Symposium: Interdisciplinary Perspectives On Rhetorical Criticism, 2006

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Symposium: Interdisciplinary
Perspectives on Rhetorical
Criticism
Richard Leo Enos, Karlyn Kohrs Campbell, Andrew
King, Celeste M. Condit, Richard J. Jensen, Sonja K.
Foss, Martin J. Medhurst & David Zarefsky
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R SYMPOSIUM
R
Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Rhetorical

Criticism
Richard Leo Enos

Texas Christian University
Introduction: The Inclusiveness of Rhetorical Criticism
This work is dedicated to Edwin Black in recognition of his contributions to the

study of rhetorical criticism.
Since the early years of the twentieth century, scholars of rhetoric have
made enormous contributions in refining and applying how we understand the
relationship between thought and expression. A tremendous argument would en-
sue if we tried to determine which one of the many contributions was the more
important. Advances made in rhetorical theory, the history of rhetoric, and the
teaching of oral and written expression have all benefited the modern era of rhet-
oric. What can justly be claimed, however, is that one of the most important of
all achievements has been in rhetorical criticism. The majority of advances made
in rhetorical criticism have come from scholars of communication. Their body
of work has done more than refine the understanding and evaluation of spoken
discourse; their insights have revolutionized our sensitivity to the very nature
and range of symbolic expression. For well over a century, work in rhetorical
criticism has helped us to better understand the nature of discourse, assess the
merits of expressed views, and, in a very real sense, situate discourse within its
social contexts. I believe that this last areaunderstanding discourse within its
situational and cultural contextsmay indeed be the single greatest contribution
of rhetorical criticism. Yet the insights offered by researchers of orality have
transcended the province of communication, reaching other manifestations of
expression. Overall, twentieth-century contributions to rhetorical criticism ex-
tend well beyond the field of communication studies to such kindred disciplines
as English, linguistics, and religion.
Rhetoric Review, Vol. 25, No. 4, 35787

Copyright 2006, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. 357
358 Rhetoric Review
This collection of essays represents an effort to draw upon the wisdom of

some of the most distinguished scholars of rhetorical criticism. We have asked
these experts to draw upon the knowledge that they have acquired from their ca-
reer-long studies and to synthesize their observations for readers of Rhetoric Re-
view. We have asked them to write about rhetorical criticism in a way that will
reveal the wisdom that can only be acquired across time and to do so in a man-
ner that will help reach readers eager to learn more about rhetorical criticism.
Writing in such a manner itself requires a special talent, and I am indeed grateful
for the time and effort that it took to produce such essays. What is apparent in
this collection is not only the depth of experience of each of the respective con-
tributors but also the range and diversity of their perspectives. Included in this
symposium are observations about rhetorical criticism that bear on literary stud-
ies, social movements, political rhetoric, womens studies, history, and religion.
We intended to have Edwin Black write the introduction for this sympo-
sium. Professor Black accepted our invitation, but ill health prevented his partic-
ipation in our project. This short introduction is a far cry from what he would
have written. This project is dedicated to him, for Edwin Black hasas many of
the writers in this collection will revealdone more to broaden the view and
scope of rhetorical criticism than any other scholar of our era.
(NB: I thank Sarah Yoder for her careful reading of, and thoughtful sugges-
tions on, this work.)
Karlyn Kohrs Campbell

The University of Minnesota
Cultural Challenges to Rhetorical Criticism
When I was a graduate student, rhetorical criticism was not taught in speech
departments; we studied rhetorical history. I learned close textual analysis in
American literature courses. I began teaching rhetorical criticism in the late
1960s and published Critiques of Contemporary Rhetoric in 1972, which was, I
believe, the first criticism textbook. My notions of what was rhetoric and how it
should be analyzed were expanded by studying the rhetorical theory of
Jean-Paul Sartre and by teaching in schools whose student populations were pre-
dominantly nonwhite in the midst of the civil rights, countercultural, womens,
and antiwar movements.
Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Rhetorical Criticism 359
Because I found the discourse of these movements fascinating and challeng-

ing, I began to think about alternative ways of approaching them, reflected in the
1971 essay on Black rhetoric that appeared in the Central States Journal, in the
essays in Critiques, and in essays on second-wave feminism and on Cady
Stantons Solitude of Self, which appeared in Quarterly Journal of Speech.
From the outset I was searching for critical approaches that were adapted to the
character of the rhetoric and to the time, place, culture, and circumstances of the
rhetors. That is still my goal.

As I write this, I am in Tokyo, where I have been a visiting professor at
Dokkyo University teaching courses in Western rhetorical theory, rhetorical
criticism, political communication, and gender and communication to Japanese
students. There my rhetoric colleagues, Yoshihisa Itaba and Hideki Kakita,
asked me to lecture to the English Department faculty on the topic, What is
Rhetoric, and Why Should We Study It? At the end of December, I attended
a conference at Xiamen University in China that explored the history of com-
munication studies on the mainland, in Hong Kong, and Taiwan, and in re-
search by Chinese scholars elsewhere. There, too, much confusion existed
about rhetorical studies, about its character and value, despite the fine work of
Xing (Lucy) Lu, Lin-Lee Lee, and others. Our challenge is to find ways to
make rhetoricits theory, practice, and criticisma vital part of communica-
tion studies in non-Western cultures.
There are several barriers to that goal. First, the study of public discourse in
the United States has been Western in two senses: theoretically grounded in the
Greco-Roman theory of Aristotle and Cicero, and conceived as having as its pur-
pose the celebration of public discourse by dominant figures, reflecting the ide-
als of US democracy. A narrow understanding of Greco-Roman theory led
scholars to declare that there was no (Western) rhetoric in Japan until it was
opened to the West. Scholars produced rhetorical histories that dismissed or dep-
recated voices of dissent, such as Barnet Baskervilles The Peoples Voice. As a
graduate student in a top program, I read no work by a woman, an African
American, an anarchist, a socialist, or a labor union organizer, and the only abo-
litionist whose works I read was Wendell Phillips. In other words, our past theo-
retical and historical training has been a poor basis for broadening our concep-
tions of rhetoric, rhetorical theory, or criticism.
Second, our training in foreign languages is pitiful, and most programs, in-
cluding my own, have dropped foreign language requirements. Happily, my de-
partment has attracted rhetoric students from Taiwan (Chinese), Japan, and Ko-
rea as well as from the Czech Republic and Bulgaria, and I have worked with
students from Nigeria and Venezuela as well as with an American fluent in
Spanish. The real challenge is to nurture the development of critical approaches
360 Rhetoric Review
suited to the ways that other languages define and categorize, to the value sys-
tems and discursive expectations of other cultures, and to the distinctive circum-
stances in which discourse emerges.
My collaborative efforts as an advisor have convinced me that some ele-
ments of Western rhetorical theory can be usefulall cultures have ways of as-
sessing credibility, for example, but not as the ethos Aristotle described. The
pure persuasion that Kenneth Burke believed existed nowhere seems to have
been enacted by oppressed women in a remote area of China. The rhetoric of

Hugo Chvez is another example of constitutive rhetoric but in ways quite dif-
ferent from that of the Quebeckers and in which television plays a significant
role. Rhetoric addressed to the Shogunate regarding foreign policy appeared in
pre-Meiji Japan, but in forms (as a dream) and using assumptions (wait until the
audience wishes to listen) that make it difficult for Westerners to recognize or
understand it.1 The nuances of language, cultural references, and metaphors ar-
gue in subtle ways that cannot easily be recognized by outsiders, as illustrated
by Korean President Roh-tae-woos inaugural address.2
Accordingly, I propose these principles:
(1) Rhetoric is ubiquitous. Never ask if there is rhetoric; where there

is culture and language, there is rhetoric. The challenge is to dis-
cover its cultural forms and functions.
(2) Rhetoric is indigenous, linked to cultural history, traditions, and

values. We recognize that Aristotle describes a rhetoric of the an-
cient Greek polis; all rhetoric and the theory that underlies it are as
closely linked to time and place and culture as was Aristotles. In
other words, we should be searching for the assumptions that inform
the use of discourse in a particular cultural time and place, not at-
tempting to fit what occurred into theory designed for other rhetors
under other conditions.
(3) The study of rhetoric is the study of language, how language

shapes perception, recognition, interpretation, and response. At the
moment, the languages and discourses of Asia and the Middle East
are becoming increasingly important. We need to foster rhetorical
training among those whose cultural experience enables them to be
critics of bodies of discourse that are closed to most US critics.
Scholarship on feminist theory and criticism offers an analogy. An essay by

Iris Young uses the concept of seriality, developed by Jean-Paul Sartre in the
Critique of Dialectical Reason,3 as a way to think about gender that avoids

essentialism. Young posits that gender, instead of being an identity or an attrib-
ute or a trait, is constituted for women by seriality, that is, by their relationships
to externalsto laws, institutions, norms, and the ways in which categories such
as race and class are constructed and enforced in a culture at a particular time
and place. Young concludes: Woman is a serial collective defined neither by a
common identity nor by a common set of attributes that all the individuals in a
series share, but, rather, it names a set of structural constraints and relations to
pratico-inert objects [the sediment, material and symbolic, of past human action]
that condition action and its meaning.4
The cultural distinctiveness of rhetorical action and related theory that I
have been describing is another instance of seriality.
Notes
1Yoshihisa Sam Itaba. A Rhetorical Analysis of Pre-Meiji Arguments over Japans Foreign
Policies. Diss. U of Minnesota, 1995.
2Sangchul Lee, and Karlyn Kohrs Campbell. Korean President Roh Tae-woos 1988 Inaugural
Address: Campaigning for Investiture. Quarterly Journal of Speech 80 (Feb. 1994): 3752.
3Jean-Paul Sartre. Critique of Dialectical Reason: I. Theory of Practical Ensembles. Trans.
Alan Sheridan-Smith. Ed. Jonathan Re (London: NLB, 1976). 25669.

4Iris Marion Young. Gender as Seriality: Thinking about Women as a Social Collective.
Signs 19 (Spring 1994): 71338; cited material on 737. I thank Zornitsa Keremidchieva for calling
this essay to my attention.
Richard Leo Enos

Texas Christian University
Classical Rhetoric and Rhetorical Criticism
In 1876 Richard Claverhouse Jebb ushered in the first major English-lan-

guage critique of classical rhetoric with his Attic Orators from Antiphon to
Isaeos. Jebbs intent was to provide a comprehensive account of the master-
pieces of oratory in ancient Greece. In his monumental work, Jebb provided
readers with historical background, a survey of the theoretical tenets of rhetoric,
and a cogent accounting of great oratory based on the classical tenets of rhetoric.
Jebbs nascent efforts were based on his presumption that the criticism of classi-
cal oratory should be drawn from the tenets of classical rhetoric. That is, classi-
362 Rhetoric Review
cal rhetoric would be evaluated by its own canons: invention, arrangement, style,
memory, and delivery.
So dominant were the methods of classical rhetorical criticism for evaluat-
ing oratory that they evolved into Neo-Aristotelian criticism, a method of criti-
cism that stressed speaker, speech, audience, and occasion as heuristics of analy-
sis. As mentioned above, emphasis within this traditional method centered on an
analysis of the oration, which was based upon the principles derived from its
own canons. For much of the twentieth century, the methods of Neo-Aristotelian
criticism prescriptively directed not only our evaluation of classical rhetoric but
also virtually all manifestations of public address, as evinced by Lester
Thonssen, A. Craig Baird, and Waldo W. Bradens Speech Criticism. More im-
portantly, the taxonomy of Neo-Aristotelian criticism even dictated what
counted as rhetoric, namely nonmimetic, civic discourse that was agonistically
performed before immediate audiences (for example, Howell 3132). By de-
fault, all other types of expression of thoughts and feelings that fell outside these
Neo-Aristotelian confines were also considered to be outside the province of
rhetoric itself.
Despite the narrow parameters of rhetoric that Neo-Aristotelian criticism es-
tablished, there is an obvious reason why this method of rhetorical criticism per-
sisted: Neo-Aristotelian criticism provided excellent heuristics for the evaluation
of civic discourse. It is difficult to read the three-volume collection edited by
William Norwood Brigance and Marie Hochmuth (Nichols), The History and
Criticism of American Public Address, and not admire the meticulous scholar-
ship of that work. Many, in fact, would argue that Marie Hochmuth Nichols
brilliant essay Lincolns Inaugural Address ranks among the greatest examples
of rhetorical criticism that our field has produced in the twentieth century. Those
volumes, and Nicholss essay in particular, show Neo-Aristotelian criticism at its
finest, and more than justify the classical approach as a powerful method of
rhetorical criticism.
Yet Neo-Aristotelian criticism designed for public, agonistic, civic discourse
did not transfer well to the analysis of other modes of rhetoric. As other types of
rhetorical discourse came into scholarly study, the need for other methods of
criticism expanded dramatically. Twentieth-century rhetorical critics such as
Edwin Black began to question the presumptions of Neo-Aristotelian criticism,
asking: Are the tenets of Neo-Aristotelian criticism the most appropriate method
to evaluate rhetorical discourse? Since the publication of Blacks Rhetorical
Criticism: A Study in Method (1965), alternative methods of rhetorical criticism
were applied to every facet of contemporary communicationoral and written.
Despite these dynamic changes in rhetorical criticism during the latter de-
cades of the twentieth century, the long-held belief that classical works should
be criticized by classical heuristics persisted. (That is, civic discourse should be

analyzed by the principles of Aristotelian rhetoric, since Aristotles Rhetoric was
based on observations about civic discourse.) In a similar respect, the merits of
Ciceronian oratory presumably should be adjudicated by the tenets of
Ciceronian rhetoric because his rhetoric was a reflection of his belief in the hu-
manistic underpinnings of civic discourse. Thus classical rhetoric became the
last bastion for the classical method of rhetorical criticism. Yet even the domain
of classical rhetoric expanded beyond the traditional civic and agonistic mode of
oral argument to include many other manifestations of rhetoric in antiquity.
Today, we can reflect on classical rhetoric in much the same respect as Black did
for modern discourse and ask if new methods of rhetorical criticism are more ap-
propriate for the evaluation of classical rhetoric than those that were developed
in antiquity and promoted by scholars such as Jebb.
Recent developments in rhetorical criticism have challenged the presump-
tion that classical discourse is best analyzed by its own theoretical tenets. In fact,
the advances in rhetorical criticism in the last half century have enabled us to
view classical rhetoric anew. Perhaps the most stunning achievements have been
in the area of orality and literacy. Due to such scholars as Walter Ong (for exam-
ple, Orality and Literacy, 1982) and Eric Havelock (for example, The Muse
Learns to Write, 1986), we now have invaluable insights into the composing pro-
cesses of oral and written communication. Through such scholars we see the
works of Homer, Hellenic rhapsodes, and sophists such as Gorgias of Leontini
from an entirely new perspective, one that is grounded on the formulaic tech-
niques of nonliterate, preliterate, and literate practices of expression.
As the province of historical rhetoric dilated to include other types of ex-
pression, so did new methods emerge to evaluate discourse. For example, femi-
nist rhetorical criticism has demonstrated that womens rhetorical practices need
notand should notbe adjudicated by the classical standards of rhetorical
criticism. The work of such feminist scholars as Karlyn Kohrs Campbell and
Cheryl Glenn has shown that female practices of expression operate from rhetor-
ical systems previously unaccounted for in classical rhetorical theory. We also
can look at classical rhetorical practices anew, thanks to the emergence of other
methods of rhetorical criticism. For example, the work in narrative rhetorical
criticism by scholars such as Walter Fisher helps us to reevaluate other genres of
expression for their rhetorical vectors. Similarly, the principles of social-move-
ment criticism developed by researchers such as Charles J. Stewart, Craig Allen
Smith, and Robert E. Denton, Jr. are invaluable in viewing sophistic rhetoric as a
social movement that dominated both the Greek world and the Roman Empire.
New developments in rhetorical criticism help us to look at classical rheto-
ric in many different ways. We should not forget, however, that many of the
364 Rhetoric Review
extant rhetorical texts that we do have are compatible with the principles of
classical rhetorical theory, and those methods should not be deemphasized or
diminished. Yet, even here, work in rhetoric in the last fifty years has refined
the approaches to argumentation that dominated Aristotelian rhetoric. Cham
Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tytecas The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argu-
mentation has extended the principles of Aristotelian rhetoric, offering much
more sensitive and sophisticated heuristics for evaluating argumentation than
classical systems provide. Fittingly, we find that these new advancements do

not rise to use by defeating other approaches to rhetorical criticism. Rather,
the diversity of approaches in rhetorical criticism illustrates the expansiveness
of rhetoric. That is, we see now that rhetoric operates in a variety of dimen-
sions and ways that were unforeseen by the traditional methods of classical
rhetorical criticism.
The achievements of rhetorical criticism have shown not only a spectrum of
rhetoric ripe for evaluation but a diversity of methods for analysis. The field of
rhetoric is much wider and deeper now than the male-dominated agonistic civic
discourse of Athens that Aristotle so brilliantly accounted for in his work. While
foundational methods of rhetorical criticism should not be forgotten or ignored,
they must now stand shoulder to shoulder with new approaches to rhetorical crit-
icism. Being equipped with an array of critical tools not only helps us to exam-
ine classical rhetoric anew; these tools also broaden and deepen our appreciation
for manifestations of rhetoric that were left unexamined because they fell out-
side the traditional domain of criticism.
Works Consulted
Black, Edwin. Rhetorical Criticism: A Study in Method. New York: Macmillan, 1965.
Brigance, William Norwood, and Marie Hochmuth (Nichols), eds. A History and Criticism of Ameri-
can Public Address. Three volumes. New York: Russell & Russell, 1943, 1954, rpt. 1960.
Havelock, Eric A. The Muse Learns to Write: Reflections on Orality and Literacy from Antiquity to
the Present. New Haven and London: Yale UP, 1986.
Howell, Wilbur Samuel. Poetics, Rhetoric, and Logic: Studies in the Basic Disciplines of Criticism.
Ithaca and London: Cornell UP, 1975.
Jebb, R. C. The Attic Orators from Antiphon to Isaeos. Two volumes. New York: Russell & Russell,
1876, rpt. 1962.
Nichols, Marie Hochmuth. Lincolns First Inaugural. Landmark Essays on Rhetorical Criticism.
Ed. Thomas W. Benson. Davis, CA: Hermagoras P, 1993.
Ong, Walter J. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. London and New York:
Methuen, 1982.
Perelman, Cham, and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca. The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation.
Trans. John Wilkinson and Purcell Weaver. Notre Dame and London: U of Notre Dame P, 1969.
Stewart, Charles J., Craig Allen Smith, and Robert E. Denton, Jr. Persuasion and Social Movements.
4th ed. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland, 2001.
Thonssen, Lester, A. Craig Baird, and Waldo W. Braden. Speech Criticism. 2nd ed. New York: Ron-
ald, 1970.
Andrew King
Louisiana State University
The State of Rhetorical Criticism
As Michael Hogan has often pointed out, the revival of rhetoric in the early
twentieth century was linked to the building of a civic infrastructure. Crusading
newspapers, adult education, farm extension, public debate, and academic de-
partments flowered during the Progressive Era. Fearful that the nation was com-
ing loose from them, that immigrants would not be assimilated, that bossism and
machine politics would erode democratic culture, Progressive leaders empha-
sized an ambitious program of citizen education at all educational levels.
Thus early professors of rhetoric, such as Everett Lee Hunt at Cornell and
Hoyt Hudson at Princeton, called for the kind of broad and socially responsible
criticism that Victorians had found in Matthew Arnold. Hunt in particular held
the Arnoldian belief that debate was a form of institutionalized critique and that
his academic department should serve as a clearing house for the examination
and critique of public questions. However, academicians Hunt and Hudson knew
that academic criticism must be different from the witty phrase-making of the
public intellectual; it must be disciplined by a rigorous and powerful method.
They found their first magisterial method when Wichelns wrote The Literary
Criticism of Oratory in 1925. In the decades after the appearance of that article,
rhetorical criticism became a central pillar of writing and research.
Similarly, with the expansion of graduate programs, criticism also assumed
a key role in the social sciences and the humanities. Bursting onto the scene like
a nova, New Criticism provided mid-century scholars in English departments
with a method that appeared rigorous, scientific, and professionally respectable.
Internationally famous scholars had birthed this master method; it accommo-
dated (some say concealed) wide ideological differences. Its practitioners could
be seventeen or ninety, libertine or celibate, poetasters or profound scholars. De-
spite its paucity of theory and the clenched intensity of its text-mining proce-
dures, New Criticism swept all before it. As an English undergraduate in the late
1950s, I worshipped Ivor Armstrong Richards and Cleanth Brooks and practiced
with fervor and zeal all the muscular procedures that Alan Tate jokingly called
366 Rhetoric Review
poet surgery during a 1958 stint as a visiting professor at the University of

Minnesota.
After spending the first half of the 1960s in military service, I went to grad-
uate school in what was still called The Minnesota Department of Speech.
Speech, I soon discovered, had its own master method: a routine called Neo-
Aristotelian Criticism. For forty years, the method had been viewed as our final
declaration of independence from the other language arts, and it had provided a
sense of disciplinary unity and common enterprise for the discipline. So power-
ful was its gravitational field that even early communication theorists often be-
gan by testing assumptions about communication behavior that had been cast up
by the Neo-Aristotelian school.
But the winds of change were blowing. In the refulgent summer of 1965,
Robert L. Scott quipped while striding past me in the marble clad halls of
Folwell, I am like Othello, King. My occupations gone. I had no idea what he
was talking about until a few hours later when he tossed me a small green book
he had just finished. Attention, King!!! You and the other graduate students are
assigned to read this book now. It could change things.
He was right. When we graduate students read Ed Blacks 1965 work, sim-
ply titled Rhetorical Criticism, we felt a Sartrean rush of nausea and vertigo. The
Earth shook beneath our feet. Nearly every tenet of Neo-Aristotelians was sav-
agely run through. The master method that we had so earnestly practiced was
exposed as clumsy and trivial. When some of us tried to say we thought the at-
tack was overblown, others had caught Blacks flame. They announced that it
was long overdue.
Destruction begets creation. Around the crumbling edifice of Neo-
Aristotelianism, new methods sprang up. There was a brilliant flowering of
new schools, some of which had been suggested by Black himself. Genre Crit-
icism, Movement Studies, Situational Criticism, and Burkean Criticism rushed
to fill the void left by the dying god. Of course, most young professors of the
1970s still used the Neo-Aristotelian method in their lectures, but research was
a different matter.
I have not forgotten the golden fall of 1972 when Ernest Bormann came to
Arizona for a series of lectures. Even as he spoke about the revolution going on
in rhetorical studies, he smiled mysteriously: It is the third quarter and there are
already a few shadows transiting the walls of the stadium. It is time to throw a
long-scoring strike. His ordinarily crisp speech had become opaque. Two
months later his famous article on Fantasy Theme Analysis burst into being in
the Quarterly Journal of Speech.
Waiting in the wings was the Ideological Criticism of Michael McGee and
Walter Fishers Narrative Paradigm. Criticism and theory advanced together as
Bitzers matured reflections on situational rhetoric grew into a theory of public

knowledge. Bormanns critical method cast up the theory of symbolic conver-
gence. Burkean criticism, the school closest to my heart, broadened the nature of
criticism in our field and changed the traditional speaker/audience/situation to-
ward considerations of the inventional potential of many different genres of dis-
course. The gradual but steady advance of Burkean and Burke-inspired criticism
during the 70s, 80s, and 90s was like a benediction, a happy memory. Burke
linked rhetoric to both aesthetics and politics. Burkean criticism crossed disci-
plinary lines. The Burke Society contained scholars from English, communica-
tion, sociology, and philosophy, with even a small sprinkling of economists and
political scientists. While Burkean critics concentrated on a single finite text,
they placed it in a rich historical and political context.
Echoes of the old New Criticism abounded in the 1980s as critics were
strongly influenced by the deconstructionists Paul DeMan, Richard Poirier, and
Paul Alpers. A new love of ambiguity, paradox, and irony and what can only be
called a fetishism of oppositions appeared. I can recall a poignant moment at an
SSCA conference when Robert L. Scott felt moved to define himself as an
old-fashioned rhetor, drawn to similitude, common ground, community, and con-
sensus. It was a sultry spring day in San Antonio, and Scott was having rather
heavy weather critiquing an SSCA panel on the Subaltern Voice. He told his
angry interlocutors that he was certainly in favor of the inclusion of formerly
silenced voices but he was wearied of the constant privileging of the unique, the
marginal, and the outsider. Despite a hungry feral roar from several of his audi-
tors, Scott wondered out loud why metaphor was now being denounced as a
trope of dominance and imperialism, while metonymy (the favorite trope of Paul
DeMan) was championed on the grounds that it maintained a sense of distance,
disjuncture, and otherness.
The late 1980s and the 1990s were years of contention in which critics
worked to bring formerly silenced voices into the public arena. But this salu-
brious work was accompanied by the attack on the canon and the exposure of
ideological foundations of the intellectual tradition. The widespread obsession
with power shook many disciplines to their foundations. The attempt to build a
new ethics of relativism resulted in nearly unblemished failure. As post-
modernism penetrated one sphere of thought after another, scholars felt an in-
creasing sense of insignificance and isolation from the mainstream. Metaphor
was denounced as a theological trope, the linguistic servant of humanistic im-
perialism. It was a difficult moment. I recall students asking me: Why is all
this time wasted in angry accusation? Why arent you people building any-
thing? Just as the suppression of ideology in the New Criticism prepared the
way for the explosion of ideology in later critical schools, so the ideological
368 Rhetoric Review
criticism of the 80s and 90s prepared the way for the pragmatic resurgence of
civic discourse in the new century.
The twenty-first century in rhetorical criticism is full of surprises. Long-
dead projects have been called to a second life. The explosion of interest in
metaphor in the social sciences has returned it to an axial position in rhetoric.
Further, there is a recrudescence of interest in ethics. Out of the relativistic fur-
nace of the 1990s there has been a surprising rehabilitation of the idea of the
universal. Even the ferocious club spirit of the schools has dissipated, and
methodology is clearly less important than before. Globalism seems to have
spurred a quest for community. There is a wonderful eclecticism of method
and a kind of healing of the breech between effective discourse and beautiful
discourse that acted as a Berlin Wall between critics in English and those in
communication.
Finally, one does not like to use the standards of commerce and industry to
appraise an intellectual enterprise, but not since the sixteenth century have there
been so many scholars engaged in rhetorical criticism. And rhetorical critics
have a mission. Cries for the restoration of the civic/rhetorical infrastructure
have given them a vital social and intellectual role. Such brilliant rhetorical crit-
ics as Michael Hogan at Penn State and Bernard Duffy at Cal Poly San Luis
Obispo are leading the way as scholarly critics who are engaged in promoting
the ideal of the citizen orator in their own communities. Criticism has a bright
future. And once again we have a sense of a useable past.
Celeste M. Condit
The University of Georgia
Contemporary Rhetorical Criticism:

Diverse Bodies Learning New Languages
All living things are critics, Kenneth Burke told us, and he noted that hu-
mans, in specific, are bodies that learn languages (Permanence 5; Poem 263;
plural added by Condit, Post-Burke). These attributes imply that all human be-
ings are also rhetorical critics. Doing such criticism well might nonetheless be
enhanced by self-consciousness about rhetorical theory, which views language
as the sharing of potent formsgenres, tropes and figures, syllogistic and quali-
tative progressions, narratives, binaries, ideographs, climaxes, gestures, and
more (Burgchardt). The classical (or at least neoclassical) Western rhetorical tra-
dition approached the study of the circulation of these forms by attending to five
canons: invention, style, delivery, organization, and memory. Since that time,
rhetorical criticism and theory have continued remaking each other in the con-
text of dramatic changes in the patterns of human linguistic action.
One of the more notable insights of contemporary criticism-and-theory is
the deep interpenetration of the canons of invention and style. Tropes are now
understood not just as decoration added onto preexisting ideas. Tropes are
modes of thinking (Ivie). To speak an antithesis is to think differently than to
speak a hyperbole or a metonymy.
The rhetorical critics treatment of the canon of delivery has likewise undergone
radical revision. In classical Greece live speech was the ubiquitous medium of hu-
man symbolizing, interrupted only rarely by scarce written texts. Two-and-a-half
millennia later (give or take a century!), live speech waters a swamp of billboards,
radiowaves, fiber optic cables, blogs, pop-ups, t-shirts, blimps, television stations,
film conglomerates, and cellphonetextmessagingvideosportsdownloadgamers. In
such a context, theoretical understandings of the specificities of mediation neces-
sarily inform critical efforts (Deluca and Peeples).
A key dimension of this contextual shift is the change from an immediate,
relatively homogenous, and modest-sized audience to the mass audience. This
shift has meant a radical growth in the canon of memory. Today memory studies
encompass issues of archiving, secrecy, and forced forgetting, among others
(Blair and Michel). The grafting of studies of multiple texts to the earlier tradi-
tion of single-text studies likewise exploded the canon of disposition (organiza-
tion). A single text grows through time, and the linear trajectory of that growth
is a potent component of its rhetorical action (Leff). But a mass of texts, though
they may share components such as ideographs, metaphors, or narratives, rarely
share organizational patterns. It is the distribution of textual components across
the textscape, and more recently their dynamic patterns of circulation (Finnegan
and Kang), that are the contemporary issues added to the canon of dispositio.
Studies of social movement have thus been prominent in recent rhetorical cri-
tiques (Morris and Brown).
This recounting, however, seems too technical. Rhetorical criticism and the-
ory are never merely technical. They are not neutral description. As with all hu-
man symbolizing, the discourse of rhetorical scholars is always motivated (in the
Burkean sense, Burke Grammar). Contemporary rhetorical studies have ex-
panded and made more explicit these motivations. Cued by Marxs pronounce-
ment that the dominant ideas in a society are the ideas of the ruling classes, fem-
inist critics not only have pointed out the limitations and biases that have arisen
from male-dominated theories and other social discourses but also have explored
370 Rhetoric Review
their own positionings (Miller). The same has been true of ethnic, ecocentric,
sexual, postcolonial and other critical positions (Sloop; Wilson).
The older persona of the disembodied critic still pervades much rhetorical
criticism (and continues to serve broadly useful purposes), but it has lost the pre-
sumption of objectivity, and it has been joined by critical analyses that more
openly advocate specific positions and views. These ideological studies
self-consciously elaborate, legitimate, and even develop views from a relatively
homogeneous or singular positionality. They are occasionally also joined by

what I have called empathic studies (The Critic). An empathic study does not
seek to develop a single, tightly held position. Neither does it presume a univer-
sal stance or even a Hegelian dialectic of synthesis. Instead, the critic begins
with a modicum of openness and uncertainty and simply tries to lend as em-
pathic an ear as s/he possibly can to multiple voices. The goal is not to promote
one side of the discourse over another, nor to synthesize, though either of
those may sometimes be the product. The goal is to construct discourses one can
best embody (whether at the social or individual scale).
From this perspective the categories of rhetorical theory are tools for listen-
ing to discourses in specific ways. They supply lenses that highlight the pieces
and connections of a circulating flow that is otherwise so fastmoving,
multivarious, and seductive that one cannot but be swept along. They allow one
to surfto choose lines along the complicated flows of social movements
rather than merely be dragged like flotsam in the waves.
Because I cannot hold to a singular position as I bob at the convergence of
multiple streams, I listen as widely and as empathetically as I can. But listen
to what? The questions that rhetorical critics choose are always a product of
their embodied positions. As a young woman, I chose to listen to the abortion
controversy. When I moved to New Orleans, I chose to listen about race. As
my body intrudes more forcefully on the flow of my discourse over time, I
have begun to try to listen to it and to our discourses about the body. Each of
these reports have merely constituted one anemometer from the larger social
flows. A series of convergences in those larger flows, however, now challenges
rhetorical critics to transcend our historical, trained incapacities, to take ac-
count of codes outside of human languagecodes of the body and the broader
ecologies in which we swim.
This talk of a body that is not merely body nears sacrilege for the human-
ist academy. We have denied the body or outsourced it to other parts of the
campus. The claim to a force of the body exerted upon body has been rele-
gated to conservatives, who make body determinative of body. Recent studies
of embodiment by progressive humanists often merely seek to stuff all of the re-
sources of the body back into the body. To be a materialist who denies the ma-
teriality of everything except texts is, however, peculiar.
The codes of human language are not the only codes at work in the uni-
verse. At the prompting of feminists as well as others, rhetorical critics have ex-
panded our conception of rhetorical texts to include art, architecture, cityscapes,
monuments, handicrafts, and many more human-made objects (Blair and
Michel; Foss and Foss). We have even recognized the rhetorical potential in phe-
nomena that are not human-madethe seasons, the sun, the human body itself
(Harold and DeLuca). These tacks prepare us for one more moveto expand
once again our understanding of the scope of languages by shedding our

ethnocentric assumption that only human-made symbolic codes matter to human
action. The other codes that are most obviously pertinent for humans are those
of the human bodyits DNA, proteins, hormones, and their patterned accretion
through timeand those of our ecoscapethe codes that generate and are gen-
erated by the birds and insects and microbes that create the living flow that al-
lows us to be.
These convergences present a formidable challenge to rhetorical criti-
cism/theoryto integrate the classical and contemporary tools of rhetorical
and textual analysis with the Enlightenment-engendered understandings of
bodies and their interests. Although yet unredeemed and admittedly jarring to
our current sensibilities, there is promise here. Within the embodied practice of
empathic listening, a biosymbolic critic might seek for better life-scripts for
human beings. The choices are all situated, constrained, even overdetermined.
They are all rhetorical, but all living things are coders, and all the codes of
living things are relevant to rhetorical critics.
Works Consulted
Blair, Carole, and Neil Michel. Commemorating in the Theme Park Zone: Reading the Astronauts
Memorial. At the Intersection: Cultural Studies and Rhetorical Studies. Ed. Thomas Rosteck.
New York: Guilford, 1999. 2983.
Burgchardt, Carl R., ed. Readings in Rhetorical Criticism, 3rd ed. State College, PA: Strata, 2005.
Burke, Kenneth. A Grammar of Motives. 1945. Berkeley: U of California P, 1969.
. Permanence and Change: An Anatomy of Purpose. 3rd ed. Berkeley: U of California P, 1965.
. Poem. The Legacy of Kenneth Burke. Ed. Herbert W. Simons and Trevor Melia. Madison: U
of Wisconsin P, 1989. 263.
Condit, Celeste. The Critic as Empath. Western Journal of Speech Communication 57 (1993):
17890.
. Post-Burke. Transcending the Sub-stance of Dramatism. Quarterly Journal of Speech 78
(1992): 34955.
DeLuca, Kevin Michael, and Jennifer Peeples. From Public Sphere to Public Screen: Democracy,
Activism, and the Violence of Seattle. Critical Studies in Media Communication 19 (2002):
12551.
Finnegan, Cara A., and Jiyeon Kang. Sighting the Public: Iconoclasm and Public Sphere Theory.
Quarterly Journal of Speech 90 (2004): 327403.
372 Rhetoric Review
Foss, Karen A., and Sonja K. Foss, eds. Women Speak: The Eloquence of Womens Lives. Prospect
Heights, IL: Waveland, 1991.
Harold, Christine, and Kevin DeLuca. Behold the Corpse: Violent Images and the Case of Emmett
Till. Rhetoric and Public Affairs 8 (2005): 26386.
Ivie, Robert. Metaphor and the Rhetorical Invention of Cold War Idealists. Communication
Monographs 54 (1987): 16582.
Leff, Michael. Dimensions of Temporality in Lincolns Second Inaugural. Communication Reports
1 (1988): 2631.
Miller, Diane Helene. From One Voice A Chorus: Elizabeth Cady Stantons 1860 Address to the
New York State Legislature. Womens Studies in Communication 22 (1999): 15289.
Morris, Charles E., III, and Stephen H. Browne, eds. Readings on the Rhetoric of Social Protest.
State College, PA: Strata, 2001.
Sloop, John. Disciplining the Transgendered: Brandon Teena, Public Representations, and
Normativity. Western Journal of Communication 64 (2000): 16589.
Wilson, Kurt. The Racial Politics of Imitation in the Nineteenth Century. Quarterly Journal of
Speech 89 (2003): 89108.
Richard J. Jensen
Emeritus, University of NevadaLas Vegas
Analyzing Social Movement Rhetoric
Since the 1940s communication scholars have attempted to understand and

explain the rhetoric of social movements. Much of the early research was based
on the work of sociologists and historians, but rhetoricians also sought to make
their own unique contributions to the field.
Although social movement studies appeared in communication journals as
early as 1947, the first significant article was Leland M. Griffins The Rhetoric
of Historical Movements, which was published in 1952. Griffins article used
historical methods to explain the events that led to movements and the stages
through which those movements evolved. Griffin later altered his approach and
attempted to apply Kenneth Burkes theories to movements.
In the 1960s communication researchers began to actively respond to the
growing dissent in the United States. They faced a frustrating task because much
of the rhetoric of the 1960s violated the expectations of rhetorical scholars.
Communication scholars had been trained to assume that rhetoric was rational.
Their research had traditionally focused on studies of great speeches by great or-
ators, persuasion, and public speakingall of which were based on rational ar-
gument. Much of the rhetoric of the 1960s, however, was not rational, nor did it
involve speaking. Protest rhetoric included marches, music, slogans, chants, and
other forms of nonverbal communication and often involved the use of profanity,
which certainly was not seen as being rational. Scholars were forced to change
the way they studied rhetoric and learn new tools of analysis. They began by at-
tempting to define basic terms such as radical, agitator, and activist before
they could analyze the rhetoric used by those individuals.
Many of the studies during the 1960s focused on the Black Power Move-
ment. Articles were published in journals and books (such as The Rhetoric of
Black Power by Robert L. Scott and Wayne Brockriede) that included texts of
speeches. Studies of major Black spokespersons were produced, and courses on
Black oratory were created on many campuses. At the same time, researchers
began to study the Feminist Movement, confrontation, the rhetoric of the streets,
the Anti-War Movement, dissent on campus, and other groups that challenged
the establishment.
Scholars sought to understand the interplay between the rhetoric of dissent-
ers and the reaction to protest by members of the establishment. In 1971 John
Waite Bowers and Donovan J. Ochs wrote The Rhetoric of Agitation and Con-
trol, a brief volume that had a significant effect on studies of the subject. Bowers
and Ochs proposed a theory that outlined the stages through which the rhetoric
of agitators evolved and the response by the establishment. They then applied
their theory in case studies of dissent at the Democratic National Convention in
Chicago in 1968, San Francisco State University in 196869, and nonviolent
protest in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963. The book was revised in 1993, and an
additional chapter on the abortion debate in Wichita, Kansas, was added. The
book inspired the creation of many university courses that focused on dissent
and continues to be a popular text. A third edition is currently being prepared.
In 1970 Herbert W. Simons published a major article on movement leader-
ship, Requirements, Problems, and Strategies: A Theory of Persuasion for So-
cial Movements. That article helped lead to a spirited debate in the 1970s over
what constituted a social movement. Many scholars built on Griffins article by
attempting to explain the stages through which social movements evolved while
others looked for alternative approaches to studying movements. The discussion
led to a conference of leading movement scholars that was sponsored by the
(then-called) Speech Communication Association. The papers from that confer-
ence were published in a special issue of The Central States Speech Journal in
1980. Those articles have become standard references for anyone interested in
the study of movements. A second conference was sponsored by the Speech
Communication Association in 1990. Several of the papers from that gathering
were published in Communication Studies in 1991 and also have become stan-
dard references.
374 Rhetoric Review
Early studies, such as those of Simons, and Bowers and Ochs, proposed
that movements began among individuals outside the establishment and that
decision-making within protest organizations moved from the bottom up. The
authors argued that movements did not occur within established organizations
or that decisions could come from the top down. This argument was not uni-
versally accepted. Researchers such as David Zarefsky, John Murphy, and Eliz-
abeth Mechling and Gale Auletta proposed that establishment figures like
Lyndon Johnson and Robert Kennedy and groups within the establishment
could create movements. In 1991 Elizabeth Jean Nelsons article, Nothing
Ever Goes Well Enough: Mussolini and the Rhetoric of Perpetual Struggle,
clearly illustrated how an establishment figure could assume the role of an
agitator or dissenter.
In the 1980s and 1990s, there seemed to be decreased interest in movement
studies. This perceived lack of interest may have been deceiving because re-
searchers published significant articles that focused on such subjects as Gay
Rights, the Chicano Movement, civil rights, Asian-American dissent, Red Power
and the American Indian Movement, the antinuclear movement, disability rights,
the labor movement, movements among conservatives, the temperance move-
ment, issues surrounding AIDS, animal rights, environmental issues, and the
debate over abortion rights. These articles built upon previous studies and pro-
posed innovative ways of analyzing social movements and dissent.
In recent years there have been signs of a renewed interest in studying pro-
test movements. In 2001 Charles E. Morris III and Stephen H. Browne published
a collection of articles titled Readings on the Rhetoric of Social Protest. That
volume included many of the most significant articles on social movements by
communication scholars. The book was revised and expanded in 2006.
Another sign of interest was the workshop titled Reinventing the Rhetoric
of Social Movements that was held during the Rhetoric Society of Americas
Biennial Institute in May of 2005. That workshop included many young scholars
interested in reviving the study of social movements among communication
scholars. Hopefully, these individuals will lead a resurgence of interest in move-
ment studies.
Scholars in the twenty-first century face interesting challenges. They must
combine current theories of rhetoric with traditional theories used in previous
movement studies, explain how new technologies such as the Internet have im-
pacted the role of leaders and the organization of movements, and analyze sig-
nificant recent social movements such as those challenging globalization and the
World Trade Organization and online groups such as MoveOn.org. At the same
time, contemporary scholars must not lose sight of the rich legacy of studies that
is available to them. By combining the best ideas of the past with innovative
approaches in the present, scholars should be able to produce intriguing studies

of social movements in the future.
Works Consulted
Auletta, Gale Schroeder, and Elizabeth Walker Mechling. Beyond War: A Socio-Rhetorical Analy-
sis of a New Class Revitalization Movement. Western Journal of Communication 50 (1986):
388404.
Bowers, John W., Donovan J. Ochs, and Richard J. Jensen. The Rhetoric of Agitation and Control.
2nd ed. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland, 1993.
Griffin, Leland M. The Rhetoric of Historical Movements. Quarterly Journal of Speech 38 (1952):
18488.
Morris, Charles E., III, and Stephen Howard Browne. Readings on the Rhetoric of Social Protest.
2nd ed. State College, PA: Strata, 2006.
Murphy, John M. Domesticating Dissent: The Kennedys and the Freedom Rides. Communication
Monographs 59 (1992): 6178.
Nelson, Elizabeth Jean. Nothing Ever Goes Well Enough: Mussolini and the Rhetoric of Perpetual
Study. Communication Studies 42 (1991): 2242.
Scott, Robert L., and Wayne Brockriede. The Rhetoric of Black Power. New York: Harper and Row,
1969.
Simons, Herbert W. Requirements, Problems, and Strategies: A Theory of Persuasion for Social
Movements. Quarterly Journal of Speech 56 (1970): 111.
Zarefsky, David. President Johnsons War on Poverty: The Rhetoric of Three Establishment
Movements. Communication Monographs 44 (1977): 35273.
Sonja K. Foss
University of Colorado at Denver
Rhetorical Criticism as Synecdoche for Agency
I have been a rhetorical critic from the time I made the decision to partici-
pate as a scholar in the communication discipline. I have never really considered
using any other method to answer the questions I want to ask about rhetoric or
communication. The reason, I believe, is that the act of rhetorical criticism
serves for me as synecdoche for agency in general.
I am defining agency in a standard way hereas the capacity to exert some
degree of control over the social relations in which one is enmeshed1 or, more
rhetorically, to exert influence through symbolic action.2 I am aware of the dis-
cussion about the impact of postmodernism on rhetorical agency, and my view is
that agency is located neither exclusively with an agent nor determined by struc-
376 Rhetoric Review
ture but lies in the interplay between the two.3 I see rhetoric playing a critical
role in this intermediate view of agency because it is the mechanism that enables
the agent to engage but also to develop creative responses to structural or mate-
rial conditions in a negotiation between self and structure.
The essence of the argument I want to make about rhetorical criticism and
agency is that the process of rhetorical criticism mimics the process of agency.
In both processes the agent/critic selects something on which to focus or en-
gages a perceived structure of some kind. The agent/critic then interprets that
structure in particular ways and shares that interpretation with others. The result
is a world of the agents/critics own creation. I turn now to an explanation of
each of these three steps.
Selecting an Artifact/Engaging Structure

My first agentic choice occurs in the initial step of rhetorical criticism
selecting a text or engaging an artifact to analyze. This is a process not of en-
countering artifacts but of attending to artifacts, so infinite possibilities are
available to me. I make choices about where to focus my attention, directing
my attention to some artifacts and ignoring those not selected. As I interact
with a selected artifact and continue to select it, I reify it and stabilize it, mak-
ing it part of my world. Because I am the one who calls an artifact into being
with my act of attention and who bestows meaning on it with my act of inter-
pretation, I attribute no inherent power to the artifact, for to do so would cede
my agency to the artifact. I retain agency, then, as I attend, select, and focus to
choose an artifact to analyze.
The first step of criticism, the selection of an artifact, is parallel to the first
step of the agentic process, which begins with engagement with the structural
environment. Agency is always agency toward something,4 and that something
is a perceived structure. As I perceive something, I construct it, and I sustain it
with my attention. I am reminded, in this step of criticism, to consider my start-
ing points in the general process of enactment of agency. I cannot attend to and
engage with everything in the world, so I am always choosing. Some conditions,
in other words, are not more real than others and cannot require my attention
to them. Just because some people have chosen to create a war in Iraq and con-
tinue to attend to it, holding it in their worlds, does not mean it must capture my
attention. I always have the choice of asking what other possibilities are avail-
able, and when I look for more options to which to attend, I see them. I am en-
couraged, then, to reflect on whether I want the ideas, constructions, objects, or
conditions on which I am focusing because what I choose constitutes the build-
ing blocks of my world.
Analyzing an Artifact/Interpreting Structure
The second step of criticism offers a second agentic choice. I can choose
how to interpret an artifact on which I focus, and my choices are limited only by
my imagination and the dictates of criterial adequacy for presenting my analysis
to others. The unlimited possibilities available at this step are most evident at the
moment when I initiate the coding of an artifact. Probably my favorite part of
the process, this is when I have no idea what my interpretation will be or what
schema I will formulate to explain an artifact, and I stand poised at the artifacts
edge, eager to jump in.
Although critics have virtually infinite responses available for interpreting
an artifact, they do not always take advantage of that freedom. The option is al-
ways available to choose scripted or conventional interpretations. Such interpre-
tations may be scripted by method, for example, when critics choose a critical
method and apply it to their artifacts. Others choose scripted interpretations
when they know the results they want to accomplish with their criticism before
they begin the analysis or believe an artifact itself requires a particular response.
In such scripted interpretations, critics are not surprised by what they discover
because they already know that, for example, an artifact exemplifies oppression,
encourages consumption, or inhibits social justice. Although a scripted response
is legitimate in some situations and with some artifacts, it tends to illustrate and
reinforce existing theories and understandings rather than encourage the devel-
opment of new ones. It also restricts agency; to tell a new story using a conven-
tional script is difficult because the script encourages making the same choices
that were made in the past. In contrast, innovating in response to an artifact chal-
lenges received patterns of understanding and action. Such innovation contrib-
utes to the development of theory that has the capacity to challenge assumptions,
to reconsider what is taken for granted, and to generate new options.
The process of analyzing an artifact is a reminder to me that a major part of
agency involves interpretation of the structural conditions to which I attend. I
have infinite responses available to any given structure I perceive. My exigence
is not a structure but my interpretation of that structure, making structure de-
pendent on my interpretive choices. Because structure is not something real and
immutable outside of me, changing the structural world happens when I change
my analysis, change my interpretation, change my mind.
Sharing Criticism/Interacting with Other Agents
As a rhetorical critic, I interact with other critics and with readers. This
interaction takes the form of sharing my analyses with others and inviting
378 Rhetoric Review
them to consider my interpretation of an artifact. I have choices in this process

as well. I can ignore other analyses, label others analyses wrong or incorrect,
or try to discover what is useful for me from those analyses. My preference is
for the latter. I do not believe that any interpretation of an artifact can be
wronginstead, interpretations are simply less or more useful to me. Because
I do not find a particular analysis useful because of where I am in my thinking
or interests does not mean it is not useful for others. Thus those analyses I find
useful, I include in my world; those I do not remain available for others to use
if they make sense to them.
The enactment of agency involves interaction with others, just as rhetorical
critics interact with others. The process of sharing my work as a rhetorical critic
reminds me that there is no need to insist that my interpretation of the world pre-
vail over others. When I go through a buffet line, selecting foods I want to eat, I
do not have to lobby the manager of the restaurant to remove all of the foods
from the buffet I do not like; I simply choose those that I prefer and let others
choose foods in line with their preferences. The same is true for my choices as
an agent in interaction with others. I respect the preferences of others, trusting
that they are making decisions that are best for their lives and do not try to dis-
suade them from their particular agentic choices.
Outcomes of Rhetorical Criticism/Agency

Agency is an important construct for me because I believe it is the means
through which rhetors use symbols to construct the world. Choice is the basic
mechanism by which the world is made manifest,5 and my agency is enacted
through my choices. The choices I make as a critic/agent function epistemically
to create my worldand I mean my literal, material world as well as my sym-
bolic one. With Butler, I adhere to the notion that the structural world not only
bears cultural constructions but is itself a construction.6 Agency, then, is al-
ways functioning and is always efficacious in that it is always accomplishing
world creation.
Rhetorical criticism is not simply a process of explicating artifacts and con-
tributing to rhetorical theory. It functions as synecdoche for agency that reminds
me that I always have choices and am always choosing as I move through my
day. It also suggests to me how much power and responsibility I have as an
agent. Rhetorical criticism admonishes me to select with care the artifacts or
structures on which I focus, to choose interpretations carefully but imaginatively,
and to engage in respectful interactions with others, knowing that my choices at
all of these junctures are creating the world in which I live.
Notes
1William H. Sewell, Jr. A Theory of Structure: Duality, Agency, and Transformation. Ameri-
can Journal of Sociology 98 (1992), 20.
2Karlyn Kohrs Campbell. Agency: Promiscuous and Protean. Communication and Criti-
cal/Cultural Studies 2 (2005), 2.

3Among those who hold such an intermediate view of agency are Maureen A. Mahoney and
Barbara Yngvesson, The Construction of Subjectivity and the Paradox of Resistance: Reintegrating
Feminist Anthropology and Psychology, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 18 (1992),
50; Catherine Egley Waggoner and D. Lynn OBrien Hallstein, Feminist Ideologies Meet Fashion-
able Bodies: Managing the Agency/Constraint Conundrum, Text and Performance Quarterly 21
(2001), 31, 40; John Louis Lucaites and Celeste Michelle Condit, Epilogue: Contributions from
Rhetorical Theory, Contemporary Rhetorical Theory: A Reader, ed. John Louis Lucaites, Celeste
Michelle Condit, and Sally Caudill (New York: Guilford, 1999), 610, 612; and Judith Butler, The
Psychic Life of Power: Theories in Subjection (Stanford: Stanford UP, 1997), 2.
4Mustafa Emirbayer and Ann Mische. What Is Agency? American Journal of Sociology 103
(1998), 975.
5Among the sources that articulate this idea in various ways are Peter L. Berger and Thomas
Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (Garden
City, NY: Anchor/Doubleday, 1966); Benjamin Lee Whorf, Language, Thought & Reality: Selected
Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf, ed. John B. Carroll (Cambridge: MIT, 1956); Jonathan Potter, Rep-
resenting Reality: Discourse, Rhetoric and Social Construction (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1996);
Fred Alan Wolf, Taking the Quantum Leap: The New Physics for Nonscientists (New York: Harper
& Row, 1981); Amit Goswami, Richard E. Reed, and Maggie Goswami, The Self-Aware Universe:
How Consciousness Creates the Material World (New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin Putnam,
1993); Robert Sapolsky, Sick of Poverty, Scientific American Dec. 2005: 9299; and Martin E. P.
Seligman, Authentic Happiness (New York: Free, 2002), esp. chapter 4.
6Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex (New York: Routledge,
1993), 28.
Martin J. Medhurst
Baylor University
Thirty Years Later: A Critics Tale
It has now been more than thirty years since I published my first piece of
rhetorical criticism in the Illinois Journal of Speech and Theatre. Even that
phrase, speech and theatre, has a slightly antiquarian ring to it since speech has
evolved into communication and theatre has long since severed its ties with
those scholars formerly known as speech teachers. It was, after all, the spoken
wordspeechthat originally bound rhetoricians to folks in theatre, oral inter-
380 Rhetoric Review
pretation, radio speaking, speech correction, and debate. Today, only debate
remains. Yet, somehow, rhetoricians continue to find a home under the banner of
communication, just as others have long found a home in departments of Eng-
lish, language and literature, or composition. The study of rhetoric is alive and
well and dwelling someplace, maybe several places, on campus.
The theory and practice of rhetorical criticism has driven much of what I
call the rhetorical renaissance in communication studies. It is hard to know,
even in retrospect, when the renaissance began. One could point to several dif-
ferent moments, several different factors, in the flowering of rhetorical studies
over the course of the last thirty or forty years. To my mind there were three sig-
nificant moments that allowed the renaissance to develop: (1) the publication
of Edwin Blacks Rhetorical Criticism: A Study in Method in 1965, (2) the swirl
of reactions to and extensions of Blacks attack on neo-Aristotelianism between
1965 and 1980, and (3) the development of sustained programs of rhetorical re-
search, leading to the systematic publication of books from 1981 to the present. I
have traced these developments elsewhere and set forth in some detail what I see
as the essential markers of this renewal.1 I will not repeat myself, except to say
that I see an organic unity between and among these three moments, with each
building upon the one that preceded it.
Today, rhetorical criticism is a vital force within the larger world of rhetori-
cal studies and an important mode of scholarly investigation. When I first began
studying rhetorical criticism in the 1970s, I thought of it as a way of analyzing
texts and thus took my primary job to be the mastery of as many different
methods of analysis as possible. I filled my theoretical toolbox not only with
Aristotle and Cicero but with Burke and Weaver, Toulmin and Perelman, Langer
and Richards, as well as many lesser lights. I practiced mythic criticism, generic
criticism, Burkean criticism, Weaverian criticism, stylistic criticism, metaphoric
criticism, neo-Aristotelian criticism, historical criticism, biographical criticism,
psychological criticism, iconographic criticism, and close reading. I applied my
tools to speeches, cartoons, prayers, films, radio news commentary, television,
pamphlets, and advertisements. To have come of age in the 1970s was to cele-
brate pluralism in both theory and method.
As exciting and productive as the 19651980 era was, it eventually led to an
overemphasis on theory and method, often to the exclusion of knowledge
grounded in practice and analysis. Some scholars came to hold that the only kind
of criticism worth practicing was that which contributed directly to theory-build-
ing or methodological sophistication.2 By the end of the 1980s, this descent into
theory for the sake of theory caused me to reconsider the place of criticism in the
scholarly enterprise. And while I did, once, advise just say no to theory,3 I
did so partly with tongue in cheek and entirely with a practiced hyperbole. Like
two of the critics I most admire, Stephen E. Lucas and David Zarefsky, I believe
that every significant critical act blends theory, history, and criticism in unique
ways to produce useful knowledge.4
Today, I no longer worry about theory or method. I now consider rhetorical
criticism to be a mode of investigation rather than a method of analysis. While
one certainly can study rhetoric as a subject matter unto itself, I now use rhetoric
as the ods or pathway into public affairs. I try to think about public affairs from
a rhetorical point of view, to use the resources of rhetoric to reveal matters some-
times far beyond the realm of rhetoric proper. For me, rhetoric is a mode of
thinking, doing, and, ultimately, being.5 Rhetoric is a mode of analytical think-
ing that helps the critic ask important questions and explore significant dimen-
sions of public culturedimensions that our friends in history, political science,
and sociology often miss. It is also a mode of doing, a way of performing the act
of analysis and criticism. In short, I think Isocrates had it about right. Rhetoric is
a way of teaching that approaches knowledge not as a set of theoretical princi-
ples to be understood but as a set of problems, grounded in a historical context,
to be analyzed, interpreted, and judged with respect to the kind of action re-
quired. Rhetoric is both a strategic and a productive art directly related to leader-
ship in public contexts.
What does this stance mean for my practice of criticism? First, it means that
I now study important matters of public concern. Such matters are usually en-
compassed by terms such as policy or doctrine or ideology. I study these matters
from a rhetorical point of view to be sure, but what I seek to learn is not just les-
sons about rhetoric, but lessons about Eisenhowers Atoms for Peace program6
or Kennedys policy on nuclear testing7 or the narrative structure and policy con-
sequences of the national debate over same-sex marriage.8 Im interested in the
potential effects of religious rhetoric on the practice of democratic governance
and in the role of speechwriting on policy formation and articulation.9 In short, I
am interested in substantive matters, which I choose to study through the instru-
mentality of rhetoric.
To focus on matters of public affairs is to incur the responsibility to under-
stand, as best one can, the factors that contribute to those affairs. This means dis-
covering the best sources, considering the extant theories, interrogating the avail-
able evidence, and constructing original arguments that seek to account for the
situational matrix that defines public policy debate. It also means, in many cases,
going beyond the printed sources to engage directly those involved in the cre-
ation and execution of policy, whether through participant observation, inter-
viewing, ethnography, or other field methods. Rhetorical criticism is a powerful
mode of investigation that operates through the analysis and interpretation of
symbols within their respective contexts, and context always includes the audi-
382 Rhetoric Review
ences that are addressed, whether directly or indirectly, immediately or at some

future moment.
To perform this kind of investigation into public matters, the critic must
know rhetorical theory and practice, but not only that. Rhetoric is an inherently
interdisciplinary art and, as applied to public affairs, is necessarily an interdisci-
plinary undertaking. One always starts with the rhetorical, but one ends with
something beyond the purely rhetorical, something that inevitably speaks to the
subject matter under investigation, something that is extrarhetorical in insight or

implication. This is what I strive to achieve in my criticism. Not surprisingly, I
am often chastised for not contributing enough to rhetoric generally or rhetorical
theory in particular. And thats a fair critique because Im not trying to contrib-
ute to a general understanding of rhetoric. I am trying to use rhetoric to contrib-
ute to a general understanding of public affairs. If that makes me more of a rhe-
torical historian than an historian of rhetoric, then so be it.
Notes
1On the historical development of these three movements, see Martin J. Medhurst, The Aca-
demic Study of Public Address: A Tradition in Transition, Landmark Essays on American Public
Address, ed. Martin J. Medhurst (Davis, CA: Hermagoras P, 1993), xixliii. On the rhetorical re-
naissance, see Martin J. Medhurst, Public Address and Significant Scholarship: Four Challenges to
the Rhetorical Renaissance, Texts in Context: Critical Dialogues on Significant Episodes in Ameri-
can Political Rhetoric, ed. Michael J. Leff and Fred J. Kauffeld (Davis, CA: Hermagoras P, 1989),
2942; Martin J. Medhurst, The Rhetorical Renaissance: A Battlefield Report, Southern Communi-
cation Journal 63 (1998), 30914; Martin J. Medhurst, The Contemporary Study of Public Ad-
dress: Renewal, Recovery, and Reconfiguration, Rhetoric & Public Affairs 4 (2001), 495511; Mar-
tin J. Medhurst, William Norwood Brigance and the Democracy of the Dead: Toward a Genealogy
of the Rhetorical Renaissance, Rhetoric and Democratic Citizenship, ed. Todd McDorman and Da-
vid Timmerman (East Lansing: Michigan State UP, forthcoming).
2See, for example, Roderick P. Hart, Contemporary Scholarship in Public Address: A Re-
search Editorial, Western Journal of Speech Communication 50 (1986); Roderick P. Hart, Wan-
dering with Rhetorical Criticism, Critical Questions: Invention, Creativity, and the Criticism of Dis-
course and Media, ed. William L. Nothstine, Carole Blair, and Gary A. Copeland (New York: St.
Martins P, 1994), 7181; Roderick P. Hart, Doing Criticism My Way: A Response to Darsey,
Western Journal of Communication 58 (1994), 30812.
3This phrase was part of my oral presentation at the 1988 Public Address Conference held at
the University of Wisconsin, Madison. I was playing off of Nancy Reagans famous phrase, Just say
no to drugs. I did (and do) see some analogues between narcotics and some brands of theory. When
I revised my paper for publication in Texts in Context, I removed this tongue-in-cheek comment. It
was preserved, however, in the paper of another conference participant who was intent on singing the
praises of theory. See James Arnt Aune, Public Address and Rhetorical Theory, Texts in Context,
43.
4See Stephen E. Lucas, The Schism in Rhetorical Scholarship, Quarterly Journal of Speech
67 (1981), 120; David Zarefsky, The State of the Art in Public Address Scholarship, Texts in Con-
text, 1327; David Zarefsky, Four Senses of Rhetorical History, Doing Rhetorical History: Con-
cepts and Cases, ed. Kathleen J. Turner (Tuscaloosa: U of Alabama P, 1998), 1932. These theoret-
ical positions are instantiated in their criticism. See, for example, Stephen E. Lucas, The
Rhetorical Ancestry of the Declaration of Independence, Rhetoric & Public Affairs 1 (1998),
14384; David Zarefsky, Consistency and Change in Lincolns Rhetoric about Equality, Rhetoric
& Public Affairs 1 (1998), 2144.
5I did not, of course, originate this idea. See Thomas W. Benson, Rhetoric and Autobiogra-
phy: The Case of Malcolm X, Quarterly Journal of Speech 60 (1974): 113; Thomas W. Benson,
Rhetoric as a Way of Being, American Rhetoric: Context and Criticism, ed. Thomas W. Benson
(Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1989), 293322; Martin J. Medhurst, Afterword: The Ways of
Rhetoric, Beyond the Rhetorical Presidency, ed. Martin J. Medhurst (College Station: Texas A&M
UP, 1996), 21826.
6Martin J. Medhurst, Eisenhowers Atoms for Peace Speech: A Case Study in the Strategic
Use of Language, Communication Monographs 54 (1987), 20420.

7Martin J. Medhurst, Rhetorical Portraiture: John F. Kennedys March 2, 1962, Speech on the
Resumption of Atmospheric Tests, in Martin J. Medhurst, Robert L. Ivie, Philip Wander, and Robert
L. Scott, Cold War Rhetoric: Strategy, Metaphor, and Ideology, rev. ed. (East Lansing: Michigan
State UP, 1997), 5168.
8Martin J. Medhurst, George W. Bush and the Debate over Same-Sex Marriage, The Prospect
of Presidential Rhetoric, ed. James Arnt Aune and Martin J. Medhurst (College Station: Texas A&M
UP, forthcoming); Martin J. Medhurst, Public Moral Argument in the Debate over Same-Sex Mar-
riage: A Sophistic Approach. Paper delivered to the 9th Biennial Public Address Conference, Wash-
ington, DC, October 710, 2004.
9Martin J. Medhurst, Religious Rhetoric and the Ethos of Democracy: A Case Study of the
2000 Presidential Campaign, The Ethos of Rhetoric, ed. Michael J. Hyde (Columbia: U South
Carolina P, 2004), 11435; Kurt Ritter and Martin J. Medhurst, eds. Presidential Speechwriting:
From the New Deal to the Reagan Revolution and Beyond (College Station: Texas A&M UP, 2003).
David Zarefsky
Northwestern University
Reflections on Rhetorical Criticism
For all intents and purposes, the subfield of rhetorical criticism began with
an essay by Herbert Wichelns, The Literary Criticism of Oratory, published in
1925. Along with the early-twentieth-century renewal of interest in classical
sources and the publication of multivolume anthologies of speeches Wichelns
called for the critical study of oratorical works. The goal was understanding and
appreciation of these canonical texts, comparable to the appreciation of great
works of literature. But the key difference between rhetorical and traditional lit-
erary criticism, as Wichelns saw it, lay in the practical nature of the rhetorical
art: It was concerned, he wrote, not with permanence or beauty but with effect.
384 Rhetoric Review
Accordingly, critical studies of oratory ought to focus on the effects of these

works on their audiences.
It was easy to misunderstand this advice. Effect suggests an empirical
phenomenon, so the task of the rhetorical critic might be thought to be determin-
ing what the effects of a speech were. This was a usually futile quest that often
produced bad scholarship. Single speeches rarely have discernible effects; they
work together with many other causal forces and as part of the broad social and
cultural frame in which they are embedded. Moreover, the science of measuring
effects of messages on audience attitudes and behavior is inexact at best. All too
often, newspaper editorials or other evaluative judgments were used in place of
direct measures of effect. The claims advanced in such scholarship usually out-
ran the evidence offered and all too often were superficial.
It seems unlikely that this is what Wichelns was trying to encourage. His
concern, after all, was with criticism, not empirical measurement. Focusing
criticism on effects meant that the questions critics were to ask were about the
relationship between the text and its possible effects. What does the text reveal
about the effects its author might have been seeking? How does the construc-
tion of the text invite certain reactions and discourage others? What frame of
reference does the text assume and how does this compare with the frame at-
tributed to the audience? What role might this specific text play in a more
comprehensive campaign to modify attitudes or behavior? Who are the various
possible audiences for the speech? These are examples of critical questions
that relate to effects. They involve interpretation and judgment, not measure-
ment. They are answerable not by empirical observation but by reasoned argu-
ment. The critics task is to make claims on a readers judgment and to support
those claims by argument, and this is as true of rhetorical criticism as of any
other kind (Brockriede).
Many early studies in rhetorical criticism were not critical, thoughat least
not in this sense. Not only did they try to answer the question of what the effects
of a speech were, but they also sought to answer it through an almost mechanical
application of a set of categories derived from Aristotles Rhetoric. They investi-
gated the speakers background and training, major lines of argument, use of
logical, emotional, and ethical appeals, organizational structure, generic classifi-
cation of speeches as deliberative, forensic, or epideictic, and so on. In retro-
spect, studies of this type have been derided as cookie-cutter applications of
neo-Aristotelianism. It is easy to see why because the principal contribution of
the work is a demonstration that the mold can be applied to any object rather
than illumination and insight into the work itself.
One account of disciplinary history classifies almost all rhetorical criticism
prior to the mid 1960s as formulaic in this manner and hence of little enduring
value. But that is surely an oversimplified reading of the early years of the
subfield. Those years also saw the publication of more extended rhetorical biog-
raphies such as those by Bower Aly on Alexander Hamilton and by William
Norwood Brigance on Jeremiah Sullivan Black, a book-length rhetorical study
of the Presidential election campaign of 1840 (Gunderson), studies of persuasion
in social movements as well as by individual orators in individual speeches
(Crandell; Griffin), and the study of ideas in transmission championed by Ernest
Wrage and his students (Wrage), to cite a few examples. When Edwin Black is-
sued his call for the dethronement of neo-Aristotelianism, he was able to cite
several of these works as exemplars of the alternative, and broader, concept of
criticism he had in mind. Many of these earlier works still can be read with
profit.
Nor was neo-Aristotelianism the only formulaic approach to which rhetori-
cal criticism was susceptible. Like most disciplines in the humanities and social
sciences, rhetoric was profoundly affected by the insights of Kenneth Burke. The
conception of life as drama and of texts as symbolic enactments provided a new
framework in which to explain rhetorical action, and the pentad of act, scene,
agent, agency, and purpose provided convenient tools for analysis and explana-
tion. Too convenient, as it turned out. A raft of studies with titles beginning a
pentadic analysis of . . . or a Burkeian analysis of . . . offered some interesting
perspectives on the objects they examined, but primarily ended up suggesting
that Burkes theory could be applied to a very wide range of objects. Since
Burkes is a general theory of human behavior, that is not very surprising. The
same conclusion could be reached about any attempt to apply general theories
(whether genre theory, postmodernism, poststructuralism, feminism, or any of
the other general theories that have been popular in recent years) to specific
texts. Doing so helps to show that the theories have application value, which is
important, but it does not do much to shed new light on the texts or to advance
understanding of rhetorical criticism.
Perhaps for this reason, many of the stronger recent studies in rhetorical
criticism have regarded criticism not as a method but as an attitude. The task has
been not to apply a fixed method so much as to illumine the text. The project is
guided by two master questions, which I phrase inelegantly as Whats going on
here? and What about it? The first question suggests that the text does not
fully reveal itself and that the critics task is to look beneath the surface and be-
tween the lines, in order to perceive and explicate what he or she believes to be
the underlying rhetorical dynamics of the work. The second question points to
the significance of the exercise. Typically, it explains how the analysis of the
work resolves an anomaly or paradox that might relate to the understanding of
the text, to the purposes of the rhetor, to the influence of the work in a larger
386 Rhetoric Review
historical context, or to whatever question has brought the critic to the text in the
first place.
Of course, in neither case is there a given answer to the question. The
critics task is to make a case for his or her interpretation, in keeping with
Brockriedes (1974) position that criticism is an exercise in argument. The critic
establishes that his or her interpretation is plausible through its fidelity to the
text and the circumstances. That the interpretation should compel adherence is
demonstrated by its superiority to other alternative interpretations in resolving

the anomaly or puzzle, or at least by its ability to withstand objections that may
be raised against it. These same standards apply to the critics proposed answers
to both of the two questions. I should note that the two questions usually are not
answered overtly or in mechanical fashion, but the answers should be easy to in-
fer from the presentation of the criticism.
I have referred occasionally to the text, but recent work in rhetorical
criticism has rendered this term problematic. In fact, there really are two sepa-
rate interpretations of the term rhetorical criticism. One denotes the object of
criticismthat is, rhetorical criticism is criticism of rhetoric. What constitutes
rhetoric has long been broadened beyond the oral or written text to include non-
verbal and nondiscursive representations and even actions (military campaigns,
massing of bodies at protest rallies, and so on) that serve a symbolic purpose and
offer messages to audiences. The other interpretation of rhetorical criticism
denotes a type of criticism. In this sense, rhetorical criticism can be applied to
anything, so long as the object of the criticism is explained by reference to rhe-
torical concepts and issues. Even broad historical and cultural trends, with or
without anything resembling a text, could be subject to rhetorical analysis.
Finally, a word should be said about the purpose of the exercise. Beyond
sharpening the critics own insight, and using criticism to make others aware of
the potential of rhetorical choices and maneuvers (so that they might either in-
corporate them into their own practice or shy away from them, as the case may
be), rhetorical criticism explains the processes by which speakers and audiences
adapt to each other, in Bryants (1953) felicitous phrase, forging the common
bonds and sense of identification that are the glue holding together a society or
culture as well as the basis for visions that lead people to try to fulfill their hopes
and dreams.
Works Consulted
Aly, Bower. The Rhetoric of Alexander Hamilton. 1941. New York: Russell and Russell, 1965.
Black, Edwin. Rhetorical Criticism: A Study in Method. New York: Macmillan, 1965.
Brigance, William Norwood. Jeremiah Sullivan Black, a Defender of the Constitution and the Ten
Commandments. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1934.
Brockriede, Wayne. Rhetorical Criticism as Argument. Quarterly Journal of Speech 60 (1974):

16574.
Bryant, Donald C. Rhetoric: Its Functions and Its Scope. Quarterly Journal of Speech 39 (1953):
40124.
Crandell, S. Judson. The Beginnings of a Methodology for Social Control Studies in Public Ad-
dress. Quarterly Journal of Speech 33 (1947): 3639.
Griffin, Leland M. The Rhetoric of Historical Movements. Quarterly Journal of Speech 38 (1952):
18488.
Gunderson, Robert G. The Log-Cabin Campaign. Lexington: U of Kentucky P, 1957.

Wichelns, Herbert A. The Literary Criticism of Oratory. Studies in Rhetoric and Public Speaking
in Honor of James Albert Winans. Ed. A. M. Drummond. New York: Century, 1925.
Wrage, Ernest J. Public Address: A Study in Social and Intellectual History. Quarterly Journal of
Speech 33 (1947): 45157.

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Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Rhetorical

Richard Leo Enos

Introduction: The Inclusiveness of Rhetorical Criticism

This work is dedicated to Edwin Black in recognition of his contributions to the

Rhetoric Review, Vol. 25, No. 4, 35787

This collection of essays represents an effort to draw upon the wisdom of

Karlyn Kohrs Campbell

Cultural Challenges to Rhetorical Criticism

Because I found the discourse of these movements fascinating and challeng-

rhetors. That is still my goal.

been enacted by oppressed women in a remote area of China. The rhetoric of

(1) Rhetoric is ubiquitous. Never ask if there is rhetoric; where there

(2) Rhetoric is indigenous, linked to cultural history, traditions, and

(3) The study of rhetoric is the study of language, how language

Scholarship on feminist theory and criticism offers an analogy. An essay by

Critique of Dialectical Reason,3 as a way to think about gender that avoids

Alan Sheridan-Smith. Ed. Jonathan Re (London: NLB, 1976). 25669.

Richard Leo Enos

Classical Rhetoric and Rhetorical Criticism

In 1876 Richard Claverhouse Jebb ushered in the first major English-lan-

be criticized by classical heuristics persisted. (That is, civic discourse should be

classical systems provide. Fittingly, we find that these new advancements do

Louisiana State University

The State of Rhetorical Criticism

poet surgery during a 1958 stint as a visiting professor at the University of

Bitzers matured reflections on situational rhetoric grew into a theory of public

Contemporary Rhetorical Criticism:

homogeneous or singular positionality. They are occasionally also joined by

once again our understanding of the scope of languages by shedding our

Analyzing Social Movement Rhetoric

Since the 1940s communication scholars have attempted to understand and

approaches in the present, scholars should be able to produce intriguing studies

Rhetorical Criticism as Synecdoche for Agency

Selecting an Artifact/Engaging Structure

Analyzing an Artifact/Interpreting Structure

Sharing Criticism/Interacting with Other Agents

them to consider my interpretation of an artifact. I have choices in this process

Outcomes of Rhetorical Criticism/Agency

cal/Cultural Studies 2 (2005), 2.

Thirty Years Later: A Critics Tale

ences that are addressed, whether directly or indirectly, immediately or at some

subject matter under investigation, something that is extrarhetorical in insight or

Use of Language, Communication Monographs 54 (1987), 20420.

Reflections on Rhetorical Criticism

Accordingly, critical studies of oratory ought to focus on the effects of these

demonstrated by its superiority to other alternative interpretations in resolving

Brockriede, Wayne. Rhetorical Criticism as Argument. Quarterly Journal of Speech 60 (1974):

Gunderson, Robert G. The Log-Cabin Campaign. Lexington: U of Kentucky P, 1957.

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