The Age of Information has spawned a critical focus on human communication in a multimedia world, particularly on theories and practices of writing. With the worldwide web impacting increasingly on academic and business communication, the need has never been greater for advanced study in writing, communication, and critical thinking across all genres, sectors, and cultures. In recent decades, the definitions of 'new rhetoric' have expanded to encompass a variety of theories and movements, raising the question of how rhetoric is understood and employed in the twenty-first century. The essays collected here represent variations on these themes, with each attempting to answer the title?s deliberately provocative question, addressing particularly: -How the classical art of rhetoric is still relevant today; -How it is directly related to modern technologies and the new modes of communication they have generated; -How rhetorical practice is informing research methodologies and teaching and learning practices in the contemporary academy.

Since the rise of the "New Homiletic" a generation ago, it has been recognized that sermons not only say something to listeners, they also do something. A truly expository sermon will seek not merely to say what the biblical text said, but also to do what the biblical text did in the lives of its original audience. In Preaching the New Testament as Rhetoric, MacBride looks how at the discipline of rhetorical criticism can help preachers discern the function of a New Testament text in its original setting as a means of crafting a sermon that can function similarly in contemporary contexts. Focusing on the letters of Paul, he shows how understanding them in light of Greco-Roman speech conventions can suggest ways by which preachers can communicate not just the content of the letters, but also their function. In this way, the power of the text itself can be harnessed, leading to sermons that inform and, most importantly, transform.

First Published in 1996. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Rhetoric at the Non-Substantialistic Turn: The East-West Coin presents a unique theory of rhetoric that encompasses both Eastern and Western approaches. Based on the Field-Being philosophy founded by Lik Kuen Tong, this theory gives an account of the ontological foundations of both kinds of rhetoric. Beginning with an exposition of the nature of Field-Being rhetoric as Eastern and Western, this book presents chapters on Eastern and Western rhetoric over history as power, ethics, art, creativity, politics, and communication. It acknowledges the thinking of many philosophers and rhetoricians who have contributed to East-West comparative studies in both fields and argues that both understandings of rhetoric are necessary for global communication.

The authors of the original articles included in this book are profound thinkers in the field of rhetoric and philosophy in Europe. The articles constitute a groundbreaking critical analysis of rhetorical discourse in Europe from ancient to modern times. The topics the learned writers cover engage readers in worthy and lively conversations on European rhetoric, history, and philosophy. The writings offer practical benefits and enlightening revelations on the role of language, symbols, media, and communication in contemporary and historical Europe. The authors and their insightful accounts provide a basis for transforming the mind interested in European discourse from rhetorical naivete to sophistication and from rhetorical innocence to experience. These challenging narratives will cause readers to think of European rhetoric holistically rather than simplistically.

This book offers a new unified approach to rhetoric, a means of persuading or influencing interlocutors. All the principal authors from Plato and Aristotle to contemporary theorists are integrated into Michel Meyer's 'problematological' conception of rhetoric, based on the primacy of questioning and answering in language and thought.

By tracing the traditional progression of rhetoric from the Greek Sophists to contemporary theorists, The History and Theory of Rhetoric illustrates how persuasive public discourse performs essential social functions and shapes our daily worlds. Students gain a conceptual framework for evaluating and practicing persuasive writing and speaking in a wide range of settings and in both written and visual media. This new 6th edition includes greater attention to non-Western studies, as well as contemporary developments such as the rhetoric of science, feminist rhetoric, the rhetoric of display, and comparative rhetoric. Known for its clear writing style and contemporary examples throughout, The History and Theory of Rhetoric emphasizes the relevance of rhetoric to today’s students.

Concerned with both the nature and the practice of discourse, the eighteen essays collected here treat rhetoric as a dynamic enterprise of inquiry, exploration, and application, and in doing so reflect James L. Kinneavy’s firm belief in the vital relationship between theory and practice, his commitment to a spirit of accommodation and assimilation that promotes the development of ever more powerful theories and ever more useful practices. A thorough introduction provides the reader with clear summaries of the essays by leading-edge theorists, researchers, and teachers of writing and rhetoric. A "field context" for the ideas presented in this book is provided through the division of the various chapters into four major sections that focus on classical rhetoric and rhetorical theory in historical contexts; on dimensions of discourse theory, aspects of discourse communities, and the sorts of knowledge people access and use in producing written texts; on writing in school-related contexts; and on several dimensions of nonacademic writing. A fifth section contains a bibliographic survey and an appreciation of James Kinneavy’s work. The exceptional range of these essays makes A Rhetoric of Doing an ecumenical examination of the current state of mind in rhetoric and written communication, a survey and description of what discourse and those in the field of discourse are, in fact, doing.

In an age of diversity and pluralism, asks Hiedlebaugh (communication studies, Oswego State U. of New York), how can people talk productively about those issues that most divide them. Two main sub- questions generated by her investigation are how people can reason together to make good decisions when standards for what counts as reasonable vary profoundly, and how can they know how to produce good rhetoric when standards for what counts as good are shifting. c. Book News Inc.

How did Ronald Reagan go from calling the Soviet Union an “evil empire” in his first term as president to saying the US had “forged a satisfying new closeness” with the Soviets by the end of his second term? In Reagan’s Soviet Rhetoric: Telling the Soviet Redemption Story, rhetorical scholar Mark LaVoie examines the ways Reagan negotiated his shift from a vehemently anti-communist discourse to a rhetoric of guarded optimism about the future of US-Soviet relations that ultimately revealed a Soviet redemption narrative. Following Reagan’s Soviet rhetoric from his 1947 testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee to his Farewell Address in 1989, LaVoie considers the President’s use of “Soviet/Nazi analogy,” “historical narrative,” “reciprocity,” and other rhetorical strategies in creating the narrative. Scholars and students of rhetoric, history, and international relations will find this book particularly interesting.