Deadline Approaches: Submit Now for Issue #7!

Dance your Diss!

enculturation: McLuhan at 100

If you haven’t already, I encourage to check out enculturation‘s latest issue: Marshall McLuhan @ 100: Picking Through the Rag and Bone Shop of a Career, launched on the final day of centenary celebrations, 21 years to the day of McLuhan’s death.  Editors David Beard and Kevin Brooks have pulled together quite a stunning issue.

image by stefan.erschwendner, flickr

Winner: Rhetorical Analysis of the Month (Youth Division)

And our winner for Best Rhetorical Analysis in the month of December by someone 12 years of age or younger goes to Riley, who reminds us that analyzing the rhetoric of color choices, gender shaping, and consumer culture can never begin too early. Congratulations, Riley!

Classical Rhetoric: A Manly Introduction

The Art of Manliness has a well written series of primers on classical rhetoric and the five canons.

Check ‘em all out:

Classical Rhetoric 101: An Introduction

Classical Rhetoric 101: A Brief History

The Five Canons: Invention

The Five Canons: Arrangement

The Five Canons: Style

The Five Canons: Memory

The Five Canons: Delivery

With extra rhetoric, please . . .

Rhetoric in the news:

Herman Cain's Rhetoric Pie

It’s true (and perhaps to be expected) that rhetoric is implicitly defined here as bombastic sound-bites, caustic charges thick with generalization, delivered with unexamined confidence. Sadly, we’ve gotten used to having rhetoric framed this way (though we certainly should not accept it). What interests me, though, is the use of “extra” that’s further emphasized with the heaping mess of pizza glob and goop. It points us to a quantitative framing of rhetoric instead of a qualitative one. To stick with the metaphor: rhetoric may be perfectly acceptable as a garnish, a topping to be sprinkled judiciously on something substantive, but if the “toppings” are piled too high and wide we’ll get sick.

It’s a remarkably unproductive way to frame rhetoric that should signal to rhetoricians everywhere that our work is cut out for us . . .

The Perfect Campaign Speech

I would like to see more (a lot more) of this type of rhetorical analysis:

For similar videos check out “Trailer For Every Oscar-Winning Movie Ever,” Charlie Brooker’s “How to Report the News,” and The Onion’s “Breaking News: Some Bullshit Happening Somewhere.”

More please.

“The ‘War on Cars’: A brief history of a rhetorical device

I just found an interesting piece over at grist that charts a genealogy of sorts for the phrase, “War on Cars.”  It a curious expression that’s been used to frame just about any type of regulation of cars, from congestion pricing (in London, for example) to investment in alternative transportation.

Click on image to access article

It doesn’t take much intellectual effort to look around and realize that our urban infrastructures are hardly waging a war on cars.  But the factual absurdity of the phrase doesn’t mean it isn’t rhetorically powerful; maneuvering into a position of victimhood and defensiveness is often an effective move.

Rhetoric as the Light of Liberty?

Dear Abby,

I found this cartoon on NPR’s “Double-Take” section and I must confess… I don’t get it.  I mean, I can come up with a few guesses, but I’m coming up short on a clear take-away.  Can you help me?

Sincerely,

Confused in Columbus

Present Tense: Issue #2

Present Tense: A Journal of Rhetoric in Society has released its second issue.  (Thanks goes to David Beard over at The Blogora for the tip.)  Of special note is the piece, “Methodological Dwellings: A Search for Feminisms in Rhetoric & Composition,” which features a performance by OSU’s very own Nan Johnson:

"Methodological Dwellings: A Search for Feminisms in Rhetoric & Composition"

On a more personal note (or at least professionally-selfish), I’d like to offer thanks to Gae Lyn Henderson, Assistant Professor at Utah Valley University, for her review of the recently published Activism and Rhetoric, a simply stellar collection of essays curated by Seth Kahn and JongHwa Lee.  I’ve been fortunate enough to pursue this volume over the past few weeks and am energized by what Kahn, Lee, and the various contributors have accomplished.

For those also interested in affective/non-rational elements of rhetoric, check out Nathaniel Rivers’s, “In Defense of Gut Feelings: Rhetorics of Decision-Making,” which is an insightful and deftly managed piece on a notoriously difficult topic.  (And if any of you Harlot readers out there will be joining me at this summer’s “Non-rational Rhetorics” workshop led by Diane Davis and Debra Hawhee, be sure to head over to the latest issue of Philosophy and Rhetoric, which has fresh essays by both.)

Thanks to all in the rhetoric community who keep exploring new realms of rhetoric with their research –