Advances in the History of Rhetoric Sep 2018

The Pluralistic Style and the Demands of Intercultural Rhetoric: Swami Vivekananda at the World’s Parliament of Religions

Scott R. Stroud

Abstract

ABSTRACT Intercultural contexts introduce unique sources of complexity into our theories of rhetoric and persuasion. This study examines one of the most successful cases of intercultural rhetoric concerning religion: the case of Swami Vivekananda, a Hindu monk from India who came to the United States in 1893 for the World’s Parliament of Religions. He arrived as an unknown monk, but he left America years later as the nationally known face of Hinduism. Facing a tense scene in 1893 that featured a plurality of religions and American organizers and audiences who judged Hinduism as inferior to Christianity, Vivekananda enacted a unique rhetoric of pluralism to assert the value of his form of Hinduism while simultaneously respecting other religions. This study extracts from Vivekananda’s popular performance at the parliament a pluralistic style of rhetorical advocacy, one that builds upon his unique reading of Hindu religious-philosophical traditions. This pluralistic style can be used to unravel some of the theoretical issues created by invitational rhetoric’s reading of persuasion as inherently violent to disagreeing others.

Journal
Advances in the History of Rhetoric
Published
2018-09-02
DOI
10.1080/15362426.2018.1526545
CompPile
Search in CompPile ↗
Topics
voice and style

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (0)

No articles in this index cite this work.

Cites in this index (5)

  1. Maddux (2017)
    Without Touching Upon Suffrage: Gender and Economic Citizenship at the World’s …
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  2. Stroud (2015)
    Pragmatism, Pluralism, and World Hypotheses:
    Philosophy & Rhetoric
  3. Stroud (2014)
    Comprehensive Rhetorical Pluralism and the Demands of Democratic Discourse: Par…
    Philosophy & Rhetoric
  4. Lloyd (2007)
    A Rhetorical Tradition Lost in Translation: Implications for Rhetoric in the An…
    Advances in the History of Rhetoric
  5. Ryan et al. (2001)
    Fusing horizons: Standpoint hermeneutics and invitational rhetoric
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
Also cites 10 works outside this index ↓
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    Beyond Persuasion: A Proposal for an Invitational Rhetoric
    Communication Monographs  ↗
  2. Ganeri (2002)
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    History and Philosophy of Logic  ↗
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     ↗
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     ↗
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CrossRef global citation count: 1 View in citation network →

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