Landmark Essays On Bakhtin Rhetoric And Writing

The essays in this collection give voice to the plurality of approaches that scholars in the field of rhetoric and composition have when they set forth to assimilate Bakhtin for their varied purposes. The collection is arranged in three major sections. The first attempts to capture the most important theoretical extensions of Bakhtin's ideas, and does so with an emphasis on what Bakhtin might contribute to the present understanding of language and rhetoric. The next section explores the implications of Bakhtin's work for both disciplinary identity and writing pedagogy. The final section looks at how Bakhtinian thought can be used to bring new light to concerns that his work either does not address or could not have imagined addressing concerns ranging from writing across the curriculum to feminism, and from computer discourse to the writing of a corporation annual report. Together, these essays demonstrate how fruitfully and imaginatively Bakhtin's ideas can be appropriated for a context that he could not have anticipated. They also serve as an invitation to sustain the dialogue with Bakhtin in the future, so that researchers may yet come to realize the fortuitous ways that Bakhtin will continue to mean more than he said.

The essays in this collection give voice to the plurality of approaches that scholars in the field of rhetoric and composition have when they set forth to assimilate Bakhtin for their varied purposes. The collection is arranged in three major sections. The first attempts to capture the most important theoretical extensions of Bakhtin's ideas, and does so with an emphasis on what Bakhtin might contribute to the present understanding of language and rhetoric. The next section explores the implications of Bakhtin's work for both disciplinary identity and writing pedagogy. The final section looks at how Bakhtinian thought can be used to bring new light to concerns that his work either does not address or could not have imagined addressing concerns ranging from writing across the curriculum to feminism, and from computer discourse to the writing of a corporation annual report. Together, these essays demonstrate how fruitfully and imaginatively Bakhtin's ideas can be appropriated for a context that he could not have anticipated. They also serve as an invitation to sustain the dialogue with Bakhtin in the future, so that researchers may yet come to realize the fortuitous ways that Bakhtin will continue to mean more than he said.

First Published in 1995. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

There is little doubt that Aristotle's Rhetoric has made a major impact on rhetoric and composition studies. This impact has not only been chronicled throughout the history of rhetoric, but has more recently been contested as contemporary rhetoricians reexamine Aristotelian rhetoric and its potential for facilitating contemporary oral and written expression. This volume contains the full text of Father William Grimaldi's monograph studies in the philosophy of Aristotle's Rhetoric. The eight essays presented here are divided into three rubrics: history and philosophical orientation, theoretical perspectives, and historical impact. This collection provides teachers and students with major works on Aristotelian rhetoric that are difficult to acquire and offers readers an opportunity to become active participants in today's deliberations about the merits of Aristotelian rhetoric for contemporary teaching and research.

The studies of rhetoric and literature have been closely connected on the theoretical level ever since antiquity, and many great works of literature were written by men and women who were well versed in rhetoric. It is therefore well worth investigating exactly what these writers knew about rhetoric and how the practice of literary criticism has been enriched through rhetorical knowledge. The essays reprinted here have been arranged chronologically, with two essays selected for each of six major periods: Antiquity, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance (including Shakespeare), the 17th century, the 18th century, and the 19th and 20th centuries. Some are more theoretically oriented, whereas others become exercises in practical criticism. Some cover well-trod ground, whereas others turn to parts of the rhetorical tradition that are often overlooked. Scholars in the field should benefit from having this material collected together and reprinted in one volume, but the essays included here will also be useful to graduate students and advanced undergraduates for course work and general reading. Students of rhetoric seeking to understand how the principles of their field extend into other forms of communication will find this volume of interest, as will students of literature seeking to refine their understanding of the various modes of literary criticism.

This book is an anthology of landmark essays in rhetorical criticism. In historical usage, a landmark marks a path or a boundary; as a metaphor in social and intellectual history, landmark signifies some act or event that marks a significant achievement or turning point in the progress or decline of human effort. In the history of an academic discipline, the historically established senses of landmark are mixed together, jostling to set out and protect the turfmarkers of academic specialization; aligning footnotes to signify the beacons that have guided thought and, against these "conservative" tendencies, attempting to contribute fresh insights that tempt others along new trails. The editor has chosen essays for this collection that give some sense of the history of rhetorical criticism in this century, especially as it has been practiced in the discipline of speech communication. He also emphasizes materials that may illustrate where the discipline conceives itself to be going -- how it has marked its boundaries; how it has established beacons to invite safety or warn us from the rocks; and how it has sought to preserve a tradition by subjecting it to constant revision and struggle. In the hope of providing some coherence, the scope of this collection is limited to rhetorical criticism as it has been practiced and understood within the discipline of speech communication in North America in this century.

Dialogue has suffered a long eclipse in the history of philosophy and the history of rhetoric but has enjoyed a rebirth in the work of Hans-Georg Gadamer, Martin Buber, and Mikhail Bakhtin. Among twentieth-century figures, Bakhtin took a special interest in the history of the dialogue form. This book explores Bakhtin's understanding of Socratic dialogue and the notion that dialogue is not simply a way of persuading others to accept our ideas, but a way of holding ourselves, and others, accountable for all of our thoughts, words, and actions. In supporting this premise, Bakhtin challenges the traditions of argument and persuasion handed down from Plato and Aristotle, and he offers, as an alternative, a dialogical rhetoric that restructures the traditional relationship between speakers and listeners, writers and readers, as a mutual testing, contesting, and creating of ideas. The author suggests that Bakhtin's dialogical rhetoric is not restricted to oral discourse, but is possible in any medium, including written, graphic, and digital.