Proposes an alternative interpretation of imperial responsibility, founded upon Edmund Burke's rhetorical denunciation of the East India Company in 1783. Shows how Burke constructed a new understanding of imperial responsibility, in which the need to protect foreign peoples from unscrupulous Britons was stressed instead of any sense of racial…

Expands the literature of discontent with academic scholarship by showing how malaise is grounded metaphorically in the uncritical celebration of "up" and the vilification of "down." Historicizes these metaphors through classical Greek poetry and philosophy to rediscover how flowing back and forth between Apollonian upness and…

Traces development of the campaign history genre by exploring two key exemplars: T. White's "The Making of the President 1960" and R.B. Cramer's "What It Takes: The Way to the White House." Reveals that the books make sense of the election, develop a reciprocal relationship between private man and public figure, and create an authoritarian reading…

Defines personae as the imaginary and fictive being implied by and embedded in a literary or dramatic work and contends that personae are discoverable in every scientific discourse. (MH)

Four defining characteristics of a dialogic approach to communication; shows each to be grounded in Husserlian phenomenology, existential phenomenology, or philosophical anthropology. Suggests that the most pressing challenge for scholars of dialogic communication is to explore views of language developed in the works of Heidegger, Gadamer, and…

Discusses a study designed to determine if audience responses are in line with expectations developed from a rhetorical criticism of campaign messages. (MH)

Examines Cicero's "Defense of Caelius" public address emphasizing his mastery of the art of persuasive speaking through the use of humor and his ability to adapt to the rhetorical situation and the psychological needs of the audience. (MH)

Examines the compositional attributes which characterize Christian sermons as generically distinctive. (MH)

Examines the rhetoric surrounding the racial slur and forced resignation of Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz. Argues that the rhetoric celebrated a social ritual which demonstrated the double standard existing in the United States between public and private morality, thereby preserving American cultural racism. (JMF)

Discusses the effective rhetoric of Dr. King's "Letter" in terms of his use of refutative logic to address two audiences simultaneously, using one to provide a focus through which the other could be addressed. The "Letter" is adapted to both audiences on structural, logical, and stylistic levels. (JMF)

Discusses how proverbs provide insight into the nature of socio-logic as a body of principles to guide practical reasoning. English language proverbs reflect many of the rational principles found in argumentation textbooks, including: 1) a typology of arguments, 2) rules of correct inference, and 3) cautions about potential fallacies. (JMF)

Argues that the phrase "think like a lawyer" confers a technical understanding of legal practices unavailable to ordinary people. Invites critics, in another approach, to examine ways laws are negotiated within rhetorical culture, then transformed into legal edicts. Studies the case of "Separate but Equal" doctrine to offer a…

Explores how argumentation in the eighteenth-century miracles controversy (a century-long debate in Britain over the reasonableness of revealed religion) exhibited a controlling concern for procedural considerations. Discusses how the Deists and the Orthodox apologists used their argumentative force to advance rival methods for evaluating miracle…

Refutes the dominant interpretation of the British Parliamentary debates on slave trade abolition, examining the argumentative strategies employed. Finds that slavers claimed that abolition would destroy the nation's prosperity, while abolitionists depicted the slave trade as irrational and economically inefficient, thus undermining its economic…