Showing papers in "Quarterly Journal of Speech in 2000"
TL;DR: The authors analyzed the use of political nostalgia for the purposes of political image reconstruction as evidenced by Clinton's exploitation of the civil rights movement to explain and excuse his personal failings and his relationship with Monica Lewinsky.
Abstract: This essay offers a reading of President Bill Clinton's address on August 28, 1998 in which he commemorates the 35th anniversary of the March on Washington. Specifically, Clinton's August 28th address reveals how the presidency has become a hermeneutic site for the formation of collective memory and political nostalgia. This analysis discusses the uses of political nostalgia for the purposes of political image (re)construction as evidenced by Clinton's exploitation of the civil rights movement to explain and excuse his personal failings and his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. We also present a divergent version of Clinton's rhetoric, giving specific attention to how his particular use of nostalgia in this address works to articulate and confront many of the powerful dichotomies (masculine/feminine; war/peace; black/white; private/public) that define his presidency, his public persona, and the larger political culture in postmodern America.
62 citations
TL;DR: The authors postulates that the philosophy of dialogue developed by Martin Buber provides a coherent grounding for a dialogical/ontological rhetoric and contrasts, respectively, instrumental and dialogical conceptions of the rhetorical situation and instrumental and dialogueical characterizations of the rhetor.
Abstract: Underlying much twentieth century rhetorical theorizing has been the intuition that functionally and instrumentally, rhetoric requires a complement, for instance, dialectic or “dialogic.” While the work of Maurice Natanson, Richard Weaver, and recent rhetoricians of inquiry provides a dialectical complement to instrumental rhetoric, another tradition in rhetoric represented by the work of Wayne Brockriede and Allen Clark explores dialogue as a complement to instrumental rhetoric. This essay postulates that the philosophy of dialogue developed by Martin Buber provides a coherent grounding for a dialogical/ontological rhetoric. It contrasts, respectively, instrumental and dialogical conceptions of the rhetorical situation and instrumental and dialogical characterizations of the rhetor, the rhetor's purposes and modes of influence. It concludes with a discussion of research issues confronting those interested in further development of a dialogic rhetoric.
41 citations
TL;DR: With incredible daring, Habermas has reinterpreted speech act theory in a way that poses a foundational challenge to rhetorical scholars as mentioned in this paper, and this challenge poses a fundamental challenge for rhetorical scholars.
Abstract: With incredible daring Habermas has reinterpreted speech act theory in a way that poses a foundational challenge to rhetorical scholars.
28 citations
TL;DR: In his apology following a day of grand jury testimony on August 17th, 1998, Clinton faced a number of rhetorical dilemmas stemming from his illicit relationship with Monica Lewinsky and his subsequent attempt at covering it up as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: In his apologia following a day of grand jury testimony on August 17th, 1998 President Clinton faced a number of rhetorical dilemmas stemming from his illicit relationship with Monica Lewinsky and his subsequent, ill‐fated attempts at covering it up. This essay offers a dilemma‐centered analysis of Clinton's rhetorical situation and provides an assessment of the strategic appropriateness of the speech in light of a theory of the rhetorical event. In so doing it makes frequent reference to the extensive CRTNET commentary on the speech, this both for purposes of assisting in the assessment and for illuminating problems with rhetorical theory and method.
28 citations
TL;DR: In the last year of his life, Malcolm X was faced with the task of crafting a viable public voice while remaining unfettered by existing ideologies, and he addressed this task by repeatedly shifting the scene within which he asked his audience to define themselves as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: In the last year of his life, Malcolm X was faced with the task of crafting a viable public voice while remaining unfettered by existing ideologies. In a speech he delivered less than a week before he died, Malcolm addresses this task by repeatedly shifting the scene within which he asks his audience to define themselves. He explores the possibilities and the limitations of both the domestic and international scenes, and finally invites his audience to position themselves at the border between the two. There, he and his African‐American audience might take advantage of the redefinitional potential of international identification without abdicating their rightful domestic position.
25 citations
TL;DR: A university that does not respond to the technological developments of the current age can be said to be both nonresponsive in the behavioral sense and irresponsible in the moral sense as discussed by the authors, and it might seriously be questioned whether a stance of nonresponse is indeed possible.
Abstract: A university that does not respond to the technological developments of the current age can be said to be both nonresponsive in the behavioral sense and irresponsible in the moral sense. It might seriously be questioned whether a stance of nonresponse is indeed possible. Technology is an inescapable fact of our contemporary cultural existence. We are reminded of the disarming reply of Thomas Carlyle to Margaret Fuller's stoic affirmation, “I accept the universe!” Responded Carlyle, “Gad, she'd better!” ... The more difficult requirement that we face, however, is that of responding responsibly to this cultural fact.
23 citations
TL;DR: This article argued that the representative anecdote in conjunction with the pentad provides the most adequate vocabulary for the study of motives in A Grammar of Motives, and argued that it supports Burke's claim to provide the most suitable vocabulary for rhetorical analysis of motives.
Abstract: Rhetorical scholars have taken Burke's discussions of the “representative anecdote” in A Grammar of Motives, and have devised from them a systematic procedure for use in criticism However, I believe that we can read the representative anecdote in a different way‐by examining the work the term does for Burke himself I suggest that Burke is not offering a method as much as justifying dramatism dramatistically Ultimately, based upon my reading of the Grammar, I argue that the representative anecdote‐taken in conjunction with the pentad‐supports Burke's claim to provide the most adequate vocabulary for the study of motives
23 citations
TL;DR: For example, this paper argued that Common Sense exemplified a new rhetoric and a new style of charismatic leadership, a style of leadership more in tune with the emerging egalitarian ethos of revolutionary America.
Abstract: By measures of impact alone, Thomas Paine might be considered the charismatic leader of the American Revolution and his Common Sense its most important manifesto. Psychological and sociological theories of charisma, however, are hard‐pressed to account for the impact of Paine and his pamphlet. Written anonymously, Common Sense did not derive its power from the reputation of its author, nor did the text itself project the image of a charismatic leader as conventionally understood. Instead, Common Sense exemplified a “new rhetoric” and a new style of charismatic leadership‐a “republican charisma"‐more in tune with the emerging egalitarian ethos of revolutionary America.
22 citations
TL;DR: The body, symbolic and material, is a core site for the history, theory, and practice of democracy, and is the hard kernel of collective identification and division as mentioned in this paper, arguing that the body is the core site of the history and theory of democracy.
Abstract: This essay attempts to counter the dreariness of postmodern critique and culture by locating the vital force of phantasy, rhetoric, argument, hope, and memory in contemporary public affairs. More particularly, it engages recent controversies about collective memory and the FDR memorial statue especially to generate a greater sensitivity to the fact that we are agents (and not just dupes) of history. The body, symbolic and material, is a core site for the history, theory, and practice of democracy, I argue, and is the hard kernel of collective identification and division. Methodologically, the essay fuses Aristotle and Lacan's ideas about phantasy as a perceptual device, which gages and creates public and personal desire, as an analytic frame for the study of public discourse.
20 citations
TL;DR: The argument will show how Kevorkian's intention to popularize obitiatry contrasts with his public image as a champion of physician‐assisted dying, and the totality of thematically‐relevant discursive events which arise during periods of constitutional amending are referred to as a rhetorical situation.
Abstract: Kenneth Burke's characterization of constitutions effectively describes the customs and values that are lived within a community, and he has well charted the dialectical process which such constitutions undergo when they actually submit to change. In this paper, the totality of thematically‐relevant discursive events which arise during periods of constitutional amending are referred to, building from Bitzer, as a rhetorical situation. Using Bitzer alongside Burke, it will be shown that Jack Kevorkian's rhetorical intent, as expressed in his writings and public statements, is distinct from the rhetorical situation to which he has been assigned, illustrating the significant discrepancy between the would‐be rhetorical utterances of a speaker and those utterances which have rhetorical impact. The argument will show how Kevorkian's intention to popularize obitiatry contrasts with his public image as a champion of physician‐assisted dying.
16 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors identify codes of the unsayable in a culture/situation, and by identifying what cannot be said publicly are better equipped to distinguish between types of national identity.
Abstract: By examining instances of dramatically rejected speech, critics can identify codes of the unsayable in a culture/situation, and by identifying what cannot be said publicly are better equipped to distinguish between types of national identity. In the years leading to German reunification, West German national identity was based upon various strategies of remembrance that are identified through a comparison of two speeches: Richard von Weizsacker's celebrated 1985 parliamentary address commemorating the end of the Second World War in Europe and Philipp Jenninger's dramatically rejected parliamentary address in 1988 commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the Kristallnacht.
TL;DR: Carmichael as discussed by the authors, Framing History: The Rosenberg Story and the Cold War. New York: Scribner, 1997. xxv + 299 pp., $19.95.
Abstract: Virginia Carmichael, Framing History: The Rosenberg Story and the Cold War. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993. xxv + 299 pp., $19.95. Jodi Dean, Aliens in America: Conspiracy Cultures from Outerspace to Cyberspace. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998. xii + 242 pp., $15.95. Don DeLillo, Underworld. New York: Scribner, 1997. 827 pp.: $16.00. James Der Derian, Antidiplomacy: Spies, Terror, Speed, and War. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1992. ix + 215 pp., $25.95. Paul N. Edwards, The Closed World: Computers and the Politics of Discourse in Cold War America. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997. xx + 440 pp., $17.50. Cynthia Enloe, The Morning After: Sexual Politics at the End of the Cold War. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. ix + 326 pp., $16.95. Marjorie Garber and Rebecca Walkowitz (Eds.), Secret Agents: The Rosenberg Case, McCarthyism, and Fifties America. New York: Routledge, 1995. 309 pp., $22.95. Michael Lynch and David Bogen, The Spectacle of History: Speech, Text, and Memor...
TL;DR: The apparent success of the Patriot missile defense system served as the official centerpiece of a rhetorical campaign to portray Operation Desert Storm as an unprecedented mission ushering in a new era of American military dominance based on technological superiority as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: During the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the apparent success of the Patriot missile defense system served as the official centerpiece of a rhetorical campaign to portray Operation Desert Storm as an unprecedented mission ushering in a new era of American military dominance based on technological superiority Post‐war disclosures have not only cast serious doubt on Patriot's wartime performance, but have also exposed a widespread program of strategic deception employed by Pentagon officials to protect the fiction of Patriot's Gulf War wizardry This essay explains how Gulf War audiences were misled, assesses the rhetorical windfall flowing from perceived Patriot effectiveness, and criticizes the Pentagon's campaign of strategic deception as normatively bankrupt
TL;DR: The authors argue that a true dialogue on race relations will not occur until whites assume the responsibility for engaging in and sustaining this dialogue, and offer a number of suggestions concerning rhetorical critical practices and the roles that critics can play in bringing about social change.
Abstract: This essay mounts a counternarrative to address the mainstream print‐mediated coverage of Milwaukee alderman Michael McGee. In analyzing racialized discourse in Milwaukee, the essay highlights the importance of focusing on rhetoric marginalized in or outside of the public sphere. A clash in rhetorical style can subvert the substance of public discourse with deleterious social consequences. We contend that a true dialogue on race relations will not occur until whites assume the responsibility for engaging in and sustaining this dialogue. The essay also establishes a rationale for why it is critically important to the discipline and to our respective communities to focus on local discourse and discursive communities. Finally, we offer a number of suggestions concerning rhetorical critical practices and the roles that critics can play in bringing about social change.
TL;DR: The author of Revelation, acting as a rhetorical change-agent, created an experience of transcendence for his readers during the course of the book by discerning in history a divine plan and showing the proper place of his readers in that plan.
Abstract: The author of Revelation, acting as a rhetorical change‐agent, created an experience of transcendence for his readers during the course of the book by discerning in history a divine plan and showing the proper place of his readers in that plan. His invitation to experience transcendence strategically compensated for an apparent gap in the early Christian worldview.
TL;DR: The authors argued that "Rhetoric has been corrupted by its own unexpected success" and pointed out that "finding its place in the Sun, rhetoric has become corrupted by the unexpected success".
Abstract: Finding its place in the Sun, rhetoric has been corrupted by its own unexpected success.
TL;DR: The controversy over the cochlear implantation of children serves as a representative anecdote for the broader societal struggle over the role and the consequences of technology in modern human life as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: In June 1990, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the use of cochlear implants for deaf children triggering a volatile debate between persons working within the field of communication disorders and the Deaf community. This essay explores the work of Kenneth Burke on guilt and Helen Merrell Lynd on shame in assessing the dramatically varying perspectives on cochlear implants and in attempting to reconstruct the paths along which each of these perspectives travel. The controversy over the cochlear implantation of children serves as a representative anecdote for the broader societal struggle over the role and the consequences of technology in modern human life.
TL;DR: For example, the authors suggests that war is a useful metaphor for rhetoric, and that Art of War provides a comprehensive, insightful, and unique rhetorical theory based on parsimony: extreme economy in the expenditure of resources.
Abstract: Daoist (Taoist) philosophical rhetoric is an integral part of China's magnificent cultural heritage, and analysis of Daoist rhetoric offers the potential to enhance understanding of human communication and inform rhetorical theory and practice. While studies of Daoist rhetoric are increasing, a masterpiece of Daoist thought, Sun‐zi's (Sun‐tzu's) Art of War, has not been examined for its rhetorical implications. This study suggests that war is a useful metaphor for rhetoric, and that Art of War provides a comprehensive, insightful, and unique rhetorical theory based on parsimony: extreme economy in the expenditure of resources.
TL;DR: The authors argue that our jurisprudential norms are co-produced by both text writers and their audiences, and use the John Brown trial as a case example to understand the selectivity and inventiveness involved in legal decision making.
Abstract: As members of the public and private sphere, we are constantly intrigued by the question of the nature, scope, and limitations of dramatic appeals that are made to a higher justice that appears to exist along side the established order and the “rule of law.” While as Americans we often view ourselves as constitutionalists, obedient citizens who acknowledge the legitimacy of the positive laws instantiated through the decisions of the government, at the same time we are mesmerized by the words and deeds of revolutionaries who have been willing to shed blood in the name of a higher law. Using the John Brown trial as a case example, the essay argues that our jurisprudential norms are co‐produced by both text writers and their audiences. By adapting a performative stance, we can perhaps gain a better understanding of the selectivity and inventiveness involved in legal decision making.
TL;DR: This paper analyzed a letter written by James Dobson to over 2 million constituents of Focus on the Family and found that Dobson provided a way out of the moral quagmire science has placed humans in by highlighting mankind's ability to morally act, thereby initiating an individual-moral redemptive cycle.
Abstract: This essay analyzes a letter written by James Dobson to over 2 million constituents of Focus on the Family. The letter discusses the 1993 Fetal Tissue Research Initiative, and is a complex example of moral‐poetic discourse rising above the scientific ideal in American culture. I first employ a judgmental analysis to determine what Dobson's potential reading audience was being asked to believe. Second, using Kenneth Burke's distinction between semantic and poetic meaning I examine Dobson's discourse as a moral‐poetic response to the amoral stance of scientific discourse. Finally, I analyze the motive underpinning Dobson's discourse to understand the actions of Dobson's envisioned moral agent. This study found that Dobson provided a way out of the moral quagmire science has placed humans in by highlighting mankind's ability to morally act, thereby initiating an individual‐moral redemptive cycle.
TL;DR: The role of mutability in rhetoric, consciousness, and social idioms in the context of the Madrid conference on October 31, 1991 is discussed in this article. But the focus of this paper is not on the present paper, but on Haydar Abd al-Alshafi's speech.
Abstract: This essay draws from Edwin Black's Rhetorical Questions to illuminate the role of mutability in rhetoric, consciousness, and social idioms as it is displayed in Haydar ‘Abd al‐Shafi's speech delivered at the Madrid conference on October 31, 1991. Shaft's speech represents a significant mutation in Palestinian discourse. In this speech, the symbolic mold and the hereditarian social idioms that had controlled the Palestinian narrative until the intifada yielded to a mixed idiom that retained the hereditarian values essential for Palestinian identity but opened up space for the convictional values necessary for negotiation and rapprochement with Israel. This essay demonstrates that rhetorical critical theory could benefit from a close reading and application of the themes in Rhetorical Questions.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a history of the idea of communicating in the air, focusing on the early days of the Internet and the early years of the World Wide Web.
Abstract: SPEAKING INTO THE AIR: A HISTORY OF THE IDEA OF COMMUNICATION. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999, 293 pp. $26.00 U.S.
TL;DR: The spirit catches you and you fall down: a HMONG child, her American doctors, and the COLLISION of two cultures in the making.
Abstract: THE SPIRIT CATCHES YOU AND YOU FALL DOWN: A HMONG CHILD, HER AMERICAN DOCTORS, AND THE COLLISION OF TWO CULTURES. By Anne Fadiman. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1997. 341 pp. $13.00 U.S.