Jewish Rhetorics

This volume, the first of its kind, establishes and clarifies the significance of Jewish rhetorics as its own field and as a field within rhetoric studies. Diverse essays illuminate and complicate the editors' definition of a Jewish rhetorical stance as allowing speakers to maintain a "resolute sense of engagement" with their fellows and their community, while also remaining aware of the dislocation from the members of those communities. Topics include the historical and theoretical foundations of Jewish rhetorics; cultural variants and modes of cultural expression; and intersections with Greco-Roman, Christian, Islamic, and contemporary rhetorical theory and practice. In addition, the contributors examine gender and Yiddish, and evaluate the actual and potential effect of Jewish rhetorics on contemporary scholarship and on the ways we understand and teach language and writing. The contributors include some of the world's leading scholars of rhetoric, writing, and Jewish studies.

This volume, the first of its kind, establishes and clarifies the significance of Jewish rhetorics as its own field and as a field within rhetoric studies. Diverse essays illuminate and complicate the editors' definition of a Jewish rhetorical stance as allowing speakers to maintain a "resolute sense of engagement" with their fellows and their community, while also remaining aware of the dislocation from the members of those communities. Topics include the historical and theoretical foundations of Jewish rhetorics; cultural variants and modes of cultural expression; and intersections with Greco-Roman, Christian, Islamic, and contemporary rhetorical theory and practice. In addition, the contributors examine gender and Yiddish, and evaluate the actual and potential effect of Jewish rhetorics on contemporary scholarship and on the ways we understand and teach language and writing. The contributors include some of the world's leading scholars of rhetoric, writing, and Jewish studies.

The continued importance of Christian rhetorics in political, social, pedagogical, and civic affairs suggests that such rhetorics not only belong on the map of rhetorical studies, but are indeed essential to the geography of rhetorical studies in the twenty-first century. This collection argues that concerning ourselves with religious rhetorics in general and Christian rhetorics in particular tells us something about rhetoric itself—its boundaries, its characteristics, its functionings. In assembling original research on the intersections of rhetoric and Christianity from prominent and emerging scholars, Mapping Christian Rhetorics seeks to locate religion more centrally within the geography of rhetorical studies in the twenty-first century. It does so by acknowledging work on Christian rhetorics that has been overlooked or ignored; connecting domains of knowledge and research areas pertaining to Christian rhetorics that may remain disconnected or under connected; and charting new avenues of inquiry about Christian rhetorics that might invigorate theory-building, teaching, research, and civic engagement. In dividing the terrain of Christian rhetorics into four categories—theory, education, methodology, and civic engagement—Mapping Christian Rhetorics aims to foster connections among these areas of inquiry and spur future future collaboration between scholars of religious rhetoric in a range of research areas.

Expanding the scope of religious rhetoric Over the past twenty-five years, the intersection of rhetoric and religion has become one of the most dynamic areas of inquiry in rhetoric and writing studies. One of few volumes to include multiple traditions in one conversation, Rhetoric and Religion in the Twenty-First Century engages with religious discourses and issues that continue to shape public life in the United States. This collection of essays centralizes the study of religious persuasion and pluralism, considers religion’s place in U.S. society, and expands the study of rhetoric and religion in generative ways. The volume showcases a wide range of religious traditions and challenges the very concepts of rhetoric and religion. The book’s eight essays explore African American, Buddhist, Christian, Indigenous, Islamic, and Jewish rhetoric and discuss the intersection of religion with feminism, race, and queer rhetoric—along with offering reflections on how to approach religious traditions through research and teaching. In addition, the volume includes seven short interludes in which some of the field’s most accomplished scholars recount their experiences exploring religious rhetorics and invite readers to engage these exigent lines of inquiry. By featuring these diverse religious perspectives, Rhetoric and Religion in the Twenty-First Century complicates the field’s emphasis on Western, Hellenistic, and Christian ideologies. The collection also offers teachers of writing and rhetoric a range of valuable approaches for preparing today’s students for public citizenship in our religiously diverse global context.

Shows the unique perspective of Talmudic rabbis as they navigate between platonic objective truth and the realm of rhetorical argumentation.

The Rhetoric of Antisemitism was prompted by studying the decision of Vatican II (1965) to repudiate antisemitism. A close analysis revealed that the Catholic Church focused on the foundational issue in antisemitism—the charge of eternal guilt whereby Jews are forever guilty of killing Christ. This repudiation of antisemitism came with a rhetorical explanation of this hatred, a perspective rarely explored. In advancing the rhetorical perspective, this book focuses on the initial struggle Christianity experienced with Judaism, intensifying a hatred thereof, and settling on a religious dogma of eternal guilt meant to perpetuate antisemitism for eternity. Kiewe tackles the similar approach Islam has taken in its tension with Judaism and how it was turned centuries later into the Arab-Israeli conflict, significantly with the help of Nazi-antisemitism and propaganda. This volume also discusses the significant rise of antisemitism in the 19th and 20th centuries, including the forgery pamphlet The Protocols of the Elders of Zion that promoted the charge of Jewish world domination, and the more recent Durban Conference (2001) as a major turning point in conflating antisemitism and anti-Zionism, including the linguistic games used to merge antisemitism with anti-Israelism. Finally, in the decision by Vatican II to accept the guilt over antisemitism and seeking its end, both the foundation and a solution to this hatred are evident.

Discovered in 1947, the Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of ancient Israelite documents, many of which were written by a Jewish sectarian community at Qumran living in self-exile from the priesthood of the Second Temple. This first book-length study of the rhetoric of these texts illustrates how the Essenes employed different rhetorics over time as they struggled to understand God’s word and their mission to their people, who seemed to have turned away from God and his purposes. Applying methods of rhetorical analysis to six substantive texts—Miqṣat Maʿaśeh ha-Torah, Rule of the Community, Damascus Document, Purification Rules, Temple Scroll, and Habakkuk Pesher—Bruce McComiskey traces the Essenes’ use of rhetorical strategies based on identification, dissociation, entitlement, and interpretation. Through his analysis, McComiskey uncovers a unique, fascinating story of an ancient religious community that had sought to reintegrate into Temple life but, dejected, instead established itself as the new covenant people of God for this world, only to turn ultimately to a trust in a metaphysical afterlife. Presenting forms of ancient Jewish rhetoric largely uninfluenced by classical rhetoric, this book broadens our understanding of human and religious rhetorical practice, even as it provides new insight into the events that led to the emergence of the Talmudic period. Rhetoric and the Dead Sea Scrolls will be useful to scholars working in the fields of religious rhetoric, Jewish studies, and early Christianity.

A project of recovery and reanimation, Lost Texts in Rhetoric and Composition foregrounds a broad range of publications that deserve renewed attention. Contributors to this volume reclaim these lost texts to reenvision the rhetorical tradition itself. Authors discussed include not only twentieth-century American compositionists but also a linguist, a poet, a philosopher, a painter, a Renaissance rhetorician, and a nineteenth-century pioneer of comics; the collection also features some less-studied works by authors who remain well known. These texts will give rise to new conversations about current ideas in rhetoric and composition. This volume contains discussion of the following authors and titles: Judah Messer Leon, The Book of the Honeycomb's Flow, Angel DeCora, Sterling Andrus Leonard, English Composition as a Social Problem, Rodolphe Töpffer, William James, Kenneth Burke, Adrienne Rich, Ann E. Berthoff, John Mohawk, "Western Peoples, Natural Peoples," William Vande Kopple, William Irmscher, Beat Not the Poor Desk, Walter J. Ong, Geneva Smitherman, Thomas Zebroski, Linda Brodkey, Craig S. Womack, Deborah Cameron, James Slevin, Marilyn Sternglass, and William E. Coles, Jr.