Theodore Roosevelt and the rhetoric of citizenship: On tour in new England, 1902

This study examines the speeches and events of Theodore Roosevelt's New England tour of 1902. Specifically, it looks at how Roosevelt developed a representative anecdote of the “good citizen” as a basis for his political philosophy and his advocacy of policy initiatives. This representative anecdote allowed Roosevelt's audiences to participate in the rhetorical situation as an enactment of the “good citizen” and thus provided a strong presence for Roosevelt's argument. Implications for understanding both Roosevelt's rhetoric as well as the concept of the rhetorical presidency are discussed.     

#RhetoricSoWhite and US centered: Reflections on challenges and opportunities

In this essay, I interrogate the normalized characteristics of whiteness embedded in the disciplinary norms and forms of knowledge production in the field of Rhetorical Studies. I attend to the normative ways the exclusion of the knowledge(s) and experiences of non-White, non-Western, non-US people reproduces systemic erasure and Euro-American dominant ways of thinking about rhetoric stepped in coloniality and whiteness. I present what has been thoroughly theorized by Feminist, Queer, Trans*, Chicana, Latina/x, Third World, Indigenous, and Black rhetorical scholars that mere “inclusion” and “tolerance” of difference with regards to race, class, gender, ability, sexuality and nationality cannot fully address the violence of white capitalist heteropatriarchy in academia. I propose that rhetorical scholars should pay careful attention to voice and relationality in our scholarly works in order to address the concealments of coloniality and difference in our theorizing and production of knowledge.     

Homeless women self-advocates: The quest from liminal to full citizenship

ABSTRACT

This essay explores how homeless women produce advocacy to gain full and substantive citizenship. Homeless women's attempts to gain recognition as full members of the society require them to transform lived experiences of trauma, exclusion, and loss into public arguments. Facing the intersection of civic exclusion by class and gender, homeless women are commonly viewed as welfare-dependent, irrational, and present-oriented, and are, therefore, considered the opposite of “good citizens.” Despite their legal citizenship, homeless women are essentially liminal citizens—their citizenship is lacking substantial political power and is thus barren. This essay explores how liminal citizens attempt to secure full citizenship by looking behind-the-scenes at their self-advocacy production process. Employing rhetorical field methods, the essay offers an interpretive reading of in-depth interviews with homeless women self-advocates and illuminates three aspects of the advocacy production process: recognizing the worth of the story; deciding to tell traumatic stories; and crafting the story. By unpacking the self-advocacy production process this essay animates the discussion about the mechanisms required to foster a deep and inclusive democracy from a rhetorical perspective.     

Slippin’ in and out of frame: An Afrafuturist feminist orientation to Black women and American citizenship

ABSTRACT

Heeding Karma Chavez’s (2015) call to imagine rhetoric as “something entirely different,” I introduce what I call an Afrafuturist Feminist (AFF) rhetorical approach with the aim of offering one means by which rhetorical studies can move beyond normative white constructions of citizenship. In this piece, I flesh out a theoretical framework that explores the ways Black women’s truthtelling engineers rival conceptions of Blackness, creating spaces for us to reimagine what citizenship can look like in the lived experiences of Black Americans. I invoke the phrase, “in and out of frame,” to preliminarily consider how Black women like Assata Shakur and Cardi B employ rhetoric as threat to negotiate citizenship in the 20th and 21st centuries.     

Melancholic nostalgia,collective memories,and the cinematic representations of nationalistic identities in indochine

This essay provides a rhetorical analysis of the French film, Indochine. The authors argue that this cinematic representation constitutes a good example of “melancholic nostalgia,” where producers and viewers used archetypal characters and romantic entanglements as a way of explaining the strengths and weaknesses of various French and “Indo‐Chinese” colonial relationships. The essay argues that the producers of the film tapped into collective longings for symbolic pasts that may never have existed. The authors conclude that Indochine should be considered as a negotiated compromise that tells us more about the needs of modern Western, French and Vietnamese audiences than it does about any “real” colonial past.     

Gender,Rhetoric, and International Political Systems: Angela Merkel's Rhetorical Negotiation of Proportional Representation and Party Politics

This article assesses the ways in which electoral systems present unique rhetorical challenges for women running for elective office, using German Chancellor Angela Merkel as a case study. In proportional systems, much of the rhetorical work occurs at the level of the party, requiring the political woman to capitalize on the rhetorical resources of the party structure in which she finds herself, advancing to party leadership, and eventually localizing the national election via the party structure. However, Merkel's performance demonstrates that the presence of women and of feminine norms of communication can sometimes mask the hegemonic masculinity that continues to govern democratic electoral systems. The authors conclude by considering the utility of the theory of “feminine style.”     

《醒世姻缘传》中的反问副词

明末清初白话小说《醒世姻缘传》中反问副词有"岂"、"没的"、"难道"、"可"、"岂可"、"却"、"莫非"等。它们意义相同,但用法不尽相同。与《金瓶梅词话》比较,《醒世姻缘传》中的反问副词有简化的趋势,但使用总次数明显增加;这些反问副词的使用频率也发生了一些显著的变化。     

朱自清先生《南京》的修辞艺术

《南京》是朱自清先生众多散文中较为著名的一篇游记散文。朱自清先生在文中通过炼音、炼词、炼句等修辞方式,抒发了对南京的怀古与赞美之情。现从修辞艺术的角度,归纳出《南京》一文中最主要的修辞规律,了解修辞方法和技巧,更好地欣赏原著,并在写作中得以借鉴。     

The symbolic construction of social realities: A case study in the rhetorical criticism of paradox

This essay explores the possibility that a rhetorical figure can create, maintain, and mediate a perspective of reality or worldview. By way of an extended example, the rhetorical figure of paradox is cast as an organizing construct, creating a kind of “order”; or logic among experiences and phenomena typically felt to be at odds with one another. The ways in which a “paradoxical worldview”; can come into existence syntactically, semantically, and pragmatically are specified. In addition, the range of reactions to a paradoxical worldview, for both users and non‐users are described. The essay concludes by identifying prototypes, parameters, and evaluation principles for the analysis of paradoxical worldviews. Thus, this analysis ultimately posits that any rhetorical figure can theoretically generate and control a worldview.     

The field of speech, 1953: An overview

Inherent in the rhetorical tradition of symbolic form is the search for the rhetorical processes which convert experience into the social forms of community. Fusing Robert Scott's notion of rhetoric as dynamic with the rhetorical concept of “spectacle,” this essay explores “the dynamic spectacle” as a rhetorical document of community building. Black America's struggle for identity in White America is offered as a case study.     

Now you’re making it up,brother: Paul Robeson,HUAC, and the challenge of institutional narrative authority

In the mid 1950s, the House Committee on Un-American Activities was a rhetorical colossus. Within the closed doors of a hearing, committee members displayed a rhetorical mastery of procedural, topical, and logical moves that left even the best-prepared witnesses sputtering. HUAC used institutional narrative authority as a major rhetorical resource. This strategy rhetorically produced a narrative “reality” conducive to achieving institutional goals. Having established the “official” version of events, the committee situated further argumentation within a value hierarchy that placed national security above “secondary” values that witnesses attempted to invoke in their defenses. A notable exception to the committee's rhetorical dominance came in the 1956 testimony of Paul Robeson, an African American singer and activist who had been called before the committee to answer for pro-Soviet statements he made while traveling abroad. Using a number of rhetorical tactics to disrupt the institutional narrative, Robeson was able to recontextualize his comments within an interpretive framework of racial justice in America – a debate the committee was less prepared to handle. This article contributes to ongoing studies of institutional rhetoric, especially rhetorical argumentation that takes place within institutional settings.     

The Changing Corporate Mind: Organizations,Vision, Missions,Purposes, and Indicators on the Move Toward Societal Payoffs

Where are the world's organizations headed? What do they see as their primary destination and contribution? What do they commit to deliver and to whom? How rigorous are they in defining their destinations? What label do they use to describe statements of their intended future? To find the answers to these and other questions, we examined 26 of the leading organizations internationally as well as 60 leading organizations in the United States. Based on this sample of world organizations, we found indications that many organizations see some aspect of societal good as basic to their future, while many others regard their own organization's well-being as what is most important. We find no clear favorite for what organizations label their statements of purpose: most use “mission” while some use “vision,” and some use “values” or “philosophy.” Few of the organizations in our sample state their intended destination in measurable performance terms. From these data, we discuss the implications in terms of an increasing emphasis in the literature on organizations having to deliver outputs that contribute to external clients and society. We also note that purpose statements must be accompanied by appropriate actions to achieve those intentions. In addition, we discuss how this move toward socially-responsive organizations is impacting the role of the performance technologist.     

A Traumatic Reading of Twentieth-Century Rhetorical Theory: The Belgian Holocaust,Malines, Perelman,and de Man

In this essay, I seek to read the rhetorical theories set forth by Belgians Chaïm Perelman and Paul de Man as responses to the Holocaust. To accomplish this aspiration, I draw from Dominick LaCapra's framework for the analysis of trauma and its expression in historical and theoretical texts. Reading the rhetorical theories of Perelman and de Man, two of the most prominent of the twentieth century, through a lens of trauma theory allows critics to see them as post-war efforts to deal with the implications of the absence of meaning, the murder and loss of 25,257 Belgian Jews, Fascism, genocide, and de Man's collaboration with the Nazis. I argue that Perelman's rhetoric theory better “works-through” the Belgian Holocaust than the one offered by de Man because it offers a vision of reason that can yield justice and places collaborators in the “grey zone” of totalitarian societies and logical positivism, thereby offering de Man partial absolution for his endorsement of the German occupation and anti-Semitism. De Man's rhetorical theory appears to act out the Belgian Holocaust, for it rehearses the act of deconstruction, does not name its traumatic exigence, lacks the theoretical resources to deal with the material past, fails to offer better choices for the present, or provide a vision of the future. Reading rhetorical theories as responses to the exigences of trauma calls for a reconsideration of the contexts and motives driving the creation of the major rhetorical theories of the twentieth century, including those of Heidegger and Grassi.     

唐代女诗人言语修辞与生态文化语境特征

生态语言学关注生态文化背景下的语言现象。唐代女诗人陷于男性中心的语言架构之中,言语修辞表现出"双性特质"。她们运用"同一"策略谋求交际主体之间共同的认知、经验与文化。唐代女诗人言语修辞的"双性特质"通过正统地位的诗歌篇章选择、内敛阅读体验空间的"紧缩句"句式选择、高远气象的词语选择得以呈现。唐代女诗人言语修辞的"双性特质"是女性本真言说与语境生态制约之间矛盾冲突的结果。     

Book Reviews: After the New Rhetoric

In this article, I trace appropriations of the Bengali bandit Devi Chaudhurani as she is transfigured within the Indian nationalist novel Devi Chaudhurani and the contemporary feminist street play Meye Dile Sajiye or Giving Away the Girl. These representations are characterized by an eclecticism and a hybridity that treat “the bandit” as a hermeneutical resource for rhetorical invention. Each representation draws its force from the tensions and incongruities it strategically manifests, playing with indigenous Indian and colonial notions of criminality in order to advance ideologically complex arguments about the social conditions for women and their roles in colonial and postcolonial society.     

Bertolt Brecht's “prospectus of the Diderot society”

This essay suggests that power be conceived as a dialectic of “authorship” and “authority.” Interest in understanding the rhetorical power of sacred texts is blended with interest in explaining the cultural origins of Anglo‐American social order. Because it is inherently persuasive, and because it became the first principle of arguments for justifying hierarchy, the Biblical story of creation should be read as an archetype that circumscribes all possible power relationships in Judeo‐Christian cultures.     

Teacher Dissent in Neoliberal Times: Counter-Publics and Alternative-Publics in Teacher Activism

In this essay, Terrenda White examines distinct forms of activism by two influential organizations: the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) and Teach for America (TFA). Despite differences between these groups, both have created new discourses and alliances among teachers in the public sphere — what White calls “teacher publics.” These new alliances, White argues, can be conceptualized as counter-publics and alternative-publics. CTU is a counter-public because its activities counter the tradition of top-down insular unionism and embrace “social movement unionism” where teachers are part of an expansive coalition for social transformation, including contesting city and state bureaucracies for adequate resources and equitable practices on behalf of minoritized communities. TFA has also created expansive coalitions for change, embracing a “new professionalism” that rejects public contestations with state leaders for resources. As an alternative-public, TFA engages a network of private philanthropists and business leaders to generate change in public education through market-based initiatives that challenge bureaucratic control of teachers and schools and that incentivize competition, audit culture, and data-driven decision-making. These two cases, because their approaches to educational change are so different, provide fertile ground for White's evaluation of what new forms of activism mean for the democratic goals of public schools.     

(Re)Bordering the Civic Imaginary: Rhetoric,Hybridity, and Citizenship in La Gran Marcha

Though the drive to limit US citizenship often takes shape through the symbolic and material exclusion of “aliens,” immigrants also engage in rhetorical struggles over the limits of the US civic imaginary. This essay examines one such challenge to the bordering logics of US citizenship—La Gran Marcha, one of the largest immigration protests of 2006. Rather than see the protest as wholly “alien,” as it was conceived of by anti-immigrant forces, or as purely “American,” as an attempt for mere recognition, La Gran Marcha can best be understood as performing a hybrid US citizenship. This hybrid rhetoric problematizes contemporary understandings of citizenship and elucidates immigrants' agency within US democracy.     

莫言小说《蛙》的“前景化”偏离策略

"前景化"修辞是莫言小说的一大特色。"前景化"是指通过变异将所要表达的语言从常规背景中"突出"出来,包括"偏离"和"平行"两种手段,"偏离"即打破语言规范,集中表现在对语义、语法常规的反叛。同时莫言具有很强的感觉意识,极力追求语言上的超验感知,善于结合语境制造出新奇陌生的感觉描写。笔者从"偏离"手段出发,探讨莫言代表作之一《蛙》词语层面与视听感觉描写层面的"偏离"及其"前景化"修辞效果。