Silence has often been treated as simply a negative phenomenon rather than as a communicative device. Four aspects of silence include: (1) negative silence, which is the experience of silence as having no positive value; (2) primordial silence, the phenomenon out of which utterance arises; (3) silence as a mode of being; and (4) silence as a…

Argumentation is fundamentally exhortative: arguments can be understood as invitations to emulate the lives of those who make the arguments. The human exemplar of an argument's substance, e.g. Jesus Christ as exemplar of Christianity, is the paradigm for this theory in which the arguer's identity is seen both as equal in importance to and…

There are two views of the rhetorical principle of "kairos," or timeliness: first, the deterministic notion of "kairos" as a preordained "right" time in which certain activities are appropriate, and second, the relativistic notion of "kairos" as an exercise "in the nick of time." A satisfactory…

Noting that discussions about the interaction of science and politics are often heard, this paper addresses how these discursive arenas are defined and distinguished. It argues that political and scientific discourse may be distinguished by the roles they assume on the rhetorical stage, and the relevant roles which emerge are implementers and…

A mythic interpretive framework can explain how the use of an uncontested term--a word which "seems to invite a contest, but which apparently is not so regarded in its own context"--is legitimated and perpetuated. By examining John C. Calhoun's nullification rhetoric as a case study of political myth (specifically his "Disquisition…

The rhetorical functions of history depend on the domain in which history is used, with no connotations of interpretive priority attaching to the social or the academic realm. The appropriation of history in support of social causes as radically opposed as socialism and fascism fuels the temptation to subsume history under ideology, with the…

Pointing out that the growing body of literature on the Holocaust has been accompanied by concern about how knowledge of the Holocaust may be conveyed, this paper argues that elucidating links between terminology and policy invites reconsideration of what Holocaust studies should accomplish. Close textual analysis of historical artifacts is used…

Rhetoricians since Plato's day have been concerned with how much knowledge speakers should possess in order to speak effectively as well as ethically. The expert, like anyone, can err, but the chance of factual error decreases when speakers have a thorough grasp of their subject matter. However, the expertise position can potentially become a…

Greater reflexivity concerning the ways of discussing pedagogy could improve the way educators conceptualize their roles. Close attention to metaphors about education sounds a note of caution about the transfer of language from one discursive realm (business) to another (education). The transference of the "total quality management"…

A film presented as factual may permit critical responses that question its purported factual objectivity and political neutrality. In class, Hans-Georg Gadamer's concept of effective-historical consciousness can be used to evaluate the allegedly propagandistic messages in Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will." Analysis of this 1934…