Examines vilification (a rhetorical strategy which discredits adversaries as ungenuine and malevolent advocates) in the rhetoric of pro-life and pro-choice movements in Minnesota between 1973 and 1980. (SR)

Examines several books on the emergence and impact of the New Left which, as a collective resource, may give new direction and impetus to the rhetorical study of movements. Culls recurring themes that might inform the next phase of movement scholarship. Advocates this new scholarship as both due and promising. (SR)

Examines the symbolic oppositions that structure the "Appeal," together with its strategy of crisis taken from Puritan jeremiads. Accounts for Chase's success in pulling together disparate forces of the free North. Explores events which laid the ground for the Republican party and civil war. (RAE)

Exhibits the strength and flexibility of science as a rhetorical enterprise via a rhetorical analysis of cold fusion which reveals science under considerable stress. Assumes the continuing viability of classical rhetoric as an explanation for the persuasiveness of texts, while acknowledging the need to reexamine its central concepts. (SR)

Claims that Adlai Stevenson adapted the tenets of contemporary civic republicanism as a pragmatic to the response to the obstacles that confronted him in his 1952 presidential campaign. Analyzes his campaign rhetoric to reveal the strengths and limitations of republicanism as a political argument. Explores the complex relationship between…

Contributes to scholarship on rhetorical theory and political judgment theory by examining how the rhetoric of Reconstruction congressional actors expressed divergent modes of political judgment regarding the civil rights of African Americans. Contends that proponents and opponents enacted adverse norms of discursive practice and competing…

Contributes to scholarship on rhetorical criticism and the civil rights movement by interrogating the memory of the 1963 March on Washington. Analyzes remarks delivered by John Lewis. Compares Lewis's prepared speech with the speech he delivered. Reveals a synecdochic struggle over the rhetoric of the civil rights movement and what was sayable in…

Examines the rhetoric of "popular" atheists in the U.S. and argues that their rhetoric possesses distinctive features that are the natural results of existential failure. (MH)

Examines how a semi-literate Black man named George Baker established one of the more prosperous and influential social movements of the century and how he persuaded thousands that he was God come-again. (MH)

Examines the ideas in the parochial sermons of Thomas Cradock of Baltimore County, Maryland. Argues that Cradock's pulpit rhetoric expressed what Richard Weaver, a southern scholar, has called the "roots" of southern thinking. Claims that these roots had begun to develop even earlier than Weaver traces them and from a denominational…

Analyzes parables--teaching stories--to explore the significance of these rhetorical devices as forms of discourse and as acts of relational communication. (PD)

Analyzes promotional brochures distributed by chautauqua circuits between 1904-1932. Illustrates how chautauqua programs reflected the social-intellectual themes of their time. Provides an understanding of how publicity agents viewed their audiences and modified rhetoric to meet the changing marketplace. (PD)

Shows how Muir's writing succeeded in transforming his readers' imaginative experience of scenic grandeur into an obligation to support preservationist legislation. Demonstrates how he influenced the establishment of Yosemite National Park and the preservation of wilderness reserves. (PD)

Considers the problem of insuring that students acquire thoughtfulness, knowledge, and wisdom, as well as the skills and techniques of eloquent expression, in interpersonal and public communication. Examines historical roots of this problem in classical rhetorical theory; contemporary problems of the discipline; and needed areas of research and…

Clarifies the nature of rhetorical fictions by contrasting them with poetic and dialectical fictions and demonstrates the ways in which the office and role of the Presidency are rhetorical. Proposes an expanded notion of rhetorical fictions that encompasses the Presidency. (JMF)