Rhetoric In The Rest Of The West

While the study of the history of rhetoric has expanded to include an ever-growing range of rhetorical traditions, lesser-known figures, and under- and un-studied texts, it has continued to exist in the hermetically sealed binary of West and Rest. Rhetorical scholars have begun uncovering the many marginalized rhetorical traditions silenced by the homogenous nature of our histories themselves, reading and writing new histories of the rhetorical tradition through frames from gender to geography. Despite these substantial challenges to the traditionally received history of rhetoric, many voices are still silenced and many spaces are still excluded—voices speaking within the spaces of the less-than-monolithic West itself. This silencing and excluding continues, perhaps, because of assumptions that no texts exist from these marginalized voices or that substantial rhetorical activity was not conducted in these marginalized spaces—regardless of already extant evidence of rhetorical activity as diverse as rural civic ethos in Classical Greece and Etruscan influences on Roman rhetoric or long-standing passive knowledge of scholarly activity in Medieval Andalusia and Ireland. Rhetoric in the Rest of the West attempts to expand the conversation in those gaps in the history of rhetoric by examining the traditions that lost the cultural competition and have been shrouded in the shadow of the rhetorical tradition.

This book arises from a symposium held in Oxford to consider the most fruitful trajectories of rhetoric in the 21st century. The gathering comprised an international delegation of leading scholars convened to assess—from an array of perspectives – the various possible futures of the ancient discipline of rhetoric as it responds vitally to the evolving contexts of the new millennium. This collection commemorates that event by extending its scrutiny into a number of specific fields of inquiry. It includes a foreword by Prof James J. Murphy, an introductory article by the editors, and six further articles commissioned from among the participants. The introduction provides a detailed account of the symposium, and foregrounds the delegates’ articles with a résumé of their arguments and consequent relevance to the overarching theme. Each contribution is a freshly minted and original piece of scholarship, true to the generative and interactive spirit of the enterprise, and speaking pertinently to the field of international rhetoric studies at the present time. Rhetoric in the Twenty-First Century addresses a spectrum of concerns. Scholars and students of rhetoric and language-use will naturally find much of interest here, and the inclusive ambit of the work will also appeal to students of ethics, religion, comparative literature, intercultural studies, and the growing field of communication studies.

Greek and Roman traditions dominate classical rhetoric. Conventional historical accounts characterize Roman rhetoric as an appropriation and modification of Greek rhetoric, particularly the rhetoric that flourished in fifth and fourth centuries BCE Athens. However, the origins, nature and endurance of this Greco-Roman relationship have not been thoroughly explained. Roman Rhetoric: Revolution and the Greek Influence reveals that while Romans did benefit from Athenian rhetoric, their own rhetoric was also influenced by later Greek and non-Hellenic cultures, particularly the Etruscan civilization that held hegemony over all of Italy for hundreds of years before Rome came to power.

Rhetoric in Modern Japan is the first volume to discuss the role of Western rhetoric in the creation of a modern Japanese oral and narrative style. It considers the introduction of Western rhetoric, clarifying its interactions with the forces and synergies that shaped Japanese literature and culture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Focusing on the Meiji and Taishō years (1868-1926), it challenges the prevailing view among contemporary scholars that rhetoric did not play a significant role in the literary developments of the period. Massimiliano Tomasi chronicles the blooming of scholarship in the field in the early 1870s, providing the first descriptive analysis and cogently articulated critique of the major rhetorical treatises of the time. In discussing the rise of public speaking in early Meiji society, he unveils the existence of crucial links between the study of rhetoric and the social and literary events of the time, underscoring the key role played by oratory both as a tool for social modernization and as an effective platform for the reappraisal of the spoken language. The collusion and conflicts characterizing rhetoric and its relationship with the genbun itchi movement, which sought to unify spoken and written language, are explored, demonstrating that their perceived antagonism was the uh_product of a misguided notion of rhetoric and the process of rhetorical signification rather than a true theoretical conflict. Tomasi makes a convincing argument that, in fact, Western rhetoric mediated between these equally compelling pursuits and paved the way toward an acceptable compromise between classical and colloquial written styles.

The essays in this volume, presented in honour of John O. Ward, explore the role of rhetoric in promoting reform and renewal in the Latin West from Peter Abelard (1079-1142) to Juan Luis Vives (1492-1540). Ward, who has taught for many years at the University of Sydney, has been an influential and creative force in medieval and Renaissance studies both in Australia and internationally. This volume opens with a personal memoir and bibliography of Ward's publications, as well as an overview of the study of medieval rhetoric. The first of the three sections, 'Abelard and Rhetoric', relates Abelard's rhetoric to his logic, his theology, and his relationship to Heloise. A second section, 'Voices of Reform', considers various writers (William of Malmesbury, John of Salisbury, Richard FitzNigel, and William of Ockham) who bring rhetorical techniques to bear upon analysis of social conditions. A third section, 'Rhetoric in Transition', deals with the evolution of rhetorical theory between the late fourteenth and early sixteenth centuries. The volume will be of interest not just to specialists in rhetoric, but to all concerned with issues of reform and renewal in European culture during the period 1100-1540.

The current study argues that different cultures can coexist better today if we focus not only on what separates them but also on what connects them. To do so, the author discusses how both Aristotle and Confucius see rhetoric as a mode of thinking that is indispensable to the human understanding of the truths of things or dao-the-way, or, how both see the human understanding of the truths of things or dao-the-way as necessarily communal, open-ended, and discursive. Based on this similarity, the author aims to develop a more nuanced understanding of differences to help foster better cross-cultural communication. In making the argument, she critically examines two stereotyped views: that Aristotle’s concept of essence or truth is too static to be relevant to the rhetorical focus on the realm of human affairs and that Confucius’ concept of dao-the-way is too decentered to be compatible with the inferential/discursive thinking. In addition, the author relies primarily on the interpretations of the Analects by two 20th-century Chinese Confucians to supplement the overreliance on renderings of the Analects in recent comparative rhetorical scholarship. The study shows that we need an in-depth understanding of both the other and the self to comprehend the relation between the two.

In Discursive Ideologies, C. H. Knoblauch argues that European rhetorical theory comprises several distinct and fundamentally opposed traditions of discourse. Writing accessibly for the upper division student, Knoblauch resists the conventional narrative of a unified Western rhetorical tradition. He identifies deep ideological and epistemological differences that exist among strands of Western thought and that are based in divergent "grounds of meaningfulness.” These conflicts underlie and influence current discourse about vital public issues. Knoblauch considers six "stories” about the meaning of meaning in an attempt to answer the question, what encourages us to believe that language acts are meaningful? Six distinctive ideologies of Western rhetoric emerge: magical rhetoric, ontological rhetoric, objectivist rhetoric, expressivist rhetoric, sociological rhetoric, and deconstructive rhetoric. He explores the nature of language and the important role these rhetorics play in the discourses that matter most to people, such as religion, education, public policy, science, law, and history.

The white man's burden, darkest Africa, the seduction of the primitive: such phrases were widespread in the language Western empires used to talk about their colonial enterprises. How this language itself served imperial purposes--and how it survives today in writing about the Third World--are the subject of David Spurr's book, a revealing account of the rhetorical strategies that have defined Western thinking about the non-Western world.Despite historical differences among British, French, and American versions of colonialism, their rhetoric had much in common. The Rhetoric of Empire identifies these shared features--images, figures of speech, and characteristic lines of argument--and explores them in a wide variety of sources. A former correspondent for the United Press International, the author is equally at home with journalism or critical theory, travel writing or official documents, and his discussion is remarkably comprehensive. Ranging from T. E. Lawrence and Isak Dineson to Hemingway and Naipaul, from Time and the New Yorker to the National Geographic and Le Monde, from journalists such as Didion and Sontag to colonial administrators such as Frederick Lugard and Albert Sarraut, this analysis suggests the degree to which certain rhetorical tactics penetrate the popular as well as official colonial and postcolonial discourse.Finally, Spurr considers the question: Can the language itself--and with it, Western forms of interpretation--be freed of the exercise of colonial power? This ambitious book is an answer of sorts. By exposing the rhetoric of empire, Spurr begins to loosen its hold over discourse about--and between--different cultures.