Rhetoric Society Quarterly May 2018

Public: A Network of Relationships

Robert Asen Schlumberger (Ireland)

Abstract

This essay makes sense of rhetorical scholarship on publics by interpreting publics as networks of relationships. I begin by considering how the concept of relationship has circulated as a prominent theme in the foundational scholarship on which contemporary scholars often draw. I then discuss how scholarship on multiple public spheres and counterpublics explores advocates’ efforts to reconstruct relationships in pursuit of inclusion, justice, and equality. I conclude by explicating neoliberal publics as a prominent contemporary challenge to robust relationships and critical public engagement. Against contemporary scholarship and practice that emphasizes fluidity, diversity, and transformation, a neoliberal public asserts its own universality, claiming that market relations represent an intrinsic, common orientation to public engagement and that markets treat everyone the same.

Journal
Rhetoric Society Quarterly
Published
2018-05-27
DOI
10.1080/02773945.2018.1454216
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Topics
rhetorical criticism service learning race and writing public rhetoric
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Citation Context

Cited by in this index (3)

  1. Fulton-Babicke (2021)
    Impediments to Productive Argument: Rhetorical Decay
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  2. Ehrenfeld (2020)
    “Sharing a World with Others”: Rhetoric’s Ecological Turn and the Transformatio…
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  3. Goodwin (2019)
    The Function of Quasi-Public Intellectuals in the Manipulation of Publics
    Rhetoric Review

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