Focusing on the works of lesser-known yet influential Deists, the author examines the 70-year polemic between the Church of England and the English Deists, illuminating the rhetorical war which raged between them. He contends that Deism owes its significance to these skilled controversialists.

Most traditional works of rhetorical history have excluded the activities of women, but Listening to Their Voices retrieves the voices of women who contributed to the rhetorical realm. The nineteen essays in the collection extend existing definitions of rhetoric and enrich conventional knowledge of rhetorical history. In her introduction Molly Meijer Wertheimer traces the patriarchal nature of traditional rhetorical histories as well as the continuing debate about how best to write women into rhetoric's historical record. The volume's essays advance rhetorical theory by examining exceptional...

Of the ancient Greek Sophists, Gorgias of Leontini (ca. 483-ca. 376 b.c.e.) has endured more than his share of insistent detractors. Aristophanes depicted him as a barbaric sycophant, Plato considered him an opportunistic charlatan indifferent to truth and morality, and Aristotle saw him as a gaudy but inept stylist. Scott Consigny joins the commentators who find merit in Gorgias's thought, but his perceptions of Gorgias differ from those of the two most influential efforts at rehabilitation. He maintains that both the "subjectivist" reading by Hegel and the "empiricist" reading by George...

Significantly deepening our understanding of two key figures from the modernist period, The Humane Particulars collects the letters between William Carlos Williams and Kenneth Burke. Written during forty-two years of close friendship and literary debate, these nearly 250 letters span two long lives, two complicated personalities, and two brilliantly productive careers. The animated exchange between a canonical poet and the leading American rhetorical critic of the twentieth century offers a more complete vision of their outlooks and their contributions to the shape and tenor of the modernist...

Protagoras and Logos brings together in a meaningful synthesis the contributions and rhetoric of the first and most famous of the Older Sophists, Protagoras of Abdera. Most accounts of Protagoras rely on the somewhat hostile reports of Plato and Aristotle. By focusing on Protagoras's own surviving words, this study corrects many long-standing misinterpretations and presents significant facts: Protagoras was a first-rate philosophical thinker who positively influenced the theories of Plato and Aristotle, and Protagoras pioneered the study of language and was the first theorist of rhetoric. In...

At the same time a reading of Kenneth Burke and of tourist landscapes in America, Gregory Clark's new study explores the rhetorical power connected with American tourism. Looking specifically at a time when citizens of the United States first took to rail and then highway to become sightseers in their own country, Clark traces the rhetorical function of a wide-ranging set of tourist experiences. He explores how the symbolic experiences Americans share as tourists have helped residents of a vast and diverse nation adopt a national identity. In doing so he suggests that the rhetorical power of...

Now known to the Chinese as the ten years of chaos, the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) brought death to thousands of Chinese and persecution to millions. Rhetoric of the Chinese Cultural Revolution identifies the rhetorical features and explores the persuasive effects of political language and symbolic practices during the period. Xing Lu examines how leaders of the Communist Party constructed and enacted a rhetoric in political contexts to legitimize power and violence and to dehumanize a group of people identified as class enemies. Lu provides close readings of the movement's...

Speaking for the Polis considers Isocrates' educational program from the perspective of rhetorical theory and explores its relation to sociopolitical practices. Illumining Isocrates' efforts to reformulate sophistic conceptions of rhetoric on the basis of the intellectual and political debates of his times, Takis Poulakos contends that the father of humanistic studies and rival educator of Plato crafted a version of rhetoric that gave the art an important new role in the ethical and political activities of Athens. Poulakos demonstrates how Isocrates adopted, transformed, and put to new tasks...

In Sophistical Rhetoric in Classical Greece, John Poulakos offers a new conceptualization of sophistry, explaining its direction and shape as well as the reasons why Plato, Isocrates, and Aristotle found it objectionable. Poulakos argues that a proper understanding of sophistical rhetoric requires a grasp of three cultural dynamics of the fifth century B.C.: the logic of circumstances, the ethic of competition, and the aesthetic of exhibition. Traced to such phenomena as everyday practices, athletic contests, and dramatic performances, these dynamics set the stage for the role of sophistical...

Logos and Power in Isocrates and Aristotle presents Isocrates' vision of discourse as a worthy rival, rather than a mere precursor, of Aristotle's Rhetoric. Casting Isocrates and Aristotle as opponents in a debate over the character, resources, and ends of rhetorical education, Ekaterina V. Haskins argues that much of what Aristotle had to say about the status of rhetoric and the role of discourse in the life of a Greek city-state may have been an implicit reaction to Isocrates. Haskins finds that Isocrates offers a more comprehensive and culturally attuned theory of civic discourse and...