This expansive volume traces the rhetoric of reform across American history, examining such pivotal periods as the American Revolution, slavery, McCarthyism, and today's gay liberation movement. At a time when social movements led by religious leaders, from Louis Farrakhan to Pat Buchanan, are playing a central role in American politics, James Darsey connects this radical tradition with its prophetic roots. Public discourse in the West is derived from the Greek principles of civility, diplomacy, compromise, and negotiation. On this model, radical speech is often taken to be a sympton of social disorder. Not so, contends Darsey, who argues that the rhetoric of reform in America represents the continuation of a tradition separate from the commonly accepted principles of the Greeks. Though the links have gone unrecognized, the American radical tradition stems not from Aristotle, he maintains, but from the prophets of the Hebrew Bible.

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One of few volumes to include multiple traditions in one conversation, Rhetoric and Religion in the Twenty-First Century engages with religious discourses and issues that continue to shape public life in the United States. This collection of essays centralizes the study of religious persuasion and pluralism, considers religion's place in U.S. society, and expands the study of rhetoric and religion in generative ways.

This handbook represents the first comprehensive disciplinary investigation into the relationship between rhetoric and power as it is expressed in different aspects of society. Providing conceptual and empirical foundations for the study of the relationship between different forms of rhetorical expression and diverse structures, practices, habits, and networks of power, The Routledge Handbook of Rhetoric and Power is divided into six parts: Theoretical Foundations Propaganda, Politics, and the State Resistance and Social Movements Culture, Society, and Identity Discourses of Technique and Organization Prospects for the Future The guiding principle of this handbook is that power represents a capacity for coordinated action grounded in specific historical, technological, political, and economic conditions. It suggests that rhetoric is an art that adapts to these conditions and finds ways to transform, create, or undermine these capacities in other people through self-conscious persuasion. Featuring contributions from key scholars, this accessibly written handbook will be an indispensable resource for researchers and students in the fields of rhetoric, writing studies, communication studies, political communication, and social justice.

The Forgotten Prophet: Bishop Henry McNeal Turner and the African American Prophetic Tradition, by Andre E. Johnson, is a study of the prophetic rhetoric of nineteenth century African Methodist Episcopal Church bishop Henry McNeal Turner. By locating Turner within the African American prophetic tradition, Johnson examines how Bishop Turner adopted a prophetic persona. As one of America's earliest black activists and social reformers, Bishop Turner made an indelible mark in American history and left behind an enduring social influence through his speeches, writings, and prophetic addresses. This text offers a definition of prophetic rhetoric and examines the existing genres of prophetic discourse, suggesting that there are other types of prophetic rhetorics, especially within the African American prophetic tradition. In examining these modes of discourses from 1866-1895, this study further examines how Turner's rhetoric shifted over time. It examines how Turner found a voice to article not only his views and positions, but also in the prophetic tradition, the views of people he claimed to represent. The Forgotten Prophet is a significant contribution to the study of Bishop Turner and the African American prophetic tradition.

New Directions in Rhetoric and Religion reflects the complex and fluid natures of religion, rhetoric, and public life in our globalized, digital, and politically polarized world by bringing together a diverse group of rhetorical scholars to provide a comprehensive and forward-looking collection on rhetoric and religion. This volume addresses these topics in three separate sections: 1. Rhetorics of religion at work in public activism, 2. Rhetorics of religion in contemporary public discourse, and 3. Ways that rhetoric scholars study religion. Scholars of rhetoric, religion, and social sciences will find this book particularly interesting.

Reverend Albert Cleage Jr. and the Black Prophetic Tradition: A Reintroduction of The Black Messiah considers how Albert Cleage Jr., in his groundbreaking book of sermons, The Black Messiah (1969), reconfigures the rules of the game as it relates to Christianity and the social political realities of Black people in Detroit and across the country. Taking a rhetorical approach, this book explores how and what The Black Messiah (1969) has contributed to the broader scope of Black Liberation Theology and Black religious rhetoric. Scholars of rhetoric, communication, religious studies, and African American history will find this book particularly useful.

The culture wars have as much to do with rhetorical style as moral substance. Cathleen Kaveny focuses on a powerful stream of religious discourse in American political speech: the Biblical rhetoric of prophetic indictment. It can be strong medicine against threats to the body politic, she shows, but used injudiciously it does more harm than good.

Rhetoric, Scripture and Theology aptly describe the contents of this collection of essays from the 1994 Pretoria Rhetoric Conference. The conference marked a significant dialogue among scholars gathered from many nations to consider how rhetoric engages with the study of scripture and theology. South Africa provided a suitable context for such discussion. Although the contributors are not only from South Africa, the addressing of issues pertinent to a South African context shows through in many of the essays. Those that do not address particularly South African issues raise equally important issues regarding the topic of rhetoric and its relation to contemporary theological discourse.