Establishing the Rhetorical Presidency through Presidential Rhetoric: Theodore Roosevelt and the Brownsville Raid

Theodore Roosevelt was an important figure in the development of the presidency as a primary and authoritative source for definitions of national identity. Through an analysis of three specific rhetorical moves Roosevelt made in arguments over the “proper” interpretation of the Brownsville Raid, this essay examines how Roosevelt both justified his dismissal of the soldiers and increased the definitional power of his institution. Brownsville highlights the importance of the presidency's constitutive and rhetorical power, especially as that power pertains to ideologically based definitions of national identity and the role of minorities within that identity, and illuminates the argumentative forms that undergird that constitutive power.     

From inactivity to encouragement: the contribution of Lord Elphinstone to the educational development of the Madras Presidency (1837–1842)

In light of the focus placed on English education by the colonial government, and the petition signed by 70,000 local inhabitants of the Madras Presidency, Lord John Elphinstone, the Governor, made efforts to disseminate English education during his governorship (1837–1842). Spurred on by the petition, Elphinstone wrote two fundamental educational minutes, in 1839 and 1841, and established Madras High School. Later, the School was transformed into Presidency College and became the first home of the University of Madras. Elphinstone’s planning led to the first systematic effort by the Madras government to impart English education. Subsequently, Elphinstone emphasised the dissemination of secular education and inclusion of native people in educational administration. Against this background, this paper discusses the contribution of Elphinstone to the educational development of Madras. It also questions the historiographical neglect of Elphinstone and challenges the established post-colonial discourse that the establishment of English institutions was a ‘colonialist’ imposition.     

民元孙中山让位的共赢性

民元孙中山让位,是多种社会力量博弈的结果,既不是革命党人的完全失败,也不是袁世凯的大获全胜,又不是帝国主义、立宪派的无利可图,而是一个共赢的结果。这表现在:清王室退位,享有优待条件;袁世凯费心机获大总统席位;孙中山让位得民主共和;帝国主义、立宪派调停盼到稳定统一。     

Citizen Havel and the Construction of Czech Presidentiality

Václav Havel had two eventful terms as the first democratic president of the Czech Republic. The documentary Citizen Havel is one rhetorical artifact that captures the way a new democracy and its attendant executive power is constructed consciously in real time in a political culture where such a tradition has largely not existed. Culled from ten years of fly-on-the-wall-style footage, Citizen Havel captures the tensions between the constitutional expectations of the Czech presidency and Havel's own extraconstitutional interpretations of executive power. Ultimately, this essay argues that Citizen Havel is one influential representation of how Czech “presidentiality” during the post-communist transition was built from the inventional resources of a range of rhetorical and historical materials, such as the Czechoslovakian interwar period, the long influence of totalitarianism and the dissident culture that challenged it, the examples of “Western” presidential rhetoric, and even European monarchical traditions.     

Václav Havel at the End of the Cold War: The Invention of Post-Communist Transition in the Address to U.S. Congress,February 21, 1990

A mere three months after the peaceful Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, and less than a year after his last imprisonment under the communist regime, playwright-turned-president Václav Havel stood before a joint session of U.S. Congress in February of 1990. In his address, Havel marked, for his American audience, the new freedoms being established at home. More than just a victory lap, however, Havel’s visit articulated the importance of the invention of post-communism, as the end of the Cold War had to be constructed for his global audience. Havel’s version of invention in the speech used temporality and embodiment as key rhetorical materials—as he emphasized the opportune moment of the end of the Cold War, he also embodied the higher moral sense of responsibility and democratic civic culture that he believed the moment called for. However, this inventive process was understood differently by his American, European, and Czech audiences, and his attempts to transcend Cold War frames were highly contested. Havel thus became a complex symbol of the transition between the Cold War and the post-Cold War, which showed the tensions around the implementation of a “new world order.”