Book Review| March 01 2017 Kant and the Promise of Rhetoric Kant and the Promise of Rhetoric. By Scott Stroud. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2014; pp. ix + 271. $79.95 hardcover. Ronald C. Arnett Ronald C. Arnett Duquesne University, Department of Communication & Rhetorical Studies Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Rhetoric and Public Affairs (2017) 20 (1): 190–193. https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.20.1.0190 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Ronald C. Arnett; Kant and the Promise of Rhetoric. Rhetoric and Public Affairs 1 March 2017; 20 (1): 190–193. doi: https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.20.1.0190 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. © 2017 Michigan State University Board of Trustees. All rights reserved.2017 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Abstract President Obama’s commencement address on the University of Notre Dame campus evoked substantial controversy, providing public demonstration of rhetorical differences and demands generated by differing provincial and cosmopolitan positions. Icontend that public civic rhetoric, in an era of narrative and virtue contention, must address the creative interplay of both provincial and cosmopolitan perspectives. In this essay I examine reactions to the Obama address from news sources connected with the local Catholic diocese, as well as the South Bend and University of Notre Dame newspapers. I argue that Obamas address is an example of a public civic speech that openly engaged the interplay of provincial and cosmopolitan understandings of a controversial communal common center. Obamas Notre Dame speech framed discourse that walks within a world of tension and difference on the public stage, highlighting the communal rhetorical constitution of a speech moment shaped through the interplay of provincial and cosmopolitan commitments.