Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

The Mission

Harlot is a digital magazine and web forum dedicated to provoking playful and serious conversations about rhetoric — from reality television to public monuments, religion to pop music, and everything in between. As a netroots campaign in rhetorical literacy, Harlot promotes critical response to the endless streams of subtly persuasive communication that surround us every day. We at Harlot believe rhetorical analysis and production can help us to better understand and more effectively and ethically influence our communities and world. And so we offer a space for your relevant, accessible criticism and collaborative meaning-making.

The Invitation

Harlot invites adventurous critics, artists, and thinkers to examine the real social, personal, cultural and political powers of rhetoric in innovative and creative ways. In addition to traditional articles, we allow and encourage multimedia texts that exploit the rich rhetorical potential of hypertext, still images, animation, video, and audio. Whatever the form, share your brilliant insights, favorite rants, and pet theories . . . for play with a purpose.

Please see our “For Creators” and “For Reviewers” pages for more detailed information on getting involved.

The Origin

The roots of Harlot can be traced to spring 2007 when during a rather heated conversation in a grad seminar on contemporary rhetorical theory we noticed a serious disconnect between the theory and the practice of critical rhetorical studies: Civic-minded criticism and theory has limited impact when published only in academic forms and venues. Harlot emerged as one solution to this counterproductive situation and in response to a clear need for increased public criticism of popular persuasion.

We believe these concerns demand analysis and action beyond the borders of the academic institution, just as a critical approach to rhetoric calls for attention to a diverse range of contemporary texts and audience. Transcending disciplinary and discursive boundaries, the Harlot project is based on the bold assumption that critical rhetorical studies have something important to contribute to public consciousness and civic deliberation — and that nonacademic audiences, as active participants in rhetorical discourses, have much to offer rhetorical studies. Our goal is inclusivity and promiscuity in terms of participation, subject matter, and styles and genres of communication and critique.

The Name

Our choice of title began as a joking reference to traditional disparagement of rhetoric as “the harlot of the arts” — a reference to rhetoric's tendency to, well, get around and be, um, employed by all. Then a little digging into the roots of the word revealed associations of the harlot with a gender-neutral trickster, a figure of the fringe celebrated (and reviled) for messing with comfortable norms and assumptions. Through our promiscuous methods and media, Harlot reflects this combination of subversive fun and serious business.

The Form

The primary goal of Harlot is to offer a forum for critical questions and collaborative meaning-making, not to provide easy answers. Because content can be endlessly generated and debated by users through interactive web technology, analysis and interpretation remain open-ended and multivocal. As a digital publication, Harlot can support submissions in a variety of media, creating endless opportunity for dynamic and provocative conversation. Harlot will host these publication types:

• Reader-reviewed pieces: Publications in Harlot can fit anywhere along a spectrum of traditional, artistic, and/or emerging styles of digital communication and production that are accessible to audiences of varying interests and communities. All submissions are reviewed by both an academic and non-academically affiliated reader from the Harlot Consortium.


• Blogs: Blogs will provide ongoing, open discussions of topics (ranging from celebrity rags to political gaffes) without the constraints of a quarterly publishing timeline.


• Wiki pages: Our wiki pages will be open to anyone who wants to contribute. These pages will contain analyses of events (political, economic, social, etc.), important figures (leaders, celebrities, directors, authors, etc.), and entertainment (film, music, art, etc.).

The Team

This project has been made possible with countless hours of collaborative work by a number of individuals and programs at The Ohio State University and with friends outside the university.

Editors: Kelly Bradbury, Kate Comer, Catie Crabtree, Vera Dukaj, Kaitlin Dyer, Tim Jensen
Logo Design: James Thornburg
Web Design: Kaitlin Dyer and Vera Dukaj
PHP Programming: Jason T. Hensler

People who kindly let us pick their brains:

Jim Fredal
Dickie Selfe
Cindy Selfe
Kay Halasek
Nan Johnson
Jason Palmeri
Cheryl Ball
Brian Hauser
Chris Lindemann
Andy Vogel
Michael Harker
Shawn Casey
Erika Standjord
Cormac Slevin
Margie Merlino
James Thornburg

Review Process

All submissions will be reviewed by the Editors for suitability and quality before a work is forwarded for review. Upon acceptance for review, submissions will undergo a thorough assessment by the Harlot Consortium, our review board made up of academic and non-academic reviewers, the same audiences you can expect as readers and viewers of your texts. Each submission will be paired with at least one academic and one non-academic reviewer.

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.