Thomas M. Conley

10 articles
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

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Thomas M. Conley's work travels primarily in Rhetoric (66% of indexed citations) · 3 total indexed citations from 2 clusters.

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  • Rhetoric — 2
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  1. Rhetoric and Literature in Finland and Sweden, 1600–1900 ed. by Pernille Harsting and Jon Viklund
    Abstract

    Reviews 115 in more advanced rhetorical practice. Webb s contention that the persuasive force of ekphrasis is a matter of the orator eliciting predictable responses from listeners based on widely accepted cultural conventions (pp. 109, 122, and passim) is certainly demonstrable but does not allow much scope for con­ testation. This view has an unfortunate resonance with an assumption Webb seeks to overturn, namely that ekphraseis tend to be predictable set pieces and that epideictic speeches in particular—a fertile ground for ekphrastic rhetoric—are usually "a catalogue of platitudes" (p. 164). On the other hand, her observations about the use of ekphrasis in orations to "cast a particular light (or chroma, 'colour' or 'gloss')" on the case at issue and to turn spectators into witnesses through the artful use of vivid detail (pp. 145-65) contribute to a vision of ekphrasis as far more than "decorative digression" (p. 158). It is difficult to do justice to the wealth of primary and secondary material arrayed in Webb's book on this multi-faceted rhetorical subject. Her impressive learning and obvious passion for the material are on abundant display; particularly notable is her familiarity with French scholarship. But this wide reach can frustrate an interested reader: a great deal of ground is covered here rapidly, with subjects such as "Ekphrasis and Interpretation" (pp. 145-46), "Ekphrasis as Fiction" (pp. 168-69), and "Statues and Signs" (pp. 186-87) treated in one or two paragraphs. The net effect is at times like standing too close to a mosaic: hundreds of tiles spark with color but the pattern is difficult to discern. In her Preface Webb acknowledges the constraints of space which prevented extended analyses of examples (p. xiii). A few such analyses would have been welcome. But the book succeeds in achieving the author's primary goal: elucidating the main sources for ekphrasis and enargeia. Although rhetoric scholars may find some points in this rhetorical treatment of ekphrasis familiar, they will appreciate the close attention paid to rhetorical handbooks and the wealth of material concerning ekphrasis accumulated here. Susan C. Jarratt University of California, Irvine Pernille EEarsting and Jon Viklund, eds., Rhetoric and Literature in Linland and Sweden, 1600-1900 (Nordic Studies in the History of Rhetoric 2), Copenhagen: Nordisk Netvaerk for Rhetorikkens Historie, 2008. ISBN 9788798882923 This is the second collection of studies produced by NNRH. It is not available in bookstores, but is available online at http://www.nnrh.dk. There are eight papers published here, arranged roughly in chronological order, beginning with Mats Malm s Rhetoric, ^/locals, and Patriotism in Early Swedish Literature: Georg Stiernhielm's Hercules (1658)." Here (pp. 126 ), Malm argues that the Hercules by Stiernhielm (1598-1672) is more than 116 RHETORICA just an allegory about the choice between virtue and vice, the traditional interpretation of the Hercules at the crossroads story. It is also an allegory about good style and bad style, and hence should be read as an allegory of importance to the teaching and practice of rhetoric. The second paper is "Apostrophe and Subjectivity in Johan Paulinus Lillienstedt 'sMagnus Principatus Finlandia (1678)" (pp. 27-65), by Tua Korhonen. This Finlandia, a versified oration of 379 verses in Classical Greek hexameters (of which Korhonen provides the first translation into English, pp. 52-61) is a classical epideixis of Finland, but his use of apostrophe and self-referential passages shows that Lillienstedt (1655-1732) transcends the limitations of his classical models, adapting the genre to quite different cultural conditions prevailing in 17th-Century Scandinavia. Hannu K. Riikonen's "Laus urbis in Seventeenth Century Finland: Georg Haveman's Oratio de Wiburgo and Olof Hermelin's Viburgum" (pp. 67-85) is the third paper. Hermelin's Viburgum is one of the elegiac poems describing 101 towns in the Kingdom of Sweden in his Hecatompolis Suiorum (1691 or 1692), seen by many scholars as one of the finest examples of Nordic neo-Latin poetry from the 17th Century. About three years after the publication of Hecatompolis, one of Hermelin's students at the University of Tartu, Georg Haveman, delivered an oration in praise of Vyborg, a town on the Finnish-Russian frontier. Both Hermelin's elegy and Haveman...

    doi:10.1353/rht.2011.0040
  2. Theatron: Rhetorische Kultur in Spätantike und Mittelalter/Rhetorical Culture in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages ed. by Michael Grünbart
    Abstract

    102 RHETORICA brevemente su: a) origine ed evoluzione dei panegirici (pp. 11-13); b) il corpus dei Panegyrici Latiui dei secoli III e IV d. C. (pp. 13-19); c) la Gratiarum actio di Claudio Mamertino a Giuliano, con particolare attenzione al contesto storico (pp. 19-22), all'autore e alia circostanza storica (pp. 22-4), all'immagine dell imperatore Giuliano che emerge dal panegírico (pp. 24-9), al carattere funzionale di alcune figure retoriche a cui fa ricorso Claudio Mamertino (pp. 29—37); d) la tradizione manoscritta del testo dei Panegyrici, con una rapida rassegna di informazioni sulla scoperta in etá umanistica, sui manoscritti e sulle edizioni (pp. 38-43); e) sulla presente edizione (pp. 43-4). Le pp. 48-97 sono occupate dal testo latino con una traduzione in castigliano , che sostanzialmente rispetta le caratteristiche e i moduli espressivi del testo antico; successivamente (pp. 101-56) si sviluppa il commento. Concludono il volume una bibliografía (pp. 157-61) e un indice dei nomi propri (p. 163). Nella presentazione (p. 7) LA. dicbiara di aderire alia convinzione di chi ritiene che, per realizzare un contributo plenamente valido sul piano scientifico , sia necessario affiancare al commento storico quello letterario; in realtá, le pagine dedícate al commento dimostrano come LA. preferisca concentrarsi soprattutto sugli aspetti storici che emergono dal testo della Gratiarum actio; il confronto con le fonti parallele considérate, soprattutto Ammiano Marcellino , forse avrebbe meritato un maggiore approfondimento e una sinossi critica, con cui evidenziare relazioni, affinitá o divergenze. II volume, che in piü di un'occasione presenta non trascurabili erron tipografici e citazionali, dimostra nel suo insieme di nascere da una familiarit á con il testo di Claudio Mamertino e piü in generale con le principali tematiche sviluppate dalla tradizione panegiristica latina. Claudio Buongiovanni Universíta degli Studi Federico IL Napoli Michael Grunbart, ed., Theatron: Rhetorische Kultur in Spatantike und Mittelalter/Rhetorical Culture in Late Antiquity and the MiddleAges (Mil­ lennium Studien zu Kultur und Geschichte des ersten Jahrtausends n. Chr. 13), Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2007. xiii+516 pp. This collection of 23 scholarly papers is a Festschrift marking the eightieth birthday of George Fatouros, a prominent scholar of Byzan­ tium, whose achievements include editions of the letters of Michael Gabras (Vienna: Ôsterreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1973) and Theodore Studites (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1992), as well as translations into German of some of the imperial orations of Libanios (Stuttgart. Hiersemann, 2002). Two of the papers bear directly on the gatherings of scholars, members of aristocratic families and otherwise literate devotees of the Hochsprache of Byzantine authors that the title of the collection refers to. Przemyslaw Marciniak, in "Byzantine Theatron—A Place of Performance?" (pp. 277-85) Reviews 103 attempts to cast the performance aspect of the theatron in language borro­ wed from information theory, as a "cybernetic unit" comprised of "feedback between sender and receiver." Such an approach casts little light, I am afraid, on the social dimension of performances that were meant not just as enter­ tainments, but as a means of gaining upward social mobility and patronage. Ida Toth also sees the theatron as a performance space in "Rhetorical Thea­ tron in Late Byzantium: The Example of Palaiologan Imperial Orations" (pp. 429-48). Major orations performed in theatron settings for liturgical feasts, commemorative occasions, or even, e.g., on the occasion of the return of the emperor from a military campaign, called for invitations to officially appointed orators such as Nicephoros Gregoras and Demetrios Kydones to compose and deliver speeches marking such occasions. Toth's analysis of a number of autograph manuscript copies of speeches from this period (12611453 ) suggests that they were meant not only to record the performances but to be circulated and commented on as well, thus offering us a peek into the rhetorical network, so to speak. I will return to Toth's paper later. There are several pieces on works that were probably also performed before audiences, although not necessarily in a theatron setting—for instance, speeches delivered by Arethas in the court of Leon VI (see Marina Loukaki's "Notes sur l'activité d'Aréthas comme rhéteur de la cour de L...

    doi:10.1353/rht.2009.0027
  3. No Way to Pick a Fight: A Note on J. C. Scaliger's First Oratio contra Erasmum
    Abstract

    Abstract In 1531, Julius Caesar Scaliger published his Oratio pro M. Tullio Cicerone contra Des. Erasmum, a scathing attack on Erasmus occasioned by the publication three years earlier of Erasmus's Dialogus Ciceronianus sive de optimo dicendi genere, which, in turn, had attacked the proponents of the view that Cicero was the best and only model for good Latin rhetorical style. Erasmus never responded in print to Scaliger's vituperative “oration” (in reality, a pamphlet meant to be circulated among the literati). This paper argues that Erasmus did not respond because Scaliger's insults were so vile and beside the point that they did not deserve serious attention. A rhetorical re-reading of the Oratio provides some insight into the “proper” conduct of insults more generally, especially as they are meant as vehicles for “upward mobility” in a Res publica litteraria.

    doi:10.1525/rh.2008.26.3.255
  4. No Way to Pick a Fight: A Note on J. C. Scaliger’s First Oratio contra Erasmum
    Abstract

    In 1531, Julius Caesar Scaliger published his Oratio pro M. Tullio Cicerone contra Des. Erasmum, a scathing attack on Erasmus occasioned by the publication three years earlier of Erasmus’s Dialogus Ciceronianus sive tie optimo dicendi genere, which, in turn, had attacked the proponents of the view that Cicero was the best and only model for good Latin rhetorical style. Erasmus never responded in print to Scaliger’s vituperative “oration” (in reality, a pamphlet meant to be circulated among the literati). This paper argues that Erasmus did not respond because Scaliger’s insults were so vile and beside the point that they did not deserve serious attention. A rhetorical re-reading of the Oratio provides some insight into the “proper” conduct of insults more generally, especially as they are meant as vehicles for “upward mobility” in a Res publica litteraria.

    doi:10.1353/rht.2008.0006
  5. Persuasion and Rhetoric
    Abstract

    Book Review| January 01 2006 Persuasion and Rhetoric Persuasion and RhetoricMichelstaedter, Carlo; Valentino, Russell Scott; Blum, Cinzia Sartini; Depew, David J. Tom Conley; Tom Conley Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Thomas M. Conley Thomas M. Conley Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Philosophy & Rhetoric (2006) 39 (2): 170–172. https://doi.org/10.2307/20697146 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Tom Conley, Thomas M. Conley; Persuasion and Rhetoric. Philosophy & Rhetoric 1 January 2006; 39 (2): 170–172. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/20697146 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 CollectivePenn State University PressPhilosophy & Rhetoric Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright © 2006 The Pennsylvania State University2006The Pennsylvania State University Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

    doi:10.2307/20697146
  6. Reviews
    Abstract

    Comparative Rhetoric by George A. Kennedy. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press (1998): ix + 238 pp. Rhetoric Reclaimed: Aristotle and the Liberal Arts Tradition by Janet M. Atwill. Cornell UP, 1998. xvi; 235 pp. Landmark Essays on Aristotelian Rhetoric edited by Richard Leo Enos and Lois Peters Agnew. New Jersey: Hermagoras Press of Lawrence Erlbaum, 1998.265 pp. Rhetoric and the Arts of Design by David S. Kaufer and Brian S. Butler. Mahway, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1996.322 pp. The Rhetoric Canon edited by Brenda Deen Schildgen. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1997.251 pp.

    doi:10.1080/02773949909391139
  7. Theory, Text, Context: Issues in Greek Rhetoric and Oratory; Hermeneutics and the Rhetorical Tradition: Chapters in the Ancient Legacy and Its Humanist Reception; Rethinking the Rhetorical Tradition: From Plato to Postmodemism; Traditionen der klassischen Rhetorik im angelsachsischen England; The Formation of College English: Rhetoric and Belles Lettres in the British Cultural Provinces; Speaking for the Chief: Okyeame and the Politics of Akan Royal Oratory
    Abstract

    Research Article| May 01 1998 Theory, Text, Context: Issues in Greek Rhetoric and Oratory; Hermeneutics and the Rhetorical Tradition: Chapters in the Ancient Legacy and Its Humanist Reception; Rethinking the Rhetorical Tradition: From Plato to Postmodemism; Traditionen der klassischen Rhetorik im angelsachsischen England; The Formation of College English: Rhetoric and Belles Lettres in the British Cultural Provinces; Speaking for the Chief: Okyeame and the Politics of Akan Royal Oratory Christopher Lyle Johnstone,Theory, Text, Context: Issues in Greek Rhetoric and Oratory (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996) 196 pp.Kathy Eden,Hermeneutics and the Rhetorical Tradition: Chapters in the Ancient Legacy and Its Humanist Reception (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 119 pp.James L. Kastley,Rethinking the Rhetorical Tradition: From Plato to Postmodernism (New Haven and London: Yale University Press), pp. vi + 293.Gabriele Knappe,Traditionen der klassischen Rhetorik im angelsachsischen England (Heidelberg: Universitatsverlag C. Winter, 1996), xx + 573 pp.Thomas P. Miller,The Formation of College English: Rhetoric and Belles Lettres in the British Cultural Provinces, (Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh University Press, 1997), x + 345 ppKwesi Yankah,Speaking for the Chief: Okyeame and the Politics of Akan Royal Oratory, African Systems of Thought (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), 194 pp. George Pullman, George Pullman Department of English, Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia 30303-3083, USA. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Richard A. Miller, Richard A. Miller Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio 43403, USA. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Thomas M. Conley, Thomas M. Conley University of Illinois, 244 Lincoln Hall, 702 S. Wright Street, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Martin Camargo, Martin Camargo Department of English, 107 Tate Hall, University of Missouri Columbia, Missouri 65211, USA. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Kermit Campbell, Kermit Campbell Department of English, Parlin Hall, University of Texas, Austin, Texas 78712, USA. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Lynee Lewis Gaillet Lynee Lewis Gaillet Department of English, Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia 30303-3083, USA. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Rhetorica (1998) 16 (2): 227–242. https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.1998.16.2.227 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation George Pullman, Richard A. Miller, Thomas M. Conley, Martin Camargo, Kermit Campbell, Lynee Lewis Gaillet; Theory, Text, Context: Issues in Greek Rhetoric and Oratory; Hermeneutics and the Rhetorical Tradition: Chapters in the Ancient Legacy and Its Humanist Reception; Rethinking the Rhetorical Tradition: From Plato to Postmodemism; Traditionen der klassischen Rhetorik im angelsachsischen England; The Formation of College English: Rhetoric and Belles Lettres in the British Cultural Provinces; Speaking for the Chief: Okyeame and the Politics of Akan Royal Oratory. Rhetorica 1 May 1998; 16 (2): 227–242. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.1998.16.2.227 Download citation file: Ris (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 ContentRhetorica Search This content is only available via PDF. Copyright 1998, The International Society for the History of Rhetoric1998 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

    doi:10.1525/rh.1998.16.2.227
  8. Rethinking the Rhetorical Tradition: From Plato to Postmodernism by James L. Kastley
    Abstract

    RHETORICA 232 James L. Kastley, Rethinking the Rhetorical Tradition: From Plato to Postmodernism (New Haven and London: Yale University Press), pp. vi + 293. At a time when so many are trying to "rethink" rhetoric by making up stories about "the sophists" or parroting de Man's version of Nietzsche, Kastley's book is most welcome. In it, we have a thoughtful and illuminating contribution to the conversation that needs to be promoted about the ways in which the past may meaningfully speak to the present. His list of "required reading" is not the standard one. The book begins with readings of the Gorgias and the Meno that present a Plato who was not an enemy of rhetoric but its subtlest theorizer. The two dialogues, Kastley argues, constitute a critique of the rhetoric of private interests. Socrates, by his practice of refutation (elenchos), gets us to see the inevitable entanglements with injustice and injury that ensnare anyone who engages in symbolic action in political concerns. Sophocles' Philoctetes and Euripides' Hecuba are then shown to address problems of the availability of audience, the crisis of trust, and the consequences of marginalization. In the second half of the book, Kastley reads Austen's Persuasion as an allegory confronting the lost public sphere of discourse, offering rhetoric not as a solution, but as a problem. He then presents critiques ("refutations") of Sartre's views in What is Literature? and, in one of the book's most successful chapters, of de Man's views on rhetoric. In his reading of de Man, he offers an adroit demonstration of the ways in which de Man's position is blind to the dangers of collapsing position to truth and of framing rhetoric in terms of cognition rather than action. The final chapter, "Rhetoric and Ideology," takes us to Kenneth Burke—partly by way of Lentricchia's misreading of him—and to an insightful reconsideration of the nature of ideology and of community that yields a vision of a rhetoric that can use the strategies of classical skepticism as critical devices to "expose the exercises and deformations of power operating as a set of structured relationships" (p. 257). Kastley's readings are not without problems. Not everyone will agree, for instance, that Gorgias (in Plato's dialogue) has the best interests of the community at heart (p. 35); and some may feel uncomfortable with Kastely's tendency to shape his expectations of Reviews 233 dramatic characters and explain their actions as though they were real people. The Socrates Kastley portrays seems less like the Socrates of Plato than that of Cameades's Academy. And if Persuasion shows us how, in the wake of social transformations, it became necessary for women to discover how to speak, cannot the same be said of men? On the other hand, Kastley's argument that Sartre quietly allows Kant in by the back door and his detailing of the paradoxical results of de Man's favoring knowledge over action are both persuasive. Even more impressive is the subtlety with which he thinks through the problems posed by post-Enlightenment thinking to reject the temptation to find some place to stand "outside the rhetorical flux" and move, rather, toward a world in which we act, toward a community that is pluralized, temporal, and a provisional form of sharing, where we might begin to wrestle with the injustice and injury that are inevitable, but not insurmountable. Kastley's "refutations" are, in the end, affirmations; and for those he is to be commended. THOMAS M. CONLEY University ofIllinois Gabriele Knappe, Traditionen der klassischen Rhetorik im angelsachsischen England (Heidelberg: Universitatsverlag C. Winter, 1996), xx + 573 pp. According to Gabriele Knappe, previous efforts to assess the knowledge, use, and function of classical rhetoric in Anglo-Saxon England have failed to distinguish between the tradition of ancient rhetoric proper and elements of rhetorical instruction taken over by grammarians. The goal of the former was the production of prose texts designed to have a specified effect on an audience, while the principal goal of the latter was the proper interpretation of texts and only secondarily their production. Systematic evaluation of all available evidence indicates little or no direct knowledge of...

    doi:10.1353/rht.1998.0033
  9. Reviews
    Abstract

    Norms of Rhetorical Culture by Thomas B. Farrell. New Haven and London: Yale UP 1993; x + 374pp. Hermogenes On Issues; Strategies of Argument in Later Greek Rhetoric, by Malcolm Heath, Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1995; pp. ix + 274. The Rhetoric of Politics in the English Revolution, 1642–1660, by Elizabeth Skerpan. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1992; 264 pages. The Rhetoric of Courtship: Courting and Courtliness in Elizabethan Language and Literature; by Catherine Bates. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992; 236 pages. Philosophy, Rhetoric, Literary Criticism: (Inter)views edited Gary A. Olson, with a foreword by Clifford Geertz. Carbondale: Southern Illinois U P, 1994. 250 pp. Understanding Scientific Prose ed. Jack Selzer. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1993; 388 pp. Learning from the Histories of Rhetoric: Essays in Honor of Winifred Bryan Horner, ed. Theresa Enos. Southern Illinois UP; 1993; 200 pp. Greek Rhetoric Before Aristotle, by Richard Enos. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, 1993. 159 pages.

    doi:10.1080/02773949609391074
  10. Aristotle's Rhetoric in Byzantium
    Abstract

    Research Article| February 01 1990 Aristotle's Rhetoric in Byzantium Thomas M. Conley Thomas M. Conley Department of Speech Communication, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 244 Lincoln Hall, 702 South Wright Street, Urbana, Illinois 61801 Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Rhetorica (1990) 8 (1): 29–44. https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.1990.8.1.29 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Thomas M. Conley; Aristotle's Rhetoric in Byzantium. Rhetorica 1 February 1990; 8 (1): 29–44. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.1990.8.1.29 Download citation file: Ris (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 ContentRhetorica Search This content is only available via PDF. Copyright 1990, The International Society for the History of Rhetoric1990 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

    doi:10.1525/rh.1990.8.1.29