PRESENTATIONS OF UNICITY: BADIOU'S COUNT-AS-ONE IN THE RHETORICAL SITUATION STUDENT PAPER.

This study posits that Badiou's (2007) count-as-one is a theoretical construct that can advance the clarity with which counting is understood in the rhetorical situation. Cox (1981) introduced the concept of the counting rule as a decision making process of exigence evaluation. I argue that Badiou's (2007) explanation of counting procedures and his identification of the one as a fictive effect reorients the role of counting in the rhetorical situation from a decision making mechanism to a meaning making mechanism. To demonstrate the utility of the count-as-one in rhetorical analysis, this paper discusses F. Max Müller's series Sacred Books of the East (1879) as an example of a situation in which counting procedures organized terminology, provided a structure for a research method, and contributed to imperial interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]