Tag: Rhetoric

Free Download "Guiguzi," China’s First Treatise on Rhetoric: A Critical Translation and Commentary By Hui Wu; C. Jan Swearingen
2016 | 196 Pages | ISBN: 0809335263 | PDF | 3 MB
When Gorgias, Plato, and Aristotle were discussing and defining rhetoric in ancient Greece, many students in China, including Sun Bin, a descendent of Sun Tzu, who wroteThe Art of War, were learning the techniques of persuasion from Guiguzi, "the Master of the Ghost Valley." This pre-Qin dynasty recluse provided the basis for what is considered the earliest Chinese treatise devoted entirely to the art of persuasion. Called Guiguzi after its author, this translation of the received text provides an indigenous rhetorical theory and key persuasive strategies, some of which are still used by those involved in decision making and negotiations in China today. In "Guiguzi," China’s First Treatise on Rhetoric, Hui Wu and C. Jan Swearingen present a new critical translation of this foundational work, which has great historical significance for the study of Chinese rhetoric and communication and yet is little known to Western readers. Wu’s translation includes footnotes that incorporate both past and present scholarly commentary, and is accompanied by a prefatory introduction that situates Guiguzi in the sociopolitical and cultural realities of ancient China, and a glossary of rhetorical terms used in the treatise. Swearingen presents a comparative study suggesting the similarities and differences between emerging Greek and Chinese rhetorics during the same period, including the cultural contexts of warring states and emergent empires that surrounded each."Guiguzi," China’s First Treatise on Rhetoric combines a new translation of a historically significant text with scholarly analysis and critical apparatus that will contribute to the emerging global understanding of Chinese rhetoric and communication.

Free Download Hunter H. Fine, "Bicycling, Motorcycling, Rhetoric, and Space"
English | ISBN: 1666928461 | 2022 | 244 pages | EPUB | 615 KB
Bicycling, Motorcycling, Rhetoric, and Space draws from cultural studies, rhetorical theory, and political philosophy to examine bicycling and motorcycling as serious forms of communication and even thought. By analyzing how everyday movements function in modern and postmodern contexts, Hunter H. Fine is able to determine the social meanings behind human powered and motorized forms of cycling. Through the lenses of sophistic rhetoric and poststructuralist theory, the author uncovers how such mobilities inform our thoughts and interactions. Throughout history, this informing process has promoted specific ways of thinking that have resulted in moments of protest, conquest, awareness, and transgression, which all involve a cycling rhetoric. This book contributes to various academic fields within the liberal arts and humanities while further establishing bicycling and motorcycling as important social, theoretical, and political areas of inquiry. Scholars of rhetoric, communication studies, cultural studies, and philosophy will find this book of particular interest.

Free Download Women and children first : feminism, rhetoric, and public policy By Patrice DiQuinzio; Sharon M. Meagher
2005 | 263 Pages | ISBN: 079146539X | PDF | 68 MB
The essays in this book analyze the rhetoric of a widerange of American and Canadian public policies that propose "to putwomen and children first." They uncover a logic of paternalistic treatmentof women and children that purports to protect them but almostalways also disempowers them and sometimes harms them. This logic iswidespread in contemporary policy discourse, and it affects how peopleunderstand, and respond to, those policies and the problems they aremeant to address. Cultural discourse shapes, and is shaped by, both academicand public policy discourses.

Free Download Jeanine E. Kraybill, "Unconventional, Partisan, and Polarizing Rhetoric: How the 2016 Election Shaped the Way Candidates Strategize, Engage, a"
English | ISBN: 149855413X | 2017 | 238 pages | EPUB | 1434 KB
The rhetoric and political communication of the 2016 Presidential Election was arguably unconventional, partisan, and polarizing-becoming a defining characteristic of the tone and feel of the campaign. In this volume we examine how rhetoric and various political communication strategies influenced and shaped the contours of the election and ultimately its outcome. Witnessing the most diverse electorate in U.S. political history, we look at how voters were primed for an anti-establishment/outsider candidate and how various rhetorical and communication appeals were used to strategically engage different groups of voters and at times, leave out or even scapegoat others. We also analyze how rhetoric and political communication shaped the debate on key issues such as climate change, immigration, national security, gender, and representation. In an age where having a social media presence is an essential campaign tool, we examine how Twitter was used by candidates and its impact on the electorate and news coverage. Overall, we demonstrate that political rhetoric and communication is impactful, bearing electoral consequences and the potential for policy outcomes, giving the reader much to consider as we approach the next midterm and general election.

Free Download Kimberly P. Johnson, "The Womanist Preacher: Proclaiming Womanist Rhetoric from the Pulpit "
English | ISBN: 1498542050 | 2017 | 208 pages | EPUB | 2 MB
The Womanist Preacher: Proclaiming Womanist Rhetoric from the Pulpit performs a close textual analysis of five womanist sermons to answer the question: how does womanist preaching attempt to transform/adapt the tenets of womanist thought to make it rhetorically viable in the church? And what is gained and lost in this? The sermons come from five women who are considered exemplars of womanist preaching: Elaine M. Flake, Gina M. Stewart, Cheryl Kirk-Duggan, Melva L. Sampson, and Claudette A. Copeland. This book takes the first step in womanist scholarship to dissect what is rhetorically going on in womanist preaching, to categorize womanist sermons under the four tenets of womanist preaching, and to then create four rhetorical models that reflect the rhetorical attributes of the four different categories or phrased tenets that Stacey Floyd-Thomas uses to represent Alice Walker’s "womanist" definition.

Free Download Mark D. Ellison, "The Visual Rhetoric of the Married Laity in Late Antiquity: Iconography, the Christianization of Marriage, and Alternati"
English | ISBN: 1032546484 | 2023 | 400 pages | EPUB, PDF | 10 MB + 52 MB
This study examines third- and fourth-century portraits of married Christians and associated images, reading them as visual rhetoric in early Christian conversations about marriage and celibacy, and recovering lay perspectives underrepresented or missing in literary sources.

Free Download The Longman Writer: Rhetoric, Reader, and Research Guide, 10th Edition by Judith Nadell, John Langan
English | January 10th, 2017 | ISBN: 0134407644 | 627 pages | True PDF | 16.16 MB
For one- or two-semester, first-year composition – rhetoric courses.

Free Download Brett Lunceford, "Public Nudity and the Rhetoric of the Body"
English | ISBN: 1498570690 | 2018 | 228 pages | EPUB | 2 MB
Although nudity is something that everyone has experience with, public nudity is still largely considered taboo. Public Nudity and the Rhetoric of the Body examines instances of public nudity where sexuality is at the forefront of public body display. It presents a range of case studies: the legal aspects of sexualized public nudity as it relates to communication theory and the First Amendment; the controversies surrounding the work of photographer Jock Sturges; the public performance art of Milo Moiré; the topless protests of FEMEN; the social media activism of Aliaa Magda Elmahdy; the ritualized flashing during Mardi Gras in New Orleans; and the sexual displays of Folsom Street Fair, the largest leather pride festival. Taken together, these cases teach much about identity, self-determination, and sexuality, and illustrate the complicated rhetorical nature of the human body in the public sphere.

Free Download Michael Donnelly, "Freedom of Speech and the Function of Rhetoric in the United States"
English | ISBN: 1498513557 | 2016 | 120 pages | EPUB | 2 MB
This book is about Freedom of Speech and public discourse in the United States. Freedom of Speech is a major component of the cultural context in which we live, think, work, and write, generally revered as the foundation of true democracy. But the issue has a great deal more to do with social norms rooted in a web of cultural assumptions about the function of rhetoric in social organization generally, and in a democratic society specifically. The dominant, liberal notion of free speech in the United States, assumed to be self-evidently true, is, in fact, a particular historical and cultural formation, rooted in Enlightenment philosophies and dependent on a collection of false narratives about the founding of the country, the role of speech and media in its development, and the relationship between capitalism and democracy. Most importantly, this notion of freedom of speech relies on a warped sense of the function of rhetoric in democratic social organization. By privileging individual expression, at the expense of democratic deliberation, the liberal notion of free speech functions largely to suppress rather than promote meaningful public discussion and debate, and works to sustain unequal relations of power. The presumed democratization of the public sphere, via the Internet, raises more questions than it answers-who has access and who doesn’t, who commands attention and why, and what sorts of effects such expression actually has. We need to think a great deal more carefully about the values subsumed and ignored in an uncritical attachment to a particular version of the public sphere. This book seeks to illuminate the ways in which cultural framing diminishes the complexity of free speech and sublimates a range of value-choices. A more fully democratic society requires a more critical view of freedom of speech.

Free Download Michael Middleton, "Participatory Critical Rhetoric: Theoretical and Methodological Foundations for Studying Rhetoric In Situ"
English | ISBN: 1498513808 | 2015 | 240 pages | EPUB | 2 MB
Increasingly, rhetorical scholars are using fieldwork and other ethnographic, performance, and qualitative methods to access, document, and analyze forms of everyday in situ rhetoric rather than using already documented texts. In this book, the authors argue that participatory critical rhetoric, as an approach to in situ rhetoric, is a theoretically, methodologically, and praxiologically robust approach to critical rhetorical studies. This book addresses how participatory critical rhetoric furthers understanding of the significant role that rhetoric plays in everyday life through expanding the archive of rhetorical practices and texts, emplacing rhetorical critics in direct conversation with rhetors and audiences at the moment of rhetorical invention, and highlighting marginalized voices that might otherwise go unnoticed. This book organizes the theoretical and methodological foundations of participatory critical rhetoric through four vectors that enhance conventional rhetorical approaches: 1) the political commitments of the critic; 2) rhetorical reflexivity and the role of the embodied critic; 3) emplaced rhetoric and the interplay between the field, text, and context; and 4) multiperspectival judgment that is informed by direct participation with rhetors and audiences. In addition to laying the groundwork and advocating for the approach, Participatory Critical Rhetoric also offers significant contributions to rhetorical theory and criticism more broadly by revisiting the field’s understanding of core topics such as role of the critic, text/context, audience, rhetorical effect, and the purpose of criticism. Further, it enhances theoretical conversations about material rhetoric, place/space, affect, intersectional rhetoric, embodiment, and rhetorical reflexivity.