more importantly to become critical informants, scholars who can open up these black boxes for fellow citizens, examine the hidden assumptions therein, and study how they actively transform our social-material worlds. The essay’s exemplar is the 2008 financial crisis and a little-known algorithm called the Li Guassian copula, which played a major role in the spread of subprime mortgages. I argue that this copula puts on spectacular display the power of algorithms as principles of composition—actants that materially expand our social collectives even as they marginalize human agency and practical judgment with forms of technological rationality that, in the case of the Li copula, concentrated the networks of structured finance around a single decision apparatus, rendering those networks both larger and, contra conventional wisdom, more fragile.

Editorial| December 01 2019 Editor’s Note Martin J. Medhurst Martin J. Medhurst Editor Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Rhetoric and Public Affairs (2019) 22 (4): 491–494. https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.4.0491 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Martin J. Medhurst; Editor’s Note. Rhetoric and Public Affairs 1 December 2019; 22 (4): 491–494. doi: https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.4.0491 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. © 2019 Michigan State University Board of Trustees2019 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Research Article| December 01 2019 Scott’s Body Barry Brummett Barry Brummett Barry Brummett is Chair of the Department of Communication Studies and the Charles Sapp Centennial Professor of Communication at the University of Texas, Austin. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Rhetoric and Public Affairs (2019) 22 (4): 663–672. https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.4.0663 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Barry Brummett; Scott’s Body. Rhetoric and Public Affairs 1 December 2019; 22 (4): 663–672. doi: https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.4.0663 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. © 2019 Michigan State University Board of Trustees2019 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Research Article| December 01 2019 Robert L. Scott Karlyn Kohrs Campbell Karlyn Kohrs Campbell Karlyn Kohrs Campbell is Professor of Communication at the University of Minnesota. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Rhetoric and Public Affairs (2019) 22 (4): 651–656. https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.4.0651 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Karlyn Kohrs Campbell; Robert L. Scott. Rhetoric and Public Affairs 1 December 2019; 22 (4): 651–656. doi: https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.4.0651 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. © 2019 Michigan State University Board of Trustees2019 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

AbstractIn this essay, I offer a reception study of the varied responses to and interpretations of a burning church in the town of Eldoret following the 2007 Kenya presidential election. Specifically, I study responses from the U.S. and British media, U.S. officials, and Kenyan politicians. My analysis illuminates how different uses of the term “genocide” mobilize particular sensibilities about the relation between ethnicity and politics and demonstrates how the label of genocide constrains interpretations of violence. In the media and discourse of U.S. politicians, the identification or denial of genocide was made by setting ethnicity and politics as opposing explanatory factors of the violence. Discourses in Kenya, however, demonstrate that understanding the violence required understanding the intersection and permeability of these same categories. This analysis has important implications for understanding how conflicts are and are not named genocide. It demonstrates the importance of attending to the nuanced rhetoric of genocide and calls our attention to the contingent relationships among ethnicity, politics, and genocide.

Abstract Donald Trump’s campaign violated every rule of presidential campaigns, and few commentators thought that he had a chance to win the presidency. His success can be traced to the strong affective connection that he created with core supporters. Trump used a rhetoric of nationalist populism with a charismatic outsider persona, a rhetorical pattern that functioned as an affective genre, to create this connection. This pattern is evident in campaign rallies, his speech at the Republican National Convention, and his inaugural address. Trump’s successful use of a rhetoric of nationalist populism has important implications for the status of American democracy.

Abstract In this article, I argue for the importance of investigating covenantal rhetoric as a multipronged rhetorical device that can be used by political leaders to moralize discourse and strategically manage competing covenantal tensions in response to a particular social, economic, and/or political exigence. Specifically, it explores how President Ronald Reagan drew on the Puritan covenantal framework to usher in an era of free-market economics and transform it from a chaotic and self-interested system into a covenantal economy in which people could fulfill their moral obligations to self, God, and others. Using covenantal form, Reagan eased the tensions between freedom and order, grace and works, and individuality and community in a way that provided a moral foundation for his tax and welfare policies and a moral safety net for all who had faith in God’s grace. Within Reagan’s covenantal economy, trickle-down economics was framed as both an economically feasible and morally commendable process in which entrepreneurs and welfare recipients could join together in a “circle of prosperity” without government interference or the obligation to provide direct material assistance to others.

Book Review| June 01 2019 The Politics of Resentment: A Genealogy The Politics of Resentment: A Genealogy. By Jeremy Engels. State College, PA: Penn State University Press, 2015. pp. i+221. $29.95 paper. Paul Johnson Paul Johnson University of Pittsburgh Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Rhetoric and Public Affairs (2019) 22 (2): 327–331. https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.2.0327 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Paul Johnson; The Politics of Resentment: A Genealogy. Rhetoric and Public Affairs 1 June 2019; 22 (2): 327–331. doi: https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.2.0327 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. © 2019 Michigan State University Board of Trustees2019 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Book Review| June 01 2019 Gendered Asylum: Race and Violence in U.S. Law and Politics Gendered Asylum: Race and Violence in U.S. Law and Politics. By Sara L. McKinnon. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2016; pp. viii+165. $95.00 cloth, $24.00 paper. Jiyeon Kang Jiyeon Kang University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Rhetoric and Public Affairs (2019) 22 (2): 336–338. https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.2.0336 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Jiyeon Kang; Gendered Asylum: Race and Violence in U.S. Law and Politics. Rhetoric and Public Affairs 1 June 2019; 22 (2): 336–338. doi: https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.2.0336 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. © 2019 Michigan State University Board of Trustees2019 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Book Review| June 01 2019 God Hates: Westboro Baptist Church, American Nationalism, and the Religious Right God Hates: Westboro Baptist Church, American Nationalism, and the Religious Right. By Rebecca Barrett-Fox. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2016; pp. i+296. $24.95 cloth. Eric C. Miller Eric C. Miller Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Rhetoric and Public Affairs (2019) 22 (2): 339–341. https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.2.0339 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Eric C. Miller; God Hates: Westboro Baptist Church, American Nationalism, and the Religious Right. Rhetoric and Public Affairs 1 June 2019; 22 (2): 339–341. doi: https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.2.0339 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. © 2019 Michigan State University Board of Trustees2019 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Book Review| June 01 2019 Participatory Critical Rhetoric: Theoretical and Methodological Foundations for Studying Rhetoric In Situ Participatory Critical Rhetoric: Theoretical and Methodological Foundations for Studying Rhetoric In Situ. By Michael Middleton, Aaron Hess, Danielle Endres, and Samantha Senda-Cook. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2015; pp. xxix-210. $67.49 cloth; $44.99 paper. Caitlin Frances Bruce Caitlin Frances Bruce University of Pittsburgh Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Rhetoric and Public Affairs (2019) 22 (2): 332–335. https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.2.0332 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Caitlin Frances Bruce; Participatory Critical Rhetoric: Theoretical and Methodological Foundations for Studying Rhetoric In Situ. Rhetoric and Public Affairs 1 June 2019; 22 (2): 332–335. doi: https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.2.0332 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. © 2019 Michigan State University Board of Trustees2019 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Book Review| June 01 2019 Rethinking Rhetorical Theory, Criticism, and Pedagogy: The Living Art of Michael C. Leff Rethinking Rhetorical Theory, Criticism, and Pedagogy: The Living Art of Michael C. Leff. Edited by Antonio De Velasco, John Angus Campbell, and David Henry. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2016; pp. xxiv + 481. $39.95 paper; $31.95 e-book. Leah Ceccarelli Leah Ceccarelli University of Washington Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Rhetoric and Public Affairs (2019) 22 (2): 323–326. https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.2.0323 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Leah Ceccarelli; Rethinking Rhetorical Theory, Criticism, and Pedagogy: The Living Art of Michael C. Leff. Rhetoric and Public Affairs 1 June 2019; 22 (2): 323–326. doi: https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.2.0323 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. © 2019 Michigan State University Board of Trustees2019 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Book Review| March 01 2019 Infertility: Tracing the History of a Transformative Term Infertility: Tracing the History of a Transformative Term. By Robin E. Jensen. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2016; pp. xiii + 225. $69.95 cloth; $29.95 paper. Tasha N. Dubriwny Tasha N. Dubriwny Texas A&M University Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Rhetoric and Public Affairs (2019) 22 (1): 168–171. https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.1.0168 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Tasha N. Dubriwny; Infertility: Tracing the History of a Transformative Term. Rhetoric and Public Affairs 1 March 2019; 22 (1): 168–171. doi: https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.1.0168 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. © 2019 Michigan State University Board of Trustees2019 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Book Review| March 01 2019 Landmark Essays on Rhetoric and Feminism, 1973–2000 Landmark Essays on Rhetoric and Feminism, 1973–2000. Edited by Cheryl Glenn and Andrea Lunsford. New York, NY: Routledge, 2015; pp. viii + 266. $185.00 cloth; $54.95 paper. Rosalyn Collings Eves Rosalyn Collings Eves Southern Utah University Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Rhetoric and Public Affairs (2019) 22 (1): 160–163. https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.1.0160 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Rosalyn Collings Eves; Landmark Essays on Rhetoric and Feminism, 1973–2000. Rhetoric and Public Affairs 1 March 2019; 22 (1): 160–163. doi: https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.1.0160 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. © 2019 Michigan State University Board of Trustees2019 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Book Review| March 01 2019 Democracy’s Lot: Rhetoric, Publics, and the Places of Invention Democracy’s Lot: Rhetoric, Publics, and the Places of Invention. By Candice Rai. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2016; pp. xiii + 244. $54.95 cloth. Bridie McGreavy Bridie McGreavy University of Maine Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Rhetoric and Public Affairs (2019) 22 (1): 149–152. https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.1.0149 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Bridie McGreavy; Democracy’s Lot: Rhetoric, Publics, and the Places of Invention. Rhetoric and Public Affairs 1 March 2019; 22 (1): 149–152. doi: https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.1.0149 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. © 2019 Michigan State University Board of Trustees2019 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Book Review| March 01 2019 Rhetoric, Humor, and the Public Sphere: From Socrates to Stephen Colbert Rhetoric, Humor, and the Public Sphere: From Socrates to Stephen Colbert. By Elizabeth Benacka. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2017; pp. ix + 165. $80.00 cloth. Michael Phillips-Anderson Michael Phillips-Anderson Monmouth University Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Rhetoric and Public Affairs (2019) 22 (1): 153–155. https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.1.0153 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Michael Phillips-Anderson; Rhetoric, Humor, and the Public Sphere: From Socrates to Stephen Colbert. Rhetoric and Public Affairs 1 March 2019; 22 (1): 153–155. doi: https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.1.0153 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. © 2019 Michigan State University Board of Trustees2019 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

AbstractThough rhetorical critics have been very attentive to John F. Kennedy’s rhetoric during the 1960 campaign, less attention has been paid to that of his conservative Protestant antagonists. To address the omission, this essay considers W. A. Criswell’s July 3, 1960 address, “George Truett and Religious Liberty,” portions of which were reprinted and widely distributed as a pamphlet titled Religious Freedom, the Church, the State, and Senator Kennedy. These texts, we argue, are exemplary of a larger Protestant strategy during the 1960 race. Because Kennedy’s candidacy had prompted fierce vitriol from the anti-Catholic Right, conservative Protestant leaders from across the denominational spectrum tempered their attacks so as not to alienate centrist voters. Their measured adoption of religious freedom arguments allowed them to occupy the respectable middle, assailing Kennedy’s Catholicism while parrying charges of religious bigotry. In Criswell’s rhetoric, we find a pure distillation of this strategy, identifying it as a species of respectability politics with enduring appeal—this time from the Right.

Book Review| March 01 2019 Rethinking Ethos: A Feminist Ecological Approach to Rhetoric Rethinking Ethos: A Feminist Ecological Approach to Rhetoric. Edited by Kathleen J. Ryan, Nancy Myers, and Rebecca Jones. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2016; pp. vii + 304. $45.00 paper. Brittany Knutson Brittany Knutson University of Minnesota—Twin Cities Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Rhetoric and Public Affairs (2019) 22 (1): 164–167. https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.1.0164 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Brittany Knutson; Rethinking Ethos: A Feminist Ecological Approach to Rhetoric. Rhetoric and Public Affairs 1 March 2019; 22 (1): 164–167. doi: https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.1.0164 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. © 2019 Michigan State University Board of Trustees2019 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

AbstractIn this essay, we analyze the public communication debacle before the 2009 L’Aquila earthquake that led to the infamous trial of the “L’Aquila Seven.” Examining the trial transcripts to extract norms regarding the proper role of scientists in society, we conclude that the first verdict interpellated the figure of the responsible scientist citizen who is expected to perform rhetorical citizenship when communicating with a lay public, while the second assumed a distinction between public and technical spheres that absolves scientists from responsibility to their fellow citizens and reduces their role to performance of an expertise divorced from rhetoric. Tracing the civic outcomes of these conflicting norms, we identify three missed opportunities during the prequake discourse in which the scientists failed to correct statements that they, and only they, knew to be flawed. To prevent future communicative debacles that arise from a dangerous separation of scientists and laypeople, we argue that scientists need to come to see themselves as scientist citizens, experts who take on the civic responsibility of clearly communicating their knowledge to their fellow citizens when such sharing is necessary to the public good.

AbstractPresidential libraries and museums are important sites for understanding the rhetorical construction of presidential legacies in the United States. The newest of these institutions is the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, Texas. The museum assists in the rhetorical redemption of a historically maligned presidency, anchoring President Bush’s legacy in the virtues of masculine, authoritative leadership. This is aided in particular by a noteworthy focus on baseball as a mythic expression of American exceptionalism, most dramatically featured in a 2015 temporary exhibit called Baseball: America’s Presidents, America’s Pastime. Far from being simply a colorful metaphor for national identity, baseball celebrates Bush’s moral authority and links him to the legacy of previous presidents such as Theodore Roosevelt. In short, the exhibit makes clear that one cannot understand the Bush presidency without baseball.

AbstractIn the rhetoric of contemporary federal education reform, public school teachers are often blamed for and championed as solutions to educational problems. Representations of teachers as heroic and blameworthy are an integral component of a neoliberal rationality apparent in education reform since the publication of the Reagan administration’s A Nation at Risk, as they allow political actors to promote individual solutions to systemic issues that affect student achievement. After briefly exploring the rhetoric of reform, this essay focuses on the ways teachers negotiate the discourses that implicate their profession. To do so, I analyze a corpus of 18 open letters written and published online by current and former public school teachers in protest of policy and/or specific political actors. I argue that authors of these open letters leverage their professional identities to protest and articulate alternatives to seemingly pervasive neoliberal logics inherent in contemporary education reform. In turn, I maintain that analyzing vernacular exchanges, such as teachers’ protest discourse, is imperative to understanding the material consequences of education policy as well as the full discursive space of policymaking.

Book Review| December 01 2018 Assigning Blame: The Rhetoric of Education Reform Assigning Blame: The Rhetoric of Education Reform. By Mark Hlavacik. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press, 2016; pp. 207. $60.00 cloth; $30.00 paper. Stephen Schneider Stephen Schneider University of Louisville Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Rhetoric and Public Affairs (2018) 21 (4): 717–720. https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.21.4.0717 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 Stephen Schneider; Assigning Blame: The Rhetoric of Education Reform. Rhetoric and Public Affairs 1 December 2018; 21 (4): 717–720. doi: https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.21.4.0717 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. © 2018 Michigan State University Board of Trustees2018 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Research Article| December 01 2018 Memories of Robert Newman: Teacher, Scholar, Mentor Marilyn J. Young Marilyn J. Young Marilyn J. Young is the Wayne C. Minnick Professor of Communication emerita at Florida State University in Tallahassee. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Rhetoric and Public Affairs (2018) 21 (4): 707–716. https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.21.4.0707 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 Marilyn J. Young; Memories of Robert Newman: Teacher, Scholar, Mentor. Rhetoric and Public Affairs 1 December 2018; 21 (4): 707–716. doi: https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.21.4.0707 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. © 2018 Michigan State University Board of Trustees2018 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Abstract Gridlock plagues modern policy deliberations in Congress. By analyzing the 2013 Senate debate over the “Gang of Eight” immigration bill, this essay shows how distrust operates as a rhetorical stance that forecloses compromise and justifies corrosive legislative stalemates. Despite agreeing on most policy specifics, congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle constructed subversive, untrustworthy policy actors to legitimate their refusal to compromise on a final bill. Republicans denounced the Obama administration as flouters of immigration laws and uninterested in border security, while Democrats detailed a Republican “ploy” to cheat millions of undocumented immigrants out of a pathway to citizenship. These rhetorics of distrust created irreconcilable visions for how to implement immigration reform. The essay concludes by proposing that more dialogic forums among representatives and a politically realist outlook could help ameliorate rhetorics of distrust.

Book Review| December 01 2018 Propaganda Propaganda. Edited by Paul Baines and Nicholas O’Shaughnessy. 4 vols. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Ltd., 2013; pp. 1,448. $1,190 cloth. Allison Niebaur; Allison Niebaur Pennsylvania State University Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Benjamin Firgens Benjamin Firgens Pennsylvania State University Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Rhetoric and Public Affairs (2018) 21 (4): 740–743. https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.21.4.0740 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 Allison Niebaur, Benjamin Firgens; Propaganda. Rhetoric and Public Affairs 1 December 2018; 21 (4): 740–743. doi: https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.21.4.0740 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. © 2018 Michigan State University Board of Trustees2018 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Research Article| December 01 2018 Rational Model for Analyzing U.S. Foreign Policy Advocates and Decision Makers: The Newman Legacy Carol Winkler Carol Winkler Carol Winkler is Professor of Communication Studies at Georgia State University in Atlanta. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Rhetoric and Public Affairs (2018) 21 (4): 683–694. https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.21.4.0683 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 Carol Winkler; Rational Model for Analyzing U.S. Foreign Policy Advocates and Decision Makers: The Newman Legacy. Rhetoric and Public Affairs 1 December 2018; 21 (4): 683–694. doi: https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.21.4.0683 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. © 2018 Michigan State University Board of Trustees2018 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Book Review| December 01 2018 Shades of Ṣulḥ: The Rhetoric of Arab-Islamic Reconciliation Shades of Ṣulḥ: The Rhetoric of Arab-Islamic Reconciliation. By Rasha Diab. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2016; pp. xi + 248. $26.95 paper. Arabella Lyon Arabella Lyon University at Buffalo, SUNY Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Rhetoric and Public Affairs (2018) 21 (4): 737–739. https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.21.4.0737 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 Arabella Lyon; Shades of Ṣulḥ: The Rhetoric of Arab-Islamic Reconciliation. Rhetoric and Public Affairs 1 December 2018; 21 (4): 737–739. doi: https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.21.4.0737 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. © 2018 Michigan State University Board of Trustees2018 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.