Showing papers in "Quarterly Journal of Speech in 1998"
TL;DR: The authors identifies resistive reading, strategic ambiguity, and hermeneutic depth as three types of polysemy that support different scholarly purposes, and also complicates assumptions about the critical judgment of polysemous texts.
Abstract: Several rhetoricians have recently called for an increased interest in the “polysemy” of the text, but ironically, they are not all talking about the same thing. While they agree about how to delimit the term, there are conflicting assumptions about who initiates polysemy, the social action it supports, and the power dynamics it endorses. This paper argues that we should recognize resistive reading, strategic ambiguity, and hermeneutic depth as three types of polysemy that support different scholarly purposes. This paper also complicates assumptions about the critical judgment of polysemous texts and suggests that some types of polysemy are best identified through the adoption of a new critical approach.
180 citations
TL;DR: The authors examine the rhetorical aspects of spontaneous shrines that develop on the sites of such public tragedies and compare the objects and messages left at the Oklahoma City and Dunblane shrines to private mourning rituals of the last century.
Abstract: Recent violent deaths invoking children in the Oklahoma City bombing and the Dunblane massacre have led to active expressions of private emotion in a public forum. In this study, we examine the rhetorical aspects of spontaneous shrines that develop on the sites of such public tragedies. Our analogue for the creation of these shrines is the private form that mourning activity took in the nineteenth century, often in response to the death of a child. A comparison of the objects and messages left at the Oklahoma City and Dunblane shrines to private mourning rituals of the last century reveals a common cultural meta‐narrative. By promising continuity and certainty in a time of chaos, this meta‐narrative rhetorically negotiates the earliest stages of public and private grief.
117 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a case study explores one way women developed a shared feminist consciousness: how they explored their identity as women, became aware that other women shared their experiences, and felt empowered to enact specific changes in society.
Abstract: Through an analysis of Antoinette Brown Blackwell's Oberlin College correspondence with Lucy Stone, this case study explores one way‐letter writing‐that nineteenth‐century women developed a shared feminist consciousness: how they explored their identity as women, became aware that other women shared their experiences, and felt empowered to enact specific changes in society. The central argument developed in this essay is that the consciousness‐raising process constructed in these letters functioned as a “pre‐genesis” stage of the social movement we now identify as the women's rights movement.
38 citations
TL;DR: The SPOILS OF FREEDOM: PSYCHOANALYSIS and FEMINISM AFTER THE FALL OF SOCIALISM as discussed by the authors, by Slavoj Žižek and Renata Salecl.
Abstract: READ MY DESIRE: LACAN AGAINST THE HISTORICISTS. By Joan Copjec. Cambridge and London: The MIT Press, 1994; pp. 272. $30.00; paper $14.00. THE SPOILS OF FREEDOM: PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FEMINISM AFTER THE FALL OF SOCIALISM. By Renata Salecl. London and New York: Routledge, 1994; pp. viii + 167. $59.95; paper $16.95. THE SUBLIME OBJECT OF IDEOLOGY. By Slavoj Žižek. London and New York: Verso, 1989; pp. xvi + 240. $60.00; paper $18.95. UNMARKED: THE POLITICS OF PERFORMANCE. By Peggy Phelan. London and New York: Routledge, 1993; pp. xi + 207. $62.95; paper $17.95.
36 citations
TL;DR: Audre Lorde as mentioned in this paper argued that a focus upon relational practices across human differences is more fundamental than demographic categories for people in promoting the human liberation of divergent communities. But the focus on relational practices was not on gender, but on the relational practices of individuals.
Abstract: Distortions around the naming and the misnaming of human differences are the central foci of Audre Lorde's speech entitled “Age, Race, Class, Sex: Women Redefining Difference,” which she delivered at Amherst College in Massachusetts on April 3, 1980. Lorde's speech at Amherst exemplifies her deep understanding of what she refers to in an earlier speech as “that language which has been made to work against us.” Paradoxically, by scrutinizing some liabilities that language may pose for members of subordinated communities, Lorde's speech enacts specific and often subtle means for reclaiming language, exemplified by “difference.” Lorde's speech undertakes a fundamental transformation in a commonplace understanding of “difference” as domination by redefining it as resource, while calling attention to how complicity inheres in language. She contends that a focus upon relational practices across human differences is more fundamental than demographic categories for people in promoting the human liberation of dive...
28 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines how the rhetoric of Reconstruction congressional actors expressed divergent modes of political judgment with respect to the civil rights of African Americans and concludes that prudence can reveal the evolution of a rhetorical culture and community.
Abstract: This essay examines how the rhetoric of Reconstruction congressional actors expressed divergent modes of political judgment with respect to the civil rights of African Americans. Through an interpretive analysis of the 1874–1875 civil rights debate, the essay contends that proponents and opponents enacted adverse norms of discursive practice and competing conceptions of equality. This conflict's discourse helped to bring about the separate but equal doctrine that guided race relations into the next century. This essay concludes that when studied as a contested space, prudence can reveal the evolution of a rhetorical culture and community.
23 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines a concert by Nicola Paganini, the nineteenth century violinist whose striking expressive force functioned rhetorically to expand ideas concerning music and human agency, and to evoke a unique sense of communitas by embodying the ideals of the Romantic era.
Abstract: While virtuosic‐or incredibly skilled‐action is recognized as an important facet of symbolic activity, talk of virtuosity is often limited to the superficial and deceptive uses of talent, a trend that constrains the rhetorical nature of human agency. This essay examines virtuosity as a performance in which the agent's display of extraordinary skill is valued because it transfigures cultural ideals concerning the expressive power of the human agent. The study examines in detail a concert by Nicola Paganini, the nineteenth century violinist whose striking expressive force functioned rhetorically to expand ideas concerning music and human agency, and to evoke a unique sense of communitas by embodying the ideals of the Romantic era.
23 citations
TL;DR: In this article, Zhao Di and Qiou Jin are analyzed in relation to the meaning of these names and they are linked to rhetorical, feminist and intercultural studies on the one hand and to break through the limits of inlertextuality and self-reflexivity on the other.
Abstract: Responding to a political paradox, in which even liberatory movements can also be oppressive, this essay offers an approach to forming feminist alliances and building community. It does so in relation to the names given to Chinese women. Neither feminist scholarship nor Chinese studies in our field has come to grips with the deep, culturally embedded, and politically significant meaning of these names. Through an analysis of two names, Zhao Di and Qiou Jin, this essay advances theory enabling us to link and enrich rhetorical, feminist and intercultural studies on the one hand and to break through the limits of inlertextuality and self‐reflexivity on the other.
23 citations
TL;DR: Gutmann and Thompson as mentioned in this paper discuss the role of women in the development of American democracy and discuss the MILD VOICE OF Reason: DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY and AMERICAN NATIONAL GOVERNMENT.
Abstract: DEMOCRACY AND DISAGREEMENT. By Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1996; pp. viii + 422. $27.95; paper $16.95. THE MILD VOICE OF REASON: DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY AND AMERICAN NATIONAL GOVERNMENT. By Joseph M. Bessette. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1994; pp. xvi + 289. $32.50; paper $15.95. NORMS OF RHETORICAL CULTURE. By Thomas B. Farrell. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993; pp. x + 374. Paper $18.00. PUBLIC DELIBERATION: PLURALISM, COMPLEXITY, AND DEMOCRACY. By James Bohman. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1996; xi + 303. $30.00.
20 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines Farrakhan's rhetoric through the lens of complicity theory to provide a theoretical amplification of the notion of symbolic realignment, and a critical examination of the epistemological commitments undergirding far-right oratory.
Abstract: Louis Abdul Farrakhan has become an important voice in African and European American debates about racial identity and equality. This essay examines Farrakhan's rhetoric through the lens of complicity theory to provide a theoretical amplification of the notion of “symbolic realignment,” a critical examination of the epistemological commitments undergirding Farrakhan's rhetoric, and a practical exploration of the problems and possibilities his oratory presents for our understanding of rhetoric and race in America.
19 citations
TL;DR: The fight against the Mafia in Italy took a new turn in the past decade as former Mafia women turned state's evidence, uncovering invaluable information about the Mafia as discussed by the authors, and they used the topoi of intolerance, forgiveness and promise to describe their process of conversion, to translate private experiences into public testimonies.
Abstract: The fight against the Mafia in Italy took a new turn in the past decade as former Mafia women turned state's evidence, uncovering invaluable information about the Mafia. As they tell their stories of conversion, from women of the Mafia to citizens who believe in civil justice, the women use the topoi of intolerance, forgiveness and promise to describe their process of conversion, to translate private experiences into public testimonies, and to persuade others to follow in their footsteps. Their stories provide inspiration for other anti‐Mafia groups and legitimize the Italian government's fight against the Mafia.
TL;DR: The authors compare the papers produced by the laboratory teams of Robert Gallo and Jean Luc Montagnier during the AIDS virus hunt, and they have an opportunity to discern the fine line between a bold, explicit rhetoric that may convince as well as offend and a bald, reserved rhetoric that might conceal important implications.
Abstract: By comparing the papers produced by the laboratory teams of Robert Gallo and Jean Luc Montagnier during the AIDS virus hunt, we have an opportunity to discern the fine line between a bold, explicit rhetoric that may convince as well as offend and a bald, reserved rhetoric that may actually conceal important implications. Going too far in either direction may create misunderstandings and ethical dilemmas as will be demonstrated in a textual analysis deepened by an exploration of historical context and interviews with key participants. Since a public health crisis calls upon communication that thwarts misunderstandings, scientists should understand the nuances of particular contexts and the blessings and banes of specific rhetorics employed in those contexts.
TL;DR: The authors situates recent popularized accounts of emerging lethal viral strains within the context of a late nineteenth-century rationale for imperialism, i.e., the ideologeme of scenic contamination, which justified imperialism as a "defensive" measure designed to control and quarantine the unpredictable and chaotic forces of the underdeveloped world.
Abstract: This study situates recent popularized accounts of emerging lethal viral strains within the context of a late nineteenth‐century rationale for imperialism‐i.e., the ideologeme of scenic contamination. Defining non‐European lands and peoples as “active” agents capable of “contaminating” the civilized natures of the imperialists who would seek to rule them, this ideologeme justified imperialism as a “defensive” measure designed to control and quarantine the unpredictable and chaotic forces of the underdeveloped world. A diachronic adaptation of this ideologeme forms the basis for texts detailing recent Third World viral outbreaks such as Richard Preston's The Hot Zone, a Video News International documentary entitled “Killer Virus,” and an episode of NOVA entitled “Plague Fighters.” While these texts do not advocate a return to an era of formal empire, all three present ideologically charged images of the Third World and its relationship to the West as objectively based scientific “fact.”
TL;DR: In this article, an inquiry into Lewis's speech and the surrounding controversy permits the recovery of what Lewis actually said and reveals a synecdochic struggle over the rhetoric of the civil rights movement and what was sayable in public on August 28, 1963.
Abstract: In American memory, the March on Washington is the high‐water mark of the civil rights movement. Martin Luther King Jr. ‘s “I Have a Dream” oration is so central to the memory of the March that it has obscured the speeches by other civil rights activists‐including John Lewis. Lewis's prepared speech was militant, and March organizers pressured him to revise it. Inquiry into Lewis's speech and the surrounding controversy permits the recovery of what Lewis actually said—which has not been published—and reveals a synecdochic struggle over the rhetoric of the civil rights movement and what was sayable in public on August 28, 1963.
TL;DR: The role of ideology in Kenneth Burke's texts, addressed by Frederic Jameson twenty years ago, remains a timely question, as seen in recent books by Stephen Bygrave and Robert Wess as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: The role of ideology in Kenneth Burke's texts, addressed by Frederic Jameson twenty years ago, remains a timely question, as seen in recent books by Stephen Bygrave and Robert Wess. I explore the implications of this debate for rhetorical criticism, arguing that, in Permanence and Change, Burke develops a “metabiological” theory of ideology that is based upon the interrelated concepts of “metabiology, “ “orientation, “ and “recalcitrance. “ This theory of ideology provides the outlines for a metabiological rhetorical criticism, a criticism that goes beyond radical perspectivism, grounding the possibility of normative claims in the dialectical interplay between the symbolic and the nonsymbolic.
TL;DR: The authors traces the development of the campaign history genre by exploring two key exemplars: Theodore H. White's The Making of the President 1960 and Richard Ben Cramer's What It Takes: The Way to the White House.
Abstract: Since its inception in 1961, the campaign history has become an important, recurring feature of the political landscape. This essay traces the development of the genre by exploring two key exemplars: Theodore H. White's The Making of the President 1960 and Richard Ben Cramer's What It Takes: The Way to the White House. Critique of the genre reveals that the books make sense of the election, develop a reciprocal relationship between private man and public figure, and create an authoritarian reading of the election. The evolution of the campaign history from While's epic narrative of the Kennedy campaign to Cramer's dialogic depiction of a political culture suggests the ways in which American political discourse has begun to reinvent itself for contemporary society.
Abstract: Ernest Wrage's landmark essay, “Public Address: A Study in Social and Intellectual History,” described a revisionist paradigm of public address scholarship which has yet to be realized. Ironically,...
TL;DR: In this article, a resistive form of "passing" which I label "homosexual palimpsest" manifests itself in Matthiessen's exploration of Herman Melville, surreptitiously inscribing the homosexual into American literary and cultural history.
Abstract: F.O. Matthiessen's American Renaissance, a text central to the formation of American Studies as a field, has inspired critical derogation and hagiography based on the extent to which sexuality can be discerned in its pages. largue that these readings do not account for Matthiessen's context of homophobic oppression, thus miss a homosexual double‐consciousness that animates the work. Specifically, a resistive form of “passing” which I label “homosexual palimpsest” manifests itself in Matthiessen's exploration of Herman Melville, surreptitiously inscribing the homosexual into American literary and cultural history. Matthiessen's criticism offers insights into homosexual resistance, the critical/rhetorical tension in interpretation, and the practice of gay historical criticism generally.
TL;DR: In this article, Kffling-sworth et al. discuss the role of the environment in the development of the United States' political system and its role in the formation of American culture.
Abstract: EARTHTALK: COMMUNICATION EMPOWERMENT FOR ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION. Edited by Star A. Muir and Thomas L. Veenendall. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1996; pp. xviii + 233. $59.00. ECOSPEAK: RHETORIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS IN AMERICA. By M. Jimmie Kffling‐sworth and Jacqueline S. Palmer. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1992; pp. xii + 312. $34.95. GREEN CULTURE: RHETORICAL ANALYSES OF ENVIRONMENTAL DISCOURSE. Edited by Carl G. Herndl and Stuart C. Brown. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1996; pp. xii + 303. $45.00; paper $21.95. IN THE NATURE OF THINGS: LANGUAGE, POLITICS, AND THE ENVIRONMENT. Edited by Jane Bennett and William Chaloupka. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1993; pp. xvi + 275. $47.95; paper $18.95. PLANNING AS PERSUASIVE STORYTELLING: THE RHETORICAL CONSTRUCTION OF CHICAGO'S ELECTRIC FUTURE. By James A. Throgmorton. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1996; pp. xxiii + 313. $61.00; paper $19.95. THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMAGINATION: THOREAU, NATURE WRITING, AND THE FORMATION OF AMERICAN CULTURE. By Lawrence Buell. Cambridge:...
TL;DR: The authors proposed a method of stylistic analysis which may help to identify discursive features enabling reflective spectator judgment, described as participatory forms and illustrated by performing a stylistic analyses of Fisher Ames's Jay Treaty speech.
Abstract: Spectatorship, a key component of political judgment, has received little critical attention. After describing reflective spectator judgment with respect to political judgment and rhetorical theory, I propose a method of stylistic analysis which may help to identify discursive features enabling reflective spectator judgment. These discursive features‐described as participatory forms‐are illustrated by performing a stylistic analysis of Fisher Ames's Jay Treaty speech. Advantages and limitations of this mode of reflective spectatorship and critical method are considered.
TL;DR: The authors explored the conflict between individualism and communitarianism, attempting to clarify the nature of the conflict and its implications for rhetorical theory, and examined the conflict as it was manifested in a historical debate between liberals and conservatives during and after the French Revolution.
Abstract: This essay explores the conflict between individualism and communitarianism, attempting to clarify the nature of the conflict and its implications for rhetorical theory. The conflict is examined as it was manifested in a historical debate between liberals and conservatives during and after the French Revolution. Where liberals privileged the unencumbered judgment of autonomous individuals, conservatives attempted to marginalize individual dissent, defending “prejudice, “ “precedent, “ and “presumption. “Against this background, Richard Whately's notions of “presumption” and “burden of proof can be seen as an attempt to mediate the conflict between individualism and communitarianism. Whately's suggestion was developed farther in the works of John Stuart Mill and Alexis de Tocqueville. For Mill and Tocqueville, presumption and burden of proof define a point of equilibrium in an ongoing dialectic between communal allegiance and individual judgement.
TL;DR: In this paper, Jurgen Habermas and William Rehg discuss contributions to a theory of law and democracy, and present a survey of the contributions of individuals to this theory.
Abstract: BETWEEN FACTS AND NORMS: CONTRIBUTIONS TO A DISCOURSE THEORY OF LAW AND DEMOCRACY. By Jurgen Habermas. Translated by William Rehg. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1996, pp. xliii + 631. $40.00; paper $25.00.
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TL;DR: The ANATOMY OF DISGUST: Why America is wracked by culture war as discussed by the authors. But it is not a discussion of race relations, it is a discussion about culture war.
Abstract: THE ANATOMY OF DISGUST. By William Ian Miller. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997; pp. xv + 320. $24.95. QUESTIONS OF CULTURAL IDENTITY. Edited by Stuart Hall and Paul du Gay. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1996; pp. ix + 198. $69.95; paper $22.95. THE TWILIGHT OF COMMON DREAMS: WHY AMERICA IS WRACKED BY CULTURE WARS. By Todd Gitlin. New York: Henry Holt, 1995; pp. ix + 294. $25.00.
TL;DR: Godel's Theorem was the mathematical proof that has been said to mark the loss of certainty in formal logic; Lyotard named it as the beginning of the post-modern reformulation of the nature of knowledge as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Godel's Theorem was the mathematical proof that has been said to mark the loss of certainty in formal logic; Lyotard named it as the beginning of the post‐modern reformulation of the nature of knowledge. Godel's proof is also an eloquent paradigm‐changing text, demonstrating the inability of language, however perfect, to represent reality in a way that guarantees unambiguous communication. Instead, he uses paradox as an alternative form of argument that creates certainty through performance.