Rhetoric Society Quarterly

1770 articles
Year: Topic:
Export:

September 2004

  1. Reviews
    Abstract

    Strategies of Remembrances: The Rhetorical Dimensions of National Identity Construction by M. Lane Bruner. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2002. 176 pp. Darwinism, Design, and Public Education, edited by John Angus Campbell and Stephen C. Meyer. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2003. 634 pp. + xxxviii. Logos and Power in Isocrates and Aristotle by Ekaterina V. Haskins. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2004. 172 + xiii pp. Doing Our Own Thing: The Degradation of Language and Music (and Why We Should, Like, Care) by John McWhorter. Gotham Books: 2003. 276 pp. + xxiii.

    doi:10.1080/02773940409391297
  2. Reclaiming rhetorical democracy: George Grote's defense of Gleon and the Athenian demagogues
    Abstract

    Abstract George Grote's History of Greece (1846–56) was instrumental in overturning the traditional view of Athens as an oppressive and corrupt society. In particular, Grote's rewriting of the story of the Athenian demagogue Cleon illustrates the difficulties he faced in attempting to argue for the legitimacy of popular government and popular rhetoric. His defense of Cleon—and more broadly, his defense of rhetorical democracy—helped to challenge the ascendancy of rhetoric as belles lettres and to stimulate the modern revival of Athenian popular rhetoric.

    doi:10.1080/02773940409391296

June 2004

  1. Reviews
    Abstract

    Communicating Science: The Scientific Article from the 17th Century to the Present by Alan Gross, Joseph E. Harmon, Michael Reidy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. 267 + x pp. Rhetoric and Renewal in the Latin West 1100–1540: Essays in Honour of John O. Ward, edited by Constant J. Mews, Cary J. Nederman, and Rodney M. Thomson. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2003. 270 + viii pp. Electronic Collaboration in the Humanities: Issues and Options, edited by James A. Inman, Cheryl Reed, and Peter Sand. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2004. 419 + xxiv pp.

    doi:10.1080/02773940409391291
  2. Introduction
    doi:10.1080/02773940409391285
  3. Editorial board
    doi:10.1080/02773940409391284
  4. Afterwords: A dialogue
    Abstract

    these reflections on working group discussions held at the ARS meeting has quickly taken me back to Evanston in mid-September 2003 and to the extraordinarily productive and provocative work that got done there. I vividly remember listening as Jerzy Axer and then Jeffrey Walker sounded an emergent theme: rhetoric, they said, is a teaching tradition. I remember being surprised at this theme - in fact, I would not have predicted it, and that surprise took me even further back, to the disappointment I felt in having a proposal rejected for an ISHR meeting: awe do not accept papers on pedagogy, the letter said. The dismissal of pedagogy is not unique to ISHR, of course; MLA and NGA have also been reluctant to yield pedagogy a place at the disciplinary table. Even in the GGGG, which was founded on pedagogical concerns, a sometimes bitter conflict has sprung up between theory and practice, with those advocating for the crucial role of theory arguing that studies in composition/rhetoric will not prosper or mature unless the field gives up its attachment to practice, to pedagogy. So I was surprised at the primacy of pedagogy at the ARS conference, and I was heartened by it as well. As Mike Leff has since remarked, at ARS, all roads lead to teaching. In his essay in this issue, Jerry Hauser offers a retrospective explanation for the marginalization of pedagogy and teaching: the ancient Greek rhetorical tradition, grounded in the paedeia and on the capacitating the individual student to lead the life of an active and responsible citizen gave way to the model of the German research institution, with its emphasis on and valorization of discovering new knowledge. This is an elegant explanation, one that leads to Hauser's equally elegant peroration: capacitating students to be competent citizens is our birthright It has been ours since antiquity. Modern education has stripped us of We need to reclaim it. What became increasingly clear to me is that a second key term that animated the conference - performance - must also play a central role in any such reclamation. In retrospect, I realized that every keynote address touched not only on pedagogy but also on performance: the performance of teaching; the performance of civic duty and discourse; the performance of student speaking and writing; the performance of disciplinarity. As I listened and talked, the focus on performance and pedagogy seemed perfectly to bridge the rhetoric/composition and communication traditions to which

    doi:10.1080/02773940409391290
  5. Teaching rhetoric: Or why rhetoric isn't just another kind of philosophy or literary criticism
    Abstract

    Abstract At the conclusion of the Evanston conference, the groups that had been working on Pedagogy affirmed the position: ‘ “What makes rhetoric rhetoric is its teaching tradition.” The formation of an alliance among the various scholarly societies with a self‐identified interest in rhetoric offers a unique opportunity to advance a collective assertion of what rhetoric scholars study and teach, what binds our several traditions together as a disciplinary practice, what are its disciplinary strengths in the development of our students’ capacity (dunamis) as individuals, and why this mode of education is valuable for a free society. Three pedagogy groups developed far‐reaching proposals for the ways we might reassert rhetoric education's centrality in the modern university. Spanning these was their call for ARS to commission a manifesto recovering the value of rhetoric education as central to civic education.

    doi:10.1080/02773940409391289
  6. How ought we to understand the concept of rhetorical agency? Report from the ARS
    Abstract

    Abstract One of the primary discussions at last fall's meeting of the Alliance of Rhetoric Societies addressed the question, “How ought we to understand the concept of rhetorical agency?” Several developments are worthy of note. First, although concern with agency began as a rear guard action against the post‐modern critique, the discussion appears to have shifted to more productive investigations into the consciousness and conditions of agency. Second, a growing number of scholars acknowledge that rhetoric as an interpretive theory describes a variety of rhetorical positions, some with more and some with less rhetorical agency. Rhetoric still faces the issue, however, of incorporating this knowledge into rhetoric's mission as a productive art.

    doi:10.1080/02773940409391286
  7. Institutional and social goals for rhetoric
    Abstract

    Abstract This working group asked, “What should be the institutional and social goals for academic rhetoric, both within and beyond the academy?” The question takes significance from rhetoric's peculiar position as both sub‐discipline and inter‐discipline, as a subject in its own right and a perspective adopted by scholars in many fields, as a practice both valorized and marginalized. The essay reviews this position, describes the work group process, and summarizes recommendations for “staying on message,” disciplinary infrastructure, promoting rhetoric within individual institutions, working across disciplinary lines, enhancing pedagogy, pre‐collegiate education, and the public face of rhetoric.

    doi:10.1080/02773940409391288
  8. Rhetorical traditions, pluralized canons, relevant history, and other disputed terms: A report from the history of rhetoric discussion groups at the ARS conference
    Abstract

    Abstract Among the thirty or so historians gathered to discuss the question of “rhetorical tradition” at the inaugural Alliance of Rhetoric Societies meeting, there was virtual agreement that the concept of a single tradition would not stand without critique, interrogation, and pluralization. The two groups took somewhat different paths outward from the notion of a unified tradition, one spending more time elaborating a range of historiographical models and the other dwelling on questions of value and purpose in the enterprise of writing and teaching histories of rhetoric They reached agreement in discussions of inventive approaches to curriculum development and the need for a proliferation of scholarly projects and resources.

    doi:10.1080/02773940409391287

March 2004

  1. Editorial board
    doi:10.1080/02773940409391277
  2. An occult poetics, or, the secret rhetoric of religion
    Abstract

    Abstract Drawing from a number of “New Age” or occult texts, the essay characterizes the rhetorical functions of the deliberate use of difficult language in occult discourse as the outworking of an “occult poetics.” The essay suggests that most contemporary New Age discourse tends to follow a pattern illustrated in the Platonic dialogues: 1) it emphasizes the limits of language; and 2) it tends to stress the necessity of new vocabularies or novel expressions for intuiting ineffable, spiritual truths. The essay concludes by comparing occultism to the contemporary academic debate over obscure theoretical terminology.

    doi:10.1080/02773940409391280
  3. Reviews
    Abstract

    The rhetorical and poetic imaginations of Kenneth Burke The Humane Particulars: The Collected Letters of William Carlos Williams and Kenneth Burke by James H. East. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2003. 288 + xxxvii pp. The Rhetorical Imagination of Kenneth Burke by Ross Wolin. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2001. 256 + xiii pp. George Campbell: Rhetoric in the Age of Enlightenment by Arthur E. Walzer. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003. 175 + vii pp. Rhetoric on the Margins of Modernity: Vico, Condillac, and Monboddo by Catherine L. Hobbs. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 2002. 211 + vii pp. Imagining Rhetoric: Composing Women of the Early United States by Janet Carey Eldred and Peter Mortensen. Pittsburgh Series in Composition, Literacy, and Culture. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2002. 279

    doi:10.1080/02773940409391283
  4. Changes
    doi:10.1080/02773940409391278
  5. A dialogue between traditional and cognitive rhetoric: Readings of figuration in George W. Bush's “axis of evil” address
    Abstract

    Abstract This article takes the form of a dialogue between traditional rhetoric and cognitive rhetoric, offering complementary readings of rhetoric and figuration in President George W. Bush's 2002 State of the Union Address, the so‐called “axis of evil” speech. Traditional and cognitive rhetorics differ most markedly in their approach to metaphor, metonymy, and other figures. This dialogue brings important differences into focus and, at the same time, demonstrates the potential of combining approaches. In addition to metonymy and metaphor, it discusses blending theory, acutezze, and related questions.

    doi:10.1080/02773940409391281
  6. Longinus's sublime rhetoric, or how rhetoric game into its own
    Abstract

    Abstract This essay argues that Peri Hypsous (On Height or On the Sublime, traditionally attributed to "Longinus") marks an important moment in the history of rhetoric, as rhetoric is presented therein as an autonomous, sublime object. Through notions of hypsos (height) and physis (nature), and an amalgamation of Ciceronian/lsocratean arid Gorgianic notions of rhetoric, "Longinus" frees rhetoric from the project of legitimation. He makes it a marvel that needs no justification—rhetoric "comes into its own." Even as I account for the emergence of this conception of rhetoric in Peri Hypsous, I question its helpfulness for rhetorical studies.

    doi:10.1080/02773940409391282
  7. The Rhetorical Space of Robben Island
    Abstract

    Abstract Drawing on the concept of rhetorical space, as described by Roxanne Mountford, this essay gives an account of Robben Island. A notorious South African prison, Robben Island was home to the majority of the apartheid government's high‐profile political prisoners. After the transition to a democratic government in South Africa, the prison became a national heritage site. Documenting representative accounts of the space of Robben Island during and after apartheid, this essay elaborates the concept of rhetorical space, demonstrating the complex and dynamic interactions of spatial experience and rhetorical authority. In particular, the example of Robbern Island illustrates the ways in which space functions as a maleable rhetorical resource.

    doi:10.1080/02773940409391279

January 2004

  1. “We want yer, McKinley”: Epbdeictic rhetoric in songs from the 1896 presidential campaign
    Abstract

    Abstract The 1896 presidential campaign included, among many other campaign techniques, a large number of songs that praised and condemned the opposing candidates, William McKinley and William Jennings Bryan. The campaign songs, whose likely purpose was to inspire the candidates’ followers, were epideictic in tone and spirit. By presenting a rhetoric that paralleled epideictic speeches, the songs enabled the opposing candidates themselves to uphold a sense of their own decorum. The songs used values as rhetorical devices; however, the songs ‘purpose was to gain a practical political end rather than to uphold moral principles.

    doi:10.1080/02773940409391274
  2. Lost in translation: The influence of 20th century literary theory on Plato's texts
    Abstract

    Abstract Close readings of passages addressing "books" and "authors" in 20th Century renditions of Plato's dialogues reveal highly variable translations. These translations track along with the rise and fall of literary! critical movements celebrating and critiquing the figure of the author, and respond to the increasingly dominant understanding of the Fifth Century BCE as a predominantly oral culture. These ultimately contradictory representations of the same Platonic texts illustrate how translators craft texts tailored to their times 'favored theoretical constructs. Nevertheless, the cumulative effect of these variable translations is to suggest the degree to which Plato's treatment of questions of authorship shapes and circumscribes putatively modern discussions of these questions.

    doi:10.1080/02773940409391273
  3. The court, child custody, and social change: The rhetorical role of precedent in a 19™ century child custody decision
    Abstract

    Abstract In the late 19th century the United States experienced a shift in presumption from paternal custody following divorce to maternal custody. This paper examines one child custody decision in the midst of this shift and finds that, ironically, rhetorical appeals to precedent and tradition were used to change precedent and tradition. More specifically, social change was grounded in the court's implicit gender hierarchy and rhetorically justified by appealing to precedent and tradition in particular ways, demonstrating that precedent is a rhetorical device that has force when used persuasively.

    doi:10.1080/02773940409391272
  4. Communications skills and a brief rapprochement of rhetoricians
    Abstract

    Abstract During the late 1940s and early 1950s a window of opportunity opened briefly for a rapprochement between rhetoricians in Speech departments with teachers of English. Members of these groups jointly developed first‐year courses in communication skills that had a distinct rhetorical flavor. Communication skills programs were short‐lived, however, because powerful disciplinary forces put an end to them.

    doi:10.1080/02773940409391275
  5. Reviews
    Abstract

    Forgotten Readers: Recovering the Lost History of African American Literary Societies by Elizabeth McHenry. Durham: Duke University Press, 2002. xiv + 423 pp. Risky Rhetoric: AIDS and the Cultural Practices of HIV Testing by J. Blake Scott Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2003. xii + 281 pp. Authority and Reform: Religious and Educational Discourses in Nineteenth‐Century New England Literature by Mark G. Vasquez. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2003. xxii + 393 pp.

    doi:10.1080/02773940409391276
  6. Burke on Drugs
    Abstract

    Abstract This essay contributes to the growing body of historical research on Kenneth Burke by considering his work as a drug researcher for the Bureau of Social Hygiene in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The research he conducted under the watch of his conservative boss, Colonel Arthur Woods, reveals a resistant worker who effectively became hooked on the question of bodies and habits even as he at times explicitly rejected the aims and methods of his boss. Burke's rearticulations of efficiency and piety help show how the Bureau offered new vantages on the body, effectively broadening his critical compass.

    doi:10.1080/02773940409391271
  7. Editorial board
    doi:10.1080/02773940409391270

September 2003

  1. Forging and firing thunderbolts: Collaboration and women's rhetoric
    Abstract

    Abstract An intricate network of collaborative relationships surrounded and supported nineteenth‐century American women's public discourse. Antebellum women worked closely with families, friends, and hired help to create and deliver rhetoric, negotiate conflicting private and public obligations, accommodate gender norms, and construct “feminine”; ethos. However, despite collaboration's central importance to women's rhetoric, scholars currently lack a model that accounts fully for its many forms and multiple functions. This article introduces a new model of collaboration capable of explaining how and why this cooperative method offers marginalized groups their most effective means to the public forum in resistant surroundings.

    doi:10.1080/02773940309391267
  2. Reviews
    Abstract

    Strategies of Remembrance: The Rhetorical Dimensions of National Identity Construction by M. Lane Bruner. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2002. 143 + pp. Inventing a Discipline: Rhetoric Scholarship in Honor of Richard E. Young by Maureen Daly Goggin, ed. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 2000. 457 pp. Collected Works of Richard Claverhouse Jebb by Robert B. Todd, ed. 9 vols. Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 2002. An Ancient Quarrel Continued: The Troubled Marriage of Philosophy and Literature by Louis Mackey. Lanham, New York, Oxford: University Press of America, 2002. 283 + viii pp.

    doi:10.1080/02773940309391269
  3. Quntilian's“Vir Bonus”and the stoic wise man
    Abstract

    Abstract Although scholars have acknowledged a Stoic influence on Quintilian, they have been reluctant to see Stoicism as providing the philosophical underpinnings of the Institutes. Against this scholarly hesitance, this essay argues that Stoic ideas are at the heart of Quintilian's educational program. Quintilian's ideal orator is the Stoic Wise Man with this difference: he is trained in Ciceronian eloquence. Furthermore, Quintilian's definition of oratory is based on the Stoic view of rhetoric as an essential science that enables the orator to meet the social responsibilities inherent in the Stoic ideal of the virtuous life.

    doi:10.1080/02773940309391266
  4. Correction
    doi:10.1080/02773940309391264
  5. The tyranny of Athens: Representations of rhetorical democracy in eighteenth‐century Britain
    Abstract

    Abstract In an age in which “democracy”; is viewed as synonymous for legitimacy in government, it is easy to overestimate the positive influence of Athenian democracy on the history of rhetoric and politics. However, a survey of eighteenth‐century commentaries on ancient Greece reveals consistent hostility toward the underpinning rhetorical dynamic of Athenian popular government. An understanding of the anti‐Athenian tradition is useful because it clarifies political assumptions that inform rhetorics of the early‐modern period. More broadly, it also demonstrates the importance of the historical relationship between rhetorical studies and classical studies.

    doi:10.1080/02773940309391268
  6. Walter J. Ong, S. J.
    doi:10.1080/02773940309391263
  7. Rhetorics of unity and disunity: The Worcester firefighters memorial service
    Abstract

    Abstract Rhetorical criticism has generally considered the public memorial speech as a moment of re‐establishing societal equilibrium and unity after the disruption of death. In the case of the Worcester Firefighters Memorial Service in 1999, however, the unifying impulses of the speakers both create a public forum for the memorial service and prevent it from cohering. While the eulogists draw on ceremonial conventions of epideictic rhetoric, the line between epideictic and deliberative rhetoric blurs as the memorial speeches become the occasion of differing, divided, and uncertain claims about how the public is constituted and who has grounds to memorialize the dead. Accordingly, we argue that neither unity nor disunity has rhetorical priority, placing the burden instead on rhetorical analysis to account for the complex relations between unity and disunity.

    doi:10.1080/02773940309391265
  8. Editorial board
    doi:10.1080/02773940309391262

June 2003

  1. The rhetoric of oracles
    Abstract

    Abstract The pronouncements of the Delphic oracle, when employed in the Athenian boulos as guidelines for political policy, broke down traditional distinctions between myth and reason. Self and Other, and fate and agency. An examination of the public life of the Delphic oracle as recorded by rhetoricians such as Gorgias, Plato, Arisotle, and Isocrates suggests that Ancient Greek rhetoric, in praxis, resisted logical dichotomization and fostered holistic self‐fashioning via civic action. This study of the Pythias pronouncements serves as a cautionary tale for attempts to discipline rhetoric in the modern academy. It also recuperates crucial historical texts authored by women into the Greek rhetorical canon.

    doi:10.1080/02773940309391259
  2. Logos as composition
    Abstract

    Abstract This essay argues that the word logos meant “a gathering or composition “ in Homeric Greek and that it retained this sense through the fifth century BCE. It first builds a philological case for the composition/ gathering meaning of logos. Next, it addresses the historiographic question of how the interpretation of logos as logic/language has come to prevail in our histories of Greek thought. Finally, it demonstrates the relevance that the composition/gathering reading of logos can have for the history of rhetoric by showing how it can help in rethinking the “rivalry “ between muthos and logos.

    doi:10.1080/02773940309391258
  3. Reviews
    Abstract

    Gender and Rhetorical Space in American Life, 1866–1910 by Nan Johnson Carbondale: SIU Press, 2002. 220 pp. Rhetoric In The Middle Ages And Three Medieval Rhetorical Arts By James J. Murphy. Rhetoric in the Middle Ages: A History of Rhetorical Theory from Saint Augustine to the Renaissance. 1974. “Foreword to the Reprint”; Jody Enders. Bibliography, not credited. MRTS Reprint Series, No. 4. Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2001. xii + 399 pp. Three Medieval Rhetorical Arts by James J. Murphy. 1971. MRTS Reprint Series, No. 5. Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2001. xxiii + 236 pp.

    doi:10.1080/02773940309391261
  4. Deliberate invention: On the motive to create novel beliefs
    Abstract

    Forensic, dialectic, or scientific discourse cannot induce the desire to create novel beliefs, but deliberative discourse—a procedure for determining rules for future actions for which the interlocutors as yet have no determined rules—may induce such desire when interlocutors accept what Donald Davidson has called "the rule of charity," the rule that interlocutors must assume that what their counterparts say is mostly true. The need, and therefore the desire, for new belief emerges only once the possibility of resolving the problem using currently held beliefs exhausts and the need to reconceive the original problem presents itself.

    doi:10.1080/02773940309391260
  5. Race anda rhetoric of motives:Kenneth Burke ‘s dialogue with Ralph Ellison
    Abstract

    Abstract A Rhetoric of Motives is Kenneth Burke's only published work to consistently focus upon the subject of race. Although encouraged by the book's topic, this treatment was significantly shaped by Burke's friendship with African American novelist and critic, Ralph Ellison. Consequently, this essay offers one history of Burke's Rhetoric, drawing on both published work and unpublished correspondence between and concerning these two men. Based upon these materials, I isolate three texts as the central moments of the Burke/Ellison dialogue on race: Ellison's essay, “Richard Wright's Blues,”; Ellison's letter to Burke of November 23, 1945, and, finally. Burke's A Rhetoric of Motives.

    doi:10.1080/02773940309391257
  6. Editorial board
    doi:10.1080/02773940309391256

March 2003

  1. The stoic temper in belletristic rhetoric
    Abstract

    Abstract Although belletristic rhetoric constitutes à response to concerns that are unique to the eighteenth century, its fundamental principles carry forward Stoic views concerning the relationships among the individual's perceptions, moral sense, and civic duty. Stoic philosophy had particular appeal for eighteenth‐century thinkers searching for stability in the midst of rapid change. Examining the philosophical links between belletristic rhetoric and Stoic thought provides a more complete understanding of the beliefs about language, virtue, and society that shape the development of belletristic rhetoric.

    doi:10.1080/02773940309391254
  2. Reading the cemetery,lieu de memoire par excellance
    Abstract

    Abstract This work uses rhetoric's fourth canon to “read”; the cemetery, a bricolage that can tell us both how memory is shaped and some of what is forgotten. As ideal memory sites, cemeteries show how kairos merges with chronos as well as how memory is linked to power and truth. Looking most specifically at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, this work analyzes several gravesites as well as the cemetery itself to see how such readings of cemeteries might help us develop a more critical perspective on memory.

    doi:10.1080/02773940309391252
  3. Appealing to the “intelligent worker”: Rhetorical reconstitution and the influence of firsthand experience in the rhetoric of Leonora O'Reilly
    Abstract

    Abstract This article examines the rhetoric of labor activist Leonora O'Reilly for the ways she reconstituted her audience through a second persona of “intelligent workers.”; By balancing concrete contextualization with abstract visions of a future democracy, O'Reilly established identification with her audience of young, uneducated, poor women while simultaneously encouraging them to become a group of outspoken agents capable of transforming their oppressive circumstances. This article also explores the ways firsthand experiences influenced the process of reconstitution. To recognize the influences of extra‐verbal phenomena does not downplay rhetoric's role in the creation of an audience but rather calls attention to the dialectical relationship between language and an extra‐discursive reality and encourages scholars to examine a number of factors which can precipitate, impede, or otherwise shape the process of reconstitution.

    doi:10.1080/02773940309391251
  4. Editorial board
    doi:10.1080/02773940309391250
  5. Reviews
    Abstract

    An African Athens: Rhetoric and the Shaping of Democracy in South Africa by Philippe‐Joseph Salazar. Mahvah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2002. 226 pp. + xx. The Insolent Slave by William E. Wiethoff. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2002. 223 pp. Conceiving Normalcy: Rhetoric, Law, and the Double Binds of Infertility by Elizabeth C. Britt. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, Rhetoric, Culture, and Social Critique Series, 2001. 206 pp + xi.

    doi:10.1080/02773940309391255
  6. What happened at the first American writers’ congress? Kenneth Burke's “revolutionary symbolism in America”
    Abstract

    Abstract Burke's famous performance at the First American Writers’ Congress in 1935 should be understood in relation to its occasion. The Congress was held to enlist the services of writers in creating a broad Popular Front, or People's Front, to encourage social change, so Burke's recommendation that “the people”; ought to be substituted for “the worker”; in Communist Party symbolism—that “propaganda by inclusion”; ought to succeed “propaganda by exclusion “—was actually in moderate keeping with the Congress’ broad aim. Though his recommendation was resisted by some, Burke was actually not so much marginalized by the Congress as identified with its controversies.

    doi:10.1080/02773940309391253

January 2003

  1. Genre work: Expertise and advocacy in the early bulletins of the U.S. women's Bureau
    Abstract

    Abstract Recent scholars explain “genres”; as important sites of flux. Instances of instability or change in genres often reflect — and enact — critical power struggles. After tracing recent genre theory, 1 consider how the varied textual elements in the early bulletins of the Women's Bureau of the Department of Labor reflect and enact the power struggles that emerged as a particular group of American women labor activists attempted to gain authority within the federal bureaucracy.

    doi:10.1080/02773940309391244
  2. Practices, theories, and traditions: Further thoughts on the disciplinary identities of English and communication Studies
    Abstract

    I often run along a path near my home. Recently I noticed something about my behavior: On especially crowded days I seldom greet either walkers or bikers, who are often talking in couples or riding by at high speeds. But when I meet other runners, I almost always say or signal hello. I interpret my greeting practice as a mode of identification: identifying with others sharing a running practice. For certain purposes, runners might identify with walkers and bikers, for example, in a civic action to save the path from the encroachment of housing developers. But within the group of pathway users, I identify primarily with other runners and, in a certain sense, we form a loose community of running practitioners. This is a very, very rough analogy for what happens at local university functions, at national scholarly conferences, and at non-academic events of all kinds, rhetorical contexts where disciplinary identities are established and reinforced for professional and lay audiences. To analyze performances of disciplinary identities in more depth, I'd like to begin heuristically with a three-dimensional model for locating academic fields in relation to each other. Axis A (Disciplinary Matrices) consists of practices, theories, and traditions; Axis B (Field Boundaries) includes disciplines, interdisciplines, transdisciplines, and non-disciplines; and Axis C (Cultural Sites) comprises ideational domains, material institutions, and public spheres.' Academic disciplines and their subfields can be identified and compared across the different axes of this model. For example, the disciplinary matrix of English Studies includes interpretive practices for critically reading, researching, and teaching texts; aesthetic and other theories for defining textual objects of study; and evolving traditions of texts to be described, compared, and evaluated (canons of literary, critical, and theoretical works). In the twentieth century, English as this matrix of practices, theories, and traditions (Axis A) was identified as a separate discipline (Axis B) with its own ideational domain in relation to other disciplines and its own subfields, institutionalized as an academic department within the

    doi:10.1080/02773940309391248
  3. Reviews
    Abstract

    Spoken and Written Discourse: A Multi‐disciplinary Perspective by Khosrow Jahandarie. Stamford, Conn.: Ablex Publishing Company, 1999. 446 pp. Mattingly's “Telling Evidence”;: Re‐Seeing Nineteenth‐Century Women's Rhetorics Water Drops from Women Writers: A Temperance Reader edited by Carol Mattingly. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2001. 292 + xii. Appropriate[ing] Dress: Women's Rhetorical Style in Nineteenth‐Century America by Carol Mattingly. Carbondale: Southern Illinois Uniersity Press, 2002. 175 + xv. Seeking the Words of Women: Two Recent Anthologies Rhetorical Theory by Women before 1900: An Anthology edited by Jane Donawerth. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002. 337 + xlii pp. Available Means: An Anthology of Women's Rhetoric(s) edited by Joy Ritchie and Kate Ronald. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001. 521 + xxxi pp.

    doi:10.1080/02773940309391249
  4. Re‐defining god: The rhetoric of reconciliation
    Abstract

    Abstract Religious people who encounter crisis and tragedy often question the premises of their faith. Many of those believers, in order to continue in a life of faith, must re‐imagine their conceptions of God. This process of re‐imagining God, whether for an individual believer or a professional theologian, is a dialogical one. Utilizing Bakhtin's conception of speech utterances, we will model a process of reconciliation by which believers such as C.S Lewis and Shusaku Endo and theologians such as Schmuel Boteach and Enrique Dussell contribute to a rhetorical, dynamic understanding of God.

    doi:10.1080/02773940309391247
  5. A sphere of noble action: Gender, rhetoric, and influence at a nineteenth‐century Massachusetts State Normal School
    Abstract

    Abstract This essay explores the rhetorical education of nineteenth‐century women attending the Westfield State Normal School, the second public and first co‐educational normal school in the United States. Archival research reveals that Westfield developed a program of rhetorical study that aimed to prepare both men and women to use oral and written persuasive discourse in their work as teachers. Westfield justified its progressive curriculum by arguing that advanced study in rhetoric would help future teachers to foster learning, win respect, and achieve meaningful moral influence among their pupils. While traditional gender ideologies at times complicated the efforts of female students to master oral and written persuasive discourse, Westfield's faculty and students remained committed throughout the century to the idea that study in rhetoric would aid the future teacher in cultivating a powerful public voice.

    doi:10.1080/02773940309391245
  6. Editorial board
    doi:10.1080/02773940309391243