This edited volume fills a void in the literature concerning the purpose, practice, and pedagogy associated with performing rhetorical criticism. Literature regarding these issues—predominantly purpose—exists primarily as scattered journal articles and as sections within chapters of textbooks on rhetorical criticism. This book brings together 15 established rhetorical critics, each of whom offers well thought out and argued opinion pieces that stress the more personal nature of criticism. The purpose of this book is to serve as a disciplinary resource, and as a teaching and learning aid. Accessibility across areas of expertise and experience is stressed in this book. Critics range from junior faculty to emeritus, and represent a broad spectrum of views on criticism. In this sense the book offers a snapshot of the views of a wide swath of successfully practicing, contemporary rhetorical critics.

Covering a broad range of rhetorical perspectives, Rhetorical Criticism: Perspectives in Action, third edition presents a well-grounded introduction to the basics of rhetorical criticism and theory in an accessible manner for advanced undergraduate courses and introductory graduate courses. Throughout the text, sample essays written by noted experts in the field provide students with models for writing their own criticisms. In addition to covering traditional modes of rhetorical criticism, the book introduces less commonly discussed rhetorical perspectives as well as orientations toward performing criticisms including close-textual analysis, critical approaches, and analysis of visual and digital rhetoric. The third edition includes the following features: New chapters on visual rhetoric and digital rhetoric Potentials and Pitfalls sections analyzing individual perspectives Activities and discussion questions in each chapter Glossary of important terms

Can television shows like Stranger Things, popular music by performers like Taylor Swift, advertisements for products like Samuel Adams beer, and films such as The Hunger Games help us understand rhetorical theory and criticism? The Fourth Edition of The Rhetorical Power of Popular Culture offers students a step-by-step introduction to rhetorical theory and criticism by focusing on the powerful role popular culture plays in persuading us as to what to believe and how to behave. In every chapter, students are introduced to rhetorical theories, presented with current examples from popular culture that relate to the theory, and guided through demonstrations about how to describe, interpret, and evaluate popular culture texts through rhetorical analysis. Authors Deanna Sellnow and Thomas Endres provide sample student essays in every chapter to demonstrate rhetorical criticism in practice. This edition’s easy-to-understand approach and range of popular culture examples help students apply rhetorical theory and criticism to their own lives and assigned work.

Providing a comprehensive survey of the empirical research, theory, and history of public speaking, this handbook fills a crucial gap in public speaking pedagogy resources and provides a foundation for future research and pedagogical development. Bringing together contributions from both up-and-coming and senior scholars in the field, this book offers a thorough examination of public speaking, guided by research across six key themes: the history of public speaking; the foundations of public speaking; issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion; considerations of public speaking across contexts; assessment of public speaking; and the future of public speaking in the twenty-first century. The evidence-based chapters engage with a broad discussion of public speaking through a variety of viewpoints to demonstrate how subtopics are connected and fraught with complexity. Contributors explore public speaking in education, business and professional settings, and political contexts, and outline how skills learned through public speaking are applicable to interpersonal, small group, and business interactions. Reinforcing the relevance, importance, and significance of public speaking in individual, interpersonal, social, and cultural communication contexts, this accessibly written handbook will be an indispensable resource for public speaking instructors and program administrators. It will also be valuable reading for Communication Pedagogy and Introduction to Graduate Studies courses.

Genocide represents one of the deadliest scourges of the human experience. Communication practices provide the key missing ingredient toward preventing and ending this intensely symbolic activity. The Rhetoric of Genocide: Death as a Text reveals how strategic communication silences make this tragedy probable, and how a greater social ethic for communication openness repels and ends this great evil. Careful analysis of practical historical figures, such as the great debater James Farmer Jr., along with empirical policy successes in places such as Liberia provide a communication-based template for ridding the world of genocide in the twenty-first century.

The Viability of the Rhetorical Tradition reconsiders the relationship between rhetorical theory, practice, and pedagogy. Continuing the line of questioning begun in the 1980s, contributors examine the duality of a rhetorical canon in determining if past practice can make us more (or less) able to address contemporary concerns. Also examined is the role of tradition as a limiting or inspiring force, rhetoric as a discipline, rhetoric's contribution to interest in civic education and citizenship, and the possibilities digital media offer to scholars of rhetoric.

This study attempts to analyse the text of Hebrews with a method of discourse analysis primarily based on a form of systemic functional linguistics developed for Hellenistic Greek, but it is also informed by other linguistic studies. It begins with a general survey of the literature that is either influential or representative of approaches to the structure of Hebrews. The survey is followed by an introduction to the terminology and definitions of discourse analysis, as well as the theory behind the methodology, and describes a procedure for analysing text. Hebrews is treated as having three sections. The first section of Hebrews (1:1-4:16) demonstrates the organization of the units, the topic of the units, the prominent text, and the relationship of the first section with the rest of the discourse. The second section of Hebrews (4:11-10:25) is described in two parts (4:11-7:28 and 8:1-10:25) because of its length. There is an overlap between the first and second sections in 4:11-16 and between the second and third sections in 10:19-25. Both of these passages have a concluding function for the preceding co-text and a staging function for the following co-text, so that they look backwards and forwards. The third and final section in 10:19-13:25 contains the climax or discourse peak. The study is concluded with a description of the coherence of the discourse and a presentation of a mental representation of the text. JSNTS and Studies in New Testament Greek subseries

What distinguishes the study of rhetoric from other pursuits in the liberal arts? From what realms of human existence and expression, of human history, does such study draw its defining character? What, in the end, should be the purposes of rhetorical inquiry? And amid so many competing accounts of discourse, power, and judgment in the contemporary world, how might scholars achieve these purposes through the attitudes and strategies that animate their work? Rethinking Rhetorical Theory, Criticism, and Pedagogy: The Living Art of Michael C. Leff offers answers to these questions by introducing the central insights of one of the most innovative and prolific rhetoricians of the twentieth century, Michael C. Leff. This volume charts Leff ’s decades-long development as a scholar, revealing both the variety of topics and the approach that marked his oeuvre, as well as his long-standing critique of the disciplinary assumptions of classical, Hellenistic, renaissance, modern, and postmodern rhetoric. Rethinking Rhetorical Theory, Criticism, and Pedagogy includes a synoptic introduction to the evolution of Leff ’s thought from his time as a graduate student in the late 1960s to his death in 2010, as well as specific commentary on twenty-four of his most illuminating essays and lectures.