Search

Most scholarship on political rhetoric views it as an exercise in changing the minds of an audience. However, we see numerous examples of political speech aimed at those who already agree with the speaker, to motivate them to act on judgments they have already made. This kind of discourse is often dismissed as pandering, or the "red meat" rabble‐rousing that contributes to polarization. I draw upon Frederick Douglass to render a more complete account of this speech, which I term "hortatory rhetoric." Douglass draws upon the prophetic tradition of Black Christian preaching to develop an alternative for when persuasion has reached its limit. This kind of speech raises a set of normative difficulties that differ from those raised by the rhetoric of persuasion, which Douglass helps us to think through. He provides a framework for understanding when it might be permissible or even desirable to abandon persuasion for exhortation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this research is to connect Arabic theoretical linguistics with modern linguistics, not by disregarding the present and attributing the later theories solely to Arab grammarians and rhetoricians, as has often been assumed. Rather, this research aims to qualitatively explore the linguistic accomplishments of ancient Arab scholars from a contemporary perspective and identify commonalities and controversies between past and present perspectives. Specifically, this study focuses on Sibawayh's interpretation of functional linguistics and its final formulation by Jakobson. Additionally, the study aims to analyse and compare the principles of language and grammar advocated by ancient Arab linguists and contemporary linguists to deepen our understanding of language and its role in human society. The results of this study reveal that while Sibawayh concentrated on the analysis of structure and function in Arabic grammar, modern linguists such as Jakobson have broadened their approach to include a wider range of perspectives including sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, and neurolinguistics. Therefore, it is essential to acknowledge the contributions of Sibawayh as his work formed the foundation for language theories in general and linguistics in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay argues for attention in cultural rhetorics scholarship to stories as effective civic pedagogical tools informed by participatory knowledge-making practices. Drawing on a multiyear "mobile cinema democracy project" based on the physical circulation across Africa, Europe, and North America of a successful African democratic story told in the multi-award-winning documentary An African Election, I attend to both the documentary and its larger contextual project, "A Political Safari: An African Adventure in Democracy Building." I demonstrate the ways that the African storytelling traditions of collaboration upon which this project rests offer us cultural rhetoricians key opportunities to reimagine inclusive knowledgemaking practices in using stories as civic pedagogies. My analysis reveals how such knowledge-making practices might orient our work against the grain of hierarchical, exclusionary, colonial practices and toward decolonial approaches that are truly participatory and inclusive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In "Our Story Begins Here" (2014) the CR Theory Lab offers key concepts related to cultural rhetorics such as constellating and relationality. Drawing from decolonial theory and practice, these concepts allow cultural rhetoricians to develop a scholarly practice that is reflective of the cultural community they are a part of and write for and to address the long histories and cultural practices of the land they dwell on. Where the CR Theory Lab is committed to a decolonial practice invested in the theories and lived experiences of the tribal nations people of Turtle Island, they also offer that it isn't the only approach to cultural rhetorics. I argue that both scenarios reflect a larger political and cultural issue regarding how the occupied territories of Turtle Island (also known as the United States) don't know what to do with tribal nations people, our fight for sovereignty, or our ongoing effort for cultural continuance. In other words, I will make an argument that maps how our discipline's approach to decolonial theory, cultural rhetorics, and Indigenous rhetorics reflects the ongoing efforts of survivance and resurgence of Indigenous people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

James 2:18-26 has long been a troublesome passage for interpreters. Since James Hardy Ropes wrote his commentary in 1916, the majority of scholars have regarded it as an example of diatribe. Since, however, the interlocutor seems to agree with James, exegetes have had to propose a variety of interpretive maneuvers to make sense of the passage, each of which creates its own problems. I propose that we recon-sider how the verses function within the broader context. If we lay aside Ropes's view that this is an example of diatribe and regard it instead as a challenge to honor, the entire passage makes sense and flows neatly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of REMAH Journal is the property of Research & Development of Human Recourses Center (REMAH) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Representations of exorcism in farces written and performed in the sixteenth-century Low Countries at first sight merely testify to their authors' propensity for the grotesque and critical stance towards Roman Catholic rituals. This paper argues that these farcical exorcism episodes, besides ridiculing exorcism and expressing scepticism in matters of demonology, also undermined beliefs concerning the potency of language. Analysis of the ritual as represented in farce and the metadiscursive comments surrounding it points to a conception of the ceremony as "administering" inherently powerful words to an object. This conception is also reflected in a contemporaneous "speech act theory" avant la lettre which attributes autonomous powers to words. Viewed against a backdrop of historical and ethnographic documentation on this type of discourse, this notion is likely to be an outgrowth of perceptions underlying ritual discourse activities cross-culturally. Discrediting the belief that words are capable of affecting reality autonomously, the playwrights may have advocated an understanding of language as a fully man-made instrument, the use and efficacy of which are entirely human-controlled processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Anbar University for Languages & Literature / Magallat Gami'at Al-Anbar Li-Lugat Wa-al-Adabl is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Because many Americans' encounters with homelessness are limited to what they see in entertainment and news media, this study examines how those representations have changed over time through an analysis of 35 years of films about homelessness. Analyzing the ways that homelessness appears in film advances our understanding of the role of the public screen in contemporary political life. We argue here that rhetoricians would benefit from considering the public screen a contextual field and expanding what this field includes. Additionally, we identify two key dimensions of the likely contextual fields audiences may draw on in subsequent public deliberation about homelessness—visibility and agency—and offer an approach to the rhetorical analysis of film that can illuminate such fields for a wide array of social and political issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the use of antithesis and paradox in the Epistle to Diognetus. The text employs these rhetorico-philosophical techniques in order to provoke interest in readers, whether pagan or Christian, and lure them toward deeper inquiry and understanding of the truths the author thinks Christianity teaches. That is, the anticipated effects of antithesis and paradox as classical rhetorical tools, as described by ancient rhetoricians and philosophers, promotes the overall protreptic goal of the text. The antitheses capture the audience's attention, while the pervasive use of paradoxical language and reasoning guides it toward deeper inquiry about Christianity. Not only are Christian existence and God's plan of salvation paradoxical, but the author's very understanding of how to comprehend these paradoxes contradicts the expectations created by classical philosophical notions of paradox. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay elaborates a trio of object lessons that aim to complicate, reorient, and upend how rhetoricians encounter the rhetorical work of objects. The object lessons follow the history and politics of a set of archeological objects taken from the site now known as Machu Picchu in the early twentieth century and returned to Peru after much debate in the early 21st century. Over one hundred years, their nature, purpose, and proper location became subjects of intense debate and, eventually, the debate itself became fused to the objects: they became either national treasures or scientific objects; either evidence of heritage or specimens for research. Tracking that history and the multitude of worlds that emerge from it, this article demonstrates that rhetoricians need to account for the "things" that colonialism has produced and the ways those things act in public life to overdetermine settler colonial perspectives. It draws attention to the worlds precluded by a debate premised on Peruvian national identity and U.S. scientific imperialism as twin poles, and it turns, instead, to Andean theories of the pluriverse and broader Indigenous relational theories to illustrate how rhetoric's ontological turn has, often, also been a colonial return. Working against that turn, this article aims to unsettle rhetorical studies' objects, places, and theories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Sophist, with its ostensible goal of locating and defining the sophist, is among the Platonic dialogues often read by rhetoricians. Plato's Timaeus, less so. This has been an oversight because the Timaeus provides a metaphysical explanation for Plato's anxieties about sophistry and rhetoric. When read together, the Sophist and Timaeus warn of the dangers of sophistry, though they do so in contrasting ways. The Sophist directs us to the external world while the Timaeus directs us inward toward an eternal, unchanging reality. We learn from the Timaeus that sophistry causes both corporeal and metaphysical wandering, a type of motion which runs counter to that of the natural order of the universe and which Plato associates with opportunism and instability. He contrasts wandering with the circular motion associated with philosophical steadfastness. Reading these dialogues in tandem reveals a set of overlapping dichotomies which connect the Timaeus to other dialogues in which Plato addresses sophistry and rhetoric. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accounts of the rhetorical tradition in early modern England often focus on the Royal Society of London and the scientific epistemologies and visual pedagogies surrounding technologies like the microscope. One critic of the Royal Society, Margaret Cavendish, theorized her own optics to counter the increasing exclusivity of the scientific community. An analysis of this woman's optics reveals how the rhetorical concept of mimesis brought a theory of embodied, material sight to a historical moment in which objectivity was emerging. This critically imaginative analysis thus brings forth an early rhetorics of science in which alternative epistemologies may critique mechanical, experimental processes and argue for more inclusive scientific methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the nuanced way that the Jesuits connect imitation with inspiration in the rhetorical arts. Highlighting the Ignatian pedagogical tradition of individual discernment, eloquentia perfecta, and "contemplatives in action," this article shows how Ignatian imitation patiently permits time and space for rhetors to be actively inspired by their models. As such, Ignatian imitation practices may offer a more effective imitation approach than those offered by ancient rhetoricians that preceded (and influenced) the Jesuits. Informed by a humanistic understanding of tradition, this article celebrates how the Jesuit approach to imitation can accommodate both religious and secular thinking and inclusively empower individual rhetors still to this day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores competing narratives of the Detroit community after a deadly labor protest against the Ford Motor Company in 1932. Both mainstream and radical newspapers negotiated the meaning of violence through rhetorics of place. Mainstream papers defined protestors as a mob unduly influenced by Communist outsiders, which set up redemption for the police as Detroit's protectors. Radical journalists re-mapped Detroit to emphasize genuine working-class radicalism and set Henry Ford at the center of a transnational conspiracy. Considering place in the newspaper coverage allows rhetoricians to explore intersections of identity and materiality in labor rhetoric and understand the clashing rhetorical forces of worker solidarity and anti-communism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this essay, I examine the growing archive of white supremacist terrorist manifestos to identify how political extremists share a performative ethics inciting them to make manifest the "truths" of their selves through violent word and deed. In doing so, this essay challenges the basis on which rhetorical scholars have interpreted the historical use of parrhēsia (or frank and fearless speech) in political movements that aspire to violent intervention. By tracing how extremist manifestos enact what Michel Foucault called an "alethurgy" (the procedures of disclosing the truth of the self), I demonstrate how far-right terrorists strive to perform parrhēsiastic truth-telling to constitute their own subjectivities within restrictive political imaginaries like white supremacy. Elaborating these dimensions compels rhetoricians to reckon with the political impetus for telling truth to power in and through violence, including the ethical imperatives that become formalized in narratives of resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay entails unique challenges facing the non-US natives who find themselves in the aisle of rhetorical studies. My story aims to speak what has seemed to be un-verbalizable. Telling the story is to address questions raised by Rhetoric, Politics & Culture for its forum that seeks to find ways to dismantle hegemonic intellectual practices. Unpacking English hegemony partially yet fundamentally responsible for whiteness in rhetorical studies, I attempt to unearth the double-consciousness of a non-native English interlocutor engaging in rhetorical scholarship in the US academia dominated by English-speaking natives who more often than not embody the Western thoughts, which are capitalized on a global scale due to the accessibility in English. I propose that it is through critically looking into the double-consciousness, a consequence of the environment in which a non-native English interlocutor has to be able to speak in terms of the dominated, that leads us to possibilities of decolonizing the rhetorical studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Humanities & Social Sciences (2522-3380) is the property of Arab Journal of Sciences & Research Publishing (AJSRP) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This essay investigates why the Testament Rhetoricael (Bruges, 1562), a large collection of poems and songs by Eduard de Dene, a prominent sixteenth-century rhetorician (rederijker) from the city of Bruges, has been preserved in manuscript instead of print. By discussing the links made by the poet between his text and the biblical image of the Book of Life, it is argued that for an early modern author like De Dene, the act of writing and its material result, the manuscript, could be a more than purely functional tool. By means of the Testament Rhetoricael the essay shows that the associations called up by the act of writing and the handwritten text could constitute an important motive for the use of the manuscript medium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the ancient theoretical discussions and critical analyses of rhythm in Attic prose in order to reconstruct its native perception as a psychoacoustic and cognitive phenomenon. In particular, the article examines the inventories of rhythmic feet identified by the ancient Greek rhetoricians and concludes that the earliest reconstructible one is most likely to include the minimal durational patterns perceivable as rhythmical units by ancient native speakers. Much in the perception of such rhythms depended on vocalization and delivery, and purely metrical approaches to prose rhythm in Attic prose are inadequate to capturing this phenomenon to the full. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Res Historica is the property of Maria Curie-Sklodowska University in Lublin and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In his satirical encomium, De parasito, Lucian of Samosata makes ample use of the rhetorical tricks that were performed by philosophers to convince their audience of the supremacy of their own philosophical τέχνη over that of others. He explicitly engages with Epicureanism, with which his παρασιτικὴ τέχνη shares its τέλος. The present article tries to demonstrate how in Par. 14–15, Lucian subtly uses, decontextualizes, and transforms different aspects of Epicurean doctrine that concern the relation between pleasure and its causes, in order to endow his absurd παρασιτικὴ τέχνη with a surprisingly successful semblance of legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although critical rhetoric scholarship foregrounds voices of oppressed communities and challenges systemic power imbalances, its doxastic and performative potential to affect social justice has lagged behind its conceptual (and, more recently, methodological and empirical) development. One reason is because that scholarship has privileged rhetoricians performing criticism as the end goal rather than using their criticism to conduct activism scholarship by engaging in and studying critically social justice interventions. This essay articulates a social justice activism approach to critical rhetoric scholarship that involves rhetoricians intervening collaboratively with oppressed communities and activist groups to make unjust discourses more just, and studying and reporting those endeavors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are several points which illustrate Qur’ānic I‘jāz and probably rely on Islamic Theologians -Mutakallimin’s- efforts as well as exertions regarding Qur’ānic I‘jāz. Mutakallimin for having good command over Arabic rhetorical structures have demonstrated Qur’ānic I‘jāz in two contexts: theoretically and empirically. They actually validated, that Qur’ān is the book of Allah Almighty, through comparing both standard Arabic texts: prose and poetry into face of Qur’ānic text. All these cherished efforts of Mutakallimin are rooted in Arabic rhetoric which stands for that Arabic Rhetoric and ‘ilm al-Kalām; both have very primary relation resulting in that cannot be ignored while analyzing I‘jāz phenomenon.

Epideixis is generally understood as ceremonial rhetoric that praises or blames. When examined through the lens of civic celebrations such as the Coronation Durbars in fin de siècle colonial India or the protection of Confederate monuments, epideictic rhetoric instructs the audience to uphold what are purported to be the community's common values. This educational epideixis, however, also exposes veiled anxieties not commonly associated with a seemingly ceremonial speech act. This new understanding of epideictic should encourage rhetoricians to further question rhetors' use of epideixis and interrogate other aims in those speech acts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay analyzes the grammar of military graffiti in Nigeria to uncover the mindless posture with which the military deploys it to assert their power, identity, and temporal orientations in ways that not only subvert and shame a minority group and its belief systems, but also expose the brutal and liminal conditions of the state agents. This analysis extends studies of state graffiti by framing the multifold grammatical components as rhetorical acts of domination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While scholars rightly question exaggerated claims for the democratizing potential of digital archives, this essay argues they facilitate civic participation that rhetoricians should encourage further via our pedagogies of public memory. I advance this argument through analysis of four LGBTQ sites: the ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives, ACT UP New York Records, Arizona Queer Archives, and Digital Transgender Archive. Engagement with these sites is fruitful for exploring archival participation with respect to preserving the past and advancing claims about LGBTQ lives in the present and future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Case studies have been a central methodology employed by scholars working in the rhetoric of science and technical communication. However, concerns have been raised about how cases are constructed and collected, and what they convey. The authors reflect on how rhetoricians of science and technical communication researchers can – and do – construct a variety of case-based mixed-methods studies in ways that may make our research more portable and durable without undercutting the important and central role of case-based analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article the authors envision a more durable and portable model of scholarship on public engagement with science through partnerships between rhetoricians of science and quantitative social scientists. The authors consider a number of barriers and limitations that make such partnerships difficult, with an eye toward discovering ways that researchers may overcome them. The authors conclude by articulating guidelines for reciprocal transdisciplinary work as well as specific recommended practices for such collaborations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Francesco Petrarch was a pioneering figure not only in the study of the humanities, but also in the defense of the humanities. A prolific writer and avid reader of the classics, particularly of the historians, rhetoricians, and poets, Petrarch cleared the way for humanistic studies in an age dominated by rigid scholasticism. Not surprisingly, then, Petrarch also had to defend himself against attacks from establishment elites who condemned the new studies as useless distractions from the pursuit of knowledge, by which they meant the study of syllogisms. I argue in this essay that Petrarch's invectives against his detractors offer a unique and communicative defense of the humanities that does not rely on the traditional recourse to civic humanism, a tradition that arose only subsequent to Petrarch. In his understanding of humanism, the value of humanistic studies is found in their capacity to produce a combination of humility and love—humility by expanding the circumference of our experience and exposing the limitations of our knowledge, and love by the capacity to create unity out of division. Furthermore, Petrarch defines the enduring opponent of the humanities as the scholastic ignoramus, a character that endures today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that further investigation into a rhetor's subjectivity is needed when discussing comparative rhetoric methodology. While comparative rhetoricians have considered various methodological approaches within their scholarship there has been a limited attempt to acknowledge one's material surroundings during the comparing process. This manuscript touches upon recent methodologies within comparative rhetoric and examines their approaches, arguing that these methods should be reconsidered with a distributed subject in mind, one that is embedded within his or her ecological landscape. In revisiting the language that has defined our act of comparing we can reclaim the rhetor as a subject entangled within a dynamic rhetorical context, where human and non-human elements contribute to rhetorical invention. This paper looks to revisit comparative rhetoric scholarship and disrupt its human-centered methodologies by examining the work of posthuman scholars, raising a series of questions for comparative rhetoricians to consider when conceptualizing their approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nucleic acid DNA, which contains an organism's genetic information, consists of a four-letter alphabet that has until recently been characterized as a read-only text. The development of a quick, inexpensive DNA targeting and manipulation technique called CRISPR, pronounced "crisper," though, has changed DNA from this arhetorical, read-only data set, as it has been characterized in the rhetoric literature to date, to a fully rhetorical text--one that can be not only read but created, interpreted, copied, altered, and stored as well. The Book of Nature, an idea with roots in antiquity but popularized during the nineteenth century, provides proof of concept in the form of an historical and theoretical context in which DNA can be viewed in this light. Once ensconced in the Book of Nature, DNA can no longer be considered a code; rather, it is a text. DNA text has structural components that are similar to those of traditional text, and now, with CRISPR, it also has purposes, audiences, and stakeholders. Given the enormous potential of DNA text for both good and ill, rhetoricians of science and medicine must participate in discussions of the complex literacy, policy, and ethics issues this new form of text brings about. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Growing attention to a rift between epistemology and ontology, between words and things, sets new challenges and invigorations for a Rhetoric of Science that traditionally aims to "analyze and evaluate the persuasive communications of scientists" (Ceccarelli, 2017, para. 6). Rhetoricians confront a vibrant, new intellectual space where scholars across disciplines are seeking to better account for bodies and moving to "include the materiality of our ambient environs" in their analyses (Rickert, 2013, p. x). The question, in light of material expansions, is what is a Rhetoric of Science, and what are its futures? In response to the Rhetoric Society of America's 2018 conference call for junior and senior scholars to discuss "major developments in rhetorical studies," we offer a Feyerabendian innovation-meetsdogma performative session: the junior scholar, representing innovation, argues that Rhetoric of Science must move aggressively beyond a study of texts and scientific language to account for continuous technological, social, and biological entanglements; specifically, that to expand the field's practices to include neuro-cognitive approaches and other forms of experiment. The senior scholar, representing dogma, expresses caution, arguing that the domain of a Rhetoric of Science is still symbols and semiosis; specifically, that looking at "ambient rhetorics" and "entanglements" is another approach, not a foundational shift. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are several points which illustrate Qur’ānic I‘jāz and probably rely on Islamic Theologians -Mutakallimin’s- efforts as well as exertions regarding Qur’ānic I‘jāz. Mutakallimin for having good command over Arabic rhetorical structures have demonstrated Qur’ānic I‘jāz in two contexts: theoretically and empirically. They actually validated, that Qur’ān is the book of Allah Almighty, through comparing both standard Arabic texts: prose and poetry into face of Qur’ānic text. All these cherished efforts of Mutakallimin are rooted in Arabic rhetoric which stands for that Arabic Rhetoric and ‘ilm al-Kalām; both have very primary relation resulting in that cannot be ignored while analyzing I‘jāz phenomenon.

This article argues that rhetoricians of health and medicine can benefit from new methodological orientations that more fully account for conducting digital research within vulnerable online communities. More specifically, this article introduces a feminist digital research methodology, an intersectional methodology that helps rhetoricians of health and medicine contend with the overlapping rhetorical, technological, and ethical frameworks affecting how we understand and collect health information, particularly within vulnerable online communities. The author considers methodological shifts in Internet research ethics, rhetorics of health and medicine, and feminist rhetorics as well as definitions and conceptions of online communities and vulnerability. The author next draws from a 5-year case study of an online childbirth community to demonstrate how a feminist digital research methodology offers an alternative methodological orientation that helps researchers navigate ethical decision-making practices that arise from conducting health research within vulnerable online communities. Finally, the author outlines the broader implications of this methodology by suggesting three ways that scholars can use it within and beyond the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of eHumanista is the property of Professor Antonio Cortijo-Ocana and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The present study aims at exploring the evocative power of metaphor in a number of remarkable American political speeches. The investigation concentrates on the metaphorical framing of political issues in terms of light and darkness. The analysis is carried out on a corpus consisting of the top 100 political speeches in the twentieth century according to a ranking given by American rhetoricians in a national survey (http://www. news.wisc.edu/misc/speeches). Overall, the study shows how the metaphorical uses of the evocative concepts of light and darkness have facilitated the communication of central political ideas, values and beliefs in twentieth century American political rhetoric. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers some ruminations on the place of rhetoric in modern legal education and some reflections on the undergraduate module The Art of Advocacy: Mooting and Forensic Rhetoric which the author devised and taught for the first time in 2016. The ‘art’ of advocacy is one which in practice works best when it is, or appears to be, most natural; just as the most convincing acting tends to be the most naturalistic. The relation of art to nature is a puzzle that has exercised rhetoricians since at least as far back as Cicero. Perhaps one solution lies in an appreciation of the relationship between practice and habit - the ideal being technically expert practice that becomes the advocate’s second nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including Flemish-Dutch literary culture, Dutch rhetoricians, and Dutch literary studies.

Abstract: This essay investigates the extent to which natural philosophical and literary discourses converged in the chambers of rhetoric of early seventeenth‐century Amsterdam. The inquiry is based on a set of three dialogues written by the merchant, diplomat, and rhetorician Theodoor Rodenburgh. Rodenburgh was clearly invested in expanding both his own and his audiences’ knowledge of the stars, as is witnessed by his various writings that incorporate celestial teachings. The dialogues feature experts on the stars that instruct diplomats, servants, noble ladies, and other inquisitive individuals in the workings of the heavens. These passages can be traced to texts published by specialists in spherical cosmology and astrology. The inclusion of cosmological themes was meant to stimulate reflection not only on the constitution of the heavens, but also on the place of the human in Creation. In tracing Rodenburgh's teachings on the heavens, this essay shows that rhetoricians, in addition to their already significant repertoire of philosophical resources, worked unencumbered on and with cosmological knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The first printed grammar of Dutch, which appeared in 1584, was created by members of the Amsterdam chamber of rhetoric De Eglantier. They presented their text as breaking with traditional ways of dealing with Dutch in the chambers by treating the vernacular as an object of study, by proposing rules, and by rejecting words borrowed from other languages. By studying three cases of rhetoricians active before De Eglantier's grammar was printed this essay shows that the Amsterdam chamber, in fact, took part in an already established tradition of studying the vernacular. These three rhetoricians, Eduard de Dene, Matthijs de Castelein, and Jan van Mussem, were interested in the rules, form, and structure of Dutch, and in how it differed from other languages. All three of them accepted, to a certain extent, loanwords, but they also emphasised the importance of using them carefully and critically. De Eglantier could delve into this pre‐existing learned stance on language. De Dene's case shows, moreover, that language study was not just a theoretical enterprise. Through his poetry, he experimented with neologisms and with the ability of Dutch to incorporate elements taken from other languages, thus exploring the frontiers of his mother tongue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: A remarkable characteristic of the Testament Rhetoricael (Rhetorical Testament) (1562) by the Bruges rhetorician Eduard de Dene, one of the most important collections of lyrical texts to have come down to us from the sixteenth‐century Low Countries, is its combination of autobiography, and chorography. The author's persona provides the reader of that time with an unusual amount of information about his occupations, character, social world, and opinions. Most of it is given in the context of an evocation of specific places and spaces in the author's hometown. This essay analyses why, for a mid‐sixteenth century Netherlandish author such as Eduard De Dene, personal recollections seem to have been triggered in particular by specific urban places and spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: One of the reasons for the enduring popularity of rhetoricians’ theatre was the efficacy of the spel van sinne, the Netherlandish version of the morality play, as a means of knowledge acquisition and transmission. This essay demonstrates how the rhetorical process of knowledge creation was literally bodied forth by personifications. These allegorical characters exemplified how knowledge ensued from discursive thought, thus turning man's wits inside out. They expressed the workings of the soul in its widest sense, that is, the functions of thinking, sensing, feeling, and willing. Their names are the starting point of the analysis, but in order to better understand their interactions, the staging conditions and likely performance of a number of plays are taken into account. The form and content of these plays have to be understood against the background of contemporary virtue ethics, as championed by humanists such as Erasmus and Coornhert, and can be compared to contemporary moral print. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Using a few texts produced in Dutch in the late medieval and early modern Low Countries as key witnesses, this essay argues that the performative literary culture of the Dutch rhetoricians was an epistemic culture of a particular kind. Rhetoricians established their literary culture as the core of a culture of consten (i.e. a culture of the liberal arts). Consten‐culture, this essay argues, was a culture of personal virtue, and the primary fruits of exercising the arts were considered as spiritual (i.e. in the human mind); material results (i.e. creating external content or material effects) would be secondary. Material results in the world of practice were believed to follow the sharpening of wits and the shaping of personal cunning (in the early modern sense of the readiness and shrewdness needed in action). Using literary exercises for spiritual effect, the chambers of rhetoric became the institutionalised expression of the first truly philosophical school in the Dutch vernacular, until their pedagogical ideals were undermined fundamentally, and in the course of the seventeenth century, a new knowledge culture took shape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]