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Showing papers in "Quarterly Journal of Speech in 1997"


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors proposed a concept of representative form to represent the rhetorical power of the flag-raising at Iwo Jima, and used it to explain the rhetorical function of the image in a number of recent editorial cartoons.
Abstract: Much has been written about the iconic power of Joe Rosenthal's 1945 photograph of the flag‐raising at Iwo Jima. This scholarship, however, insufficiently accounts for the rhetorical function of this image as it is appropriated in an unusual number of recent editorial cartoons. Building upon rhetorical theory addressing repetitive form and visual metaphor, we propose a concept of representative form. Exemplifying representative form, the parodied Iwo Jima image operates as an instance of depictive rhetoric that functions ideographically.

168 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors argues that landscapes of memory like Old Pasadena respond to the fragmentation with memory created by contemporary culture, where memory becomes a grammar for the rhetorical performance of the self, and the engagement between traditional rhetorical concepts and postmodern problems leads to a retheorizing and reevaluation of memory, invention and style.
Abstract: The contemporary moment is characterized by a deep desire for memory. The shift of identity from traditional familial, community and work structures to “lifestyle” along with the fragmentation and globalization of postmodern culture engenders in many a profoundly felt need for the past. The loss of a culture of memory has been met by the rise of “memory places.” This essay argues that landscapes of memory like Old Pasadena respond to the fragmentation with memory created by contemporary culture. Classical and Renaissance rhetorical concepts provide the materials necessary for a critical analysis of contemporary landscapes of memory. The engagement between traditional rhetorical concepts and postmodern problems leads to a retheorizing and reevaluation of memory, invention and style, where memory becomes a grammar for the rhetorical performance of the self.

144 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article developed a critical orientation revolving around the concepts of tradition, invention, and authority as a means of exploring Clinton's remarkable performance and suggested that rhetorical traditions can play an important role in contemporary criticism by situating a specific text within the rhetorical traditions constituting the American public sphere.
Abstract: On November 13, 1993, President Clinton addressed five thousand African American ministers at the site of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. ‘s last speech in Memphis, Tennessee and, to open a dialogue on race relations, spoke in King's voice. This essay develops a critical orientation revolving around the concepts of tradition, invention, and authority as a means of exploring Clinton's remarkable performance. The President invented the authority to address race by interanimating the black church and liberal traditions in American politics. Critique of Clinton's address suggests that rhetorical traditions can play an important role in contemporary criticism by situating a specific text within the rhetorical traditions constituting the American public sphere.

55 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the rhetorical strategy of feminist appropriation is explored in order to assess its function as a counterhegemonic tactic, and an explication of the specific strategy employed in each case is advanced.
Abstract: In this essay, the rhetorical strategy of feminist appropriation is explored in order to assess its function as a counterhegemonic tactic. Two instances of feminist rhetorical appropriation are analyzed‐the Australian film, Shame, as an appropriation of the classic Western, Shane; and Margaret Atwood's poems, “Orpheus (1) “ and “Eurydice,” as a collective appropriation of the classical Greek myth. As a result of these analyses, an explication of the specific strategy employed in each case is advanced, and the implications of appropriation as a counterhegemonic strategy to the end of social change are considered.

47 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The unrealistic dreams of perfect social orders that permeate social movement rhetoric heighten expectations and demands that remain only dreams after years of struggle and suffering as mentioned in this paper, and frustration builds within new generations of activists who become increasingly disaffected with social movement establishments which preach uninstitutionalized versions of patience and gradualism.
Abstract: The unrealistic dreams of perfect social orders that permeate social movement rhetoric heighten expectations and demands that remain only dreams after years of struggle and suffering. Frustration builds within new generations of activists who become increasingly disaffected with social movement establishments which preach uninstitutionalized versions of patience and gradualism. The evolution of a revolution may await leaders who can take advantage of opportunities, recreate and redefine social reality, offer new dreams, and energize a new generation of true believers. Stokely Carmichael's rhetoric of black power can best be understood as a striving for evolutionary changes within the civil rights movement that would replace integration with black power and a passive, common ground rhetoric with a militant, confrontational rhetoric better suited to his generation, growing disaffection with the movement, and the search of black Americans for their African roots. The result would be a more perfect social ord...

45 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article argued that the alleged demise of a unified and coherent public in contemporary twentieth-century American political discourse is more a symptom of how we have visually objectified "the people" than it is a newly discovered fragmentation of the "thing" itself.
Abstract: This essay argues that the alleged demise of a unified and coherent public in contemporary twentieth‐century American political discourse is more a symptom of how we have visually objectified “the people” than it is a newly discovered fragmentation of the “thing” itself. This claim is developed by examining the emergence of social documentary photojournalism in the 1930s and its ideological implications for American liberal‐democratic rhetorical practices. James Agee and Walker Evans's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men is treated as a representative anecdote that illustrates the problems and possibilities of the tensions between individualism and collectivism that rest at the heart of liberal democracy.

45 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Audre Lorde's speech, "The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action" as mentioned in this paper, sheds light on the margins of rhetoric in the sense of public speech because she examines factors that may cause some people to remain silent while enabling others to speak and act.
Abstract: Audre Lorde's speech, “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action, “sheds light on the margins of rhetoric in the sense of the public speech because she examines factors that may cause some people to remain silent while enabling others to speak and act. “Margins” refers both to the parameters employed for defining a practice and the relative place or value of varied activities exemplifying the practice. Lorde interweaves her commentary on the silence surrounding breast cancer with insights about silence drawn from her experiences as a member of several subordinated communities, especially as they relate to the misuse of power to silence those who are different. Her speech comments on silencing and power, sexism, verbal abuse, violence and sexualized aggression, shame, the taboo, and hostile social environments. Paradoxically, Lorde's speech is as much about the possibilities of rhetoric as its limits.

40 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Black Public Sphere Collective as mentioned in this paper is a collection of essays about the history of the Black public space and its role in American political life, including a discussion of the role of opinion polling in American public spaces.
Abstract: BEYOND FEMINIST AESTHETICS: FEMINIST LITERATURE AND SOCIAL CHANGE. By Rita Felski. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989; pp. 222. $13.50. THE BLACK PUBLIC SPHERE: A PUBLIC CULTURE BOOK. Edited by The Black Public Sphere Collective. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995; pp. 350. $17.95. HABERMAS AND THE PUBLIC SPHERE. Edited by Craig Calhoun. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992; pp. x + 498. $19.95. LIBERALISM AND THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE: A NEW RHETORIC FOR MODERN DEMOCRACY. By Charles Willard. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1996; pp. x + 384. $17.95. NUMBERED VOICES: HOW OPINION POLLING HAS SHAPED AMERICAN POLITICS. By Susan Herbst. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1993; pp. xi‐227. $24.95; paper $14.95. THE PHANTOM PUBLIC SPHERE. Edited by Bruce Robbins. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993; pp. xxvi‐310. $21.95. PUBLIC SPHERE AND EXPERIENCE: TOWARD AN ANALYSIS OF THE BOURGEOIS AND PROLETARIAN PUBLIC SPHERE. By Oskar Negt and Alexander Kluge. Translated by Peter Labanyi, Jamie ...

26 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the issue culture of variant sexuality consists of unstable interpretive packages that define collective identity, the nature of conflict, relationships among antagonists, and appropriate symbolic strategies, and several specific effects of oppositional interaction in the issue cultures are delineated.
Abstract: This essay delineates several specific effects of oppositional interaction in the issue culture of variant sexuality. Issue cultures consist of unstable interpretive packages. Progay and antigay packages define collective identity, the nature of conflict, relationships among antagonists, and appropriate symbolic strategies. Antigay discourse encourages an essentialist, non‐erotic gay self‐definition. Progay appeals invite antigays to project a secularized image of civility. Opposition strengthens a political understanding of variant sexuality and causes antagonistic advocates to conceive struggle in similar terms. Division occurs among allies in both progay and antigay camps over which version of their own interpretive package best responds to opponents. Such analysis of issue cultures is theoretically significant because it allows critics to synthesize diverse approaches and to understand disputes on a broad range of public issues.

22 citations


Journal Article
TL;DR: A review of Ansolabehere and Iyengar's book, Going Negative: How Political Advertisements Shrink and Polarize the Electorate, can be found in this paper.
Abstract: Review of Stephen Ansolabehere and Shanto Iyengar, Going Negative: How Political Advertisements Shrink and Polarize the Electorate

21 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The New Rhetoric is much more than a relativist taxonomy of argument, for it aspires to replace violence, to create human community, and most important, to discover and craft justice with a Talmudically influenced system of rhetoric as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: In search of justice, Chaim Perelman rediscovered the rhetorical tradition and reclaimed his Jewish identity after World War II. As an attempt to correct misreadings of Perelmanian thought and to situate the New Rhetoric as a response to post‐Enlightenment and postmodern culture, I advance two arguments in this essay. First, Perelman's philosophy and the New Rhetoric project reflect his Jewish heritage and Talmudic habits of argument. Second, because Perelmanian philosophy enacts Jewish and Talmudic thought, the New Rhetoric charts a “third way” between Enlightenment metaphysics and the dangers of the more extreme expressions of postmodernism. The New Rhetoric is much more than a relativist taxonomy of argument, for it aspires to replace violence, to create human community, and most important, to discover and craft justice with a Talmudically influenced system of rhetoric.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the Miracle of life is treated as an exemplar of pro-life discourse in a broader sense than is typically used in the vernacular of the abortion debate.
Abstract: In this essay, the educational video, The Miracle of life, is treated as exemplary of pro‐life discourse in a broader sense than is typically used in the vernacular of the abortion debate. The bio‐medical knowledge which makes the rhetoric of the video possible presumes a system of social order focused on reproductive habits. The rhetoric of vision and bodies in contemporary Western culture, the anatomy lesson as a rhetorical act, and the politics of “life” in Lennart Nilsson's vision of reproduction are considered.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The case of CAGNEY and LACEY as discussed by the authors was considered a seminal work in the field of women's TV culture and women's lives in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Abstract: DEFINING WOMEN: TELEVISION AND THE CASE OF CAGNEY AND LACEY. By Julie D'Acci. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994; pp. xii + 344. $45.00; paper $16.95. TELEVISION CULTURE AND WOMEN'S LIVES: THIRTYSOMETHING AND THE CONTRADICTIONS OF GENDER. By Margaret Heide. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995; pp. x + 173. $28.95; paper $12.95. THE MOVIE OF THE WEEK: PRIVATE STORIES, PUBLIC EVENTS. By Elayne Rapping. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1992; pp. xliii + 162. $39.95; paper $14.95. WHERE THE GIRLS ARE: GROWING UP FEMALE WITH THE MASS MEDIA. By Susan Douglas. New York: Times Books, 1994, pp. 340. $23.00; paper $ 15.00.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, Tunisian immigrants are sent to establish a new settlement in the Israeli Negev desert and stories they share about their experiences in coping with the locale help them to establish new identity, that of Israeli pioneers.
Abstract: This paper attempts to show how people use narratives in the process of self definition based on locale. In 1949, Tunisian immigrants are sent to establish a new settlement in the Israeli Negev desert. Stories they share about their experiences in coping with the locale help them to establish a new identity, that of Israeli pioneers. The locale and its markers become chronotopes and help define the place and its settlers as distinct from the neighboring places/people.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors argue that the media's coverage, under Roosevelt's influence, mythologized the world cruise and submerged the martial nature of the cruise, which became a cause celebre at home and abroad, helping to establish the United States as a technologically powerful and culturally sophisticated agent of world peace.
Abstract: When President Theodore Roosevelt announced that America's battleship fleet was making an unprecedented world cruise, Congress condemned him for provoking foreign militancy; the media chastised him for leaving the country unprotected and went so far as to call for the president's impeachment. Despite this, the world cruise became a cause celeebre at home and abroad, helping to establish the United States as a technologically powerful and culturally sophisticated agent of world peace. This essay argues that the media's coverage, under Roosevelt's influence, mythologized the world cruise. By redefining mythic images of the universe and the hero in American culture, the popular press submerged the martial nature of the cruise. The resulting myth focused temporally on a “wondrous now” that avoided reminding audiences of its violent past and/or projecting an uncertain future.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article analyzed the public responses of black abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass, William C. Nell, Robert Purvis, and Charles Lenox Remond to Dred Scott v. Sandford and concluded that legal decisions cannot be properly understood apart from the subsequent public discourse they inspire.
Abstract: Through an analysis of black abolitionist responses to Scott v. Sandford, this essay demonstrates the importance of extra‐legal texts in contextualizing and challenging judicial authority. By analyzing the public responses of black abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass, William C. Nell, Robert Purvis, and Charles Lenox Remond, this essay concludes that(1) legal decisions cannot be properly understood apart from the subsequent public discourse they inspire,(2) the responses to Dred Scott demonstrate how legally excluded classes may persuasively challenge constitutional authority and assert their rights, and(3) the responses to Dred Scotthave profound implications in the formation of American identity.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors explored two distinct conceptions of rhetoric as an instrument of prudential reason and as an existential means of constituting oneself in Burke's private correspondence, arguing that this struggle between rhetorical prudence and rhetorical heroism generated discourse which was at war with itself.
Abstract: Scholars have recognized sharp inconsistencies in Burke's rhetorical abilities. To explain these inconsistencies, this essay explores two distinct conceptions of rhetoric as an instrument of prudential reason and as an existential means of constituting oneself. These two uses of rhetoric, as Burke's writings reveal, commonly take discourse in contradictory directions. In Burke's case, this struggle between rhetorical prudence and rhetorical heroism generated discourse which was at war with itself. In order to further this claim, this essay generally focuses on a largely unexplored body of Burke's rhetoric, his private correspondence.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article examined the meaning and validity of this judgment through a close reading of the text that seeks to account for the relationships of all three of the speech's primary metaphors and its central argument in terms of both "illocutionary act" and "perlocutionary effect".
Abstract: Winston Churchill's Westminster College, or “Iron Curtain,” speech is usually considered to have been an artistic success and persuasive failure. This paper examines the meaning and validity of this judgment through a close reading of the text that seeks to account for the relationships of all three of the speech's primary metaphors and its central argument in terms of both “illocutionary act” and “perlocutionary effect.”

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors argued that the rhetorical efficacy of reiterative rhetoric derives from its ability to increase the likelihood of persuasive uptake, its transformation of the relation between author and reader, and its stimulation of the reader's argumentative powers.
Abstract: This essay argues that nineteenth century “declarative” or “reiterative” rhetoric derives theoretical authorization from the eighty‐second Athenaum Fragment of Friedrich Schlegel. An analysis of the content and rhetorical structure of Schlegel's polemical and reiterative rejection of “philosophical and scientific demonstration” is provided. Although such rhetoric is conspicuously deficient by canonical rhetorical standards, it nevertheless retains substantial persuasive force. The rhetorical efficacy of reiterative rhetoric derives from its ability to increase the likelihood of persuasive uptake, its transformation of the relation between author and reader, and its stimulation of the reader's argumentative powers. The relevance of Schlegel's attack on demonstration to recent attempts to rehabilitate sophistic rhetorical theory and declarative rhetoric is then discussed.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Jarmon and Toffler as discussed by the authors described a turn-taking and interactional tax in face-to-face ENCOUNTERS, which they called an ECOLOGY of EMBODIED Interaction.
Abstract: CREATING A NEW CIVILIZATION: THE POLITICS OF THE THIRD WAVE. By Alvin and Heidi Toffler. Atlanta: Turner Publishing, 1995; pp. 112. $14.95; paper $7.95. DATA TRASH: THE THEORY OF THE VIRTUAL CLASS. By Arthur Kroker and Michael A. Weinstein. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994; pp. 160. $ 16.95. AN ECOLOGY OF EMBODIED INTERACTION: TURN‐TAKING AND INTERACTIONAL SYNTAX IN FACE‐TO‐FACE ENCOUNTERS. By Leslie Hope Jarmon. Diss. University of Texas at Austin, 1996. CD‐ROM. Ann Arbor: UMI, 1996. THE ELECTRONIC DISTURBANCE. By the Critical Arts Ensemble. New York: Autonomedia, 1994; pp. 85. $7.00. THE ELECTRONIC WORD: DEMOCRACY, TECHNOLOGY, AND THE ARTS. By Richard A. Lanham. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993; pp. xv + 285. $24.95; paper $14.95; 3.5‐inch diskette $19.95 (Macintosh). FLAME WARS: THE DISCOURSE OF CYBERCULTURE. Edited by Mark Dery. Durham: Duke University Press, 1994; pp. iv + 349. $39.95; paper $13.95. HYPERTEXT: THE CONVERGENCE OF CONTEMPORARY CRITICAL THEORY AND TECHNOLOGY. By George P. La...