In recent accounts of rhetoric's storied productivity, commentators have implied, along systematically Kantian lines, albeit with the occasional protestation, that agency must be coextensive with subjectivity. But is that all there is (to 2,500 years' worth of hypothesizing about the ways in which communication might promote social change)? Les Belikian's answer, drawing not only on traditional and contemporary rhetorical studies but also on Deleuzean thinking, actor-network theory, and object-oriented ontology, takes the form of a quadruply contrarian thesis: Rhetorical agency inheres, irreducibly so, in subjectivity, in conventionality, in transcendence, and in materiality, all of which are themselves under production. TABLE OF CONTENTS // Chapter 1: Productivity as a Context for Theorizing Rhetorical Transaction - A Miscellaneously Self-Effacing Rhetorical Agency? - Rhetoricity Bound, Unbounded, and Both - Variegation (Not Conglomeration) - Chapter 2: A Four-Folded Rhetorical Agency - Tetradic Due Diligence - Disaggregating a Constitution - A Willfully Productive Rhetorical Agency - Assemblage-Theoretical Resources - Triangulation - An Investigative Itinerary - Chapter 3: Subjectivity in the Social-Structural Landscape - Co-Constructing Constraint - Can the Speaker Speak? - An Ineffectual Agency - Subtracting from Rhetorical Practice - What Else Is Wrong with This Paradigm? - A Chimerical Agency for a Colossal Agent - Chapter 4: Conventionality in the Rhetorical-Humanistic Landscape - De-Leviathanizing the Normative - From Normativity to Shared Values - A Tribe of Equals - Keeping Shared Values between the Ceiling and the Seat - Staying the Same by Doing Something Differently - Maximizing Assent by Minimizing Recalcitrance - Still Missing So Far - Chapter 5: Transcendence in the Existential-Transversal Landscape - Existence, Transcendence, and Transversality - Philosophizing for the Living by Getting Rid of Their Materiality - The Two Styles of Transcendence - The Fideistic Appeal - Correcting Forgetfulness through a Material Phenomenology - Rhetorical Agency and the Existential Self - On Pivoting, Transcendence, and Emergence - The Rhetorical Agent and the Original Body - A Re-Corporealized Transversality - Chapter 6: Materiality in the Material-Semiotic Landscape - A Parable of Materiality-and-Relationality - Assemblaging, Stratification, and Circulating Reference - Entering at Biblical Precept - Crossing over to Race - From Race to Gender - Rescaling the Envoy - And A'n't We a Meshwork? - Chapter 7: Agency in the Rhetorical-Theoretical World - No More Homogenization Now! - On Keeping Difference Different - A Fluctuating Rhetorical Agent

The eleven studies in this volume illustrate and advance the synthesis of discourse analysis with rhetorical studies. Rhetoric in Detail shows how a variety of techniques from discourse analysis can be useful in studying such concerns as agency, legitimation, controversy, and style, and how concepts from rhetoric including genre and figuration can enrich the work of discourse analysts. The authors' research sites range from government commissions, political speeches, newspaper reports and letters to interviews and conversations in beauty salons and online. Methodological overviews interspersed throughout survey critical discourse analysis, interactional sociolinguistics, grounded theory, computer-aided corpus analysis, narrative analysis, and participant observation and provide suggestions for further reading. Rhetoric in Detail is an invaluable source for rhetoricians looking for systematic, grounded ways of approaching new, more vernacular sites for rhetorical discourse and for discourse analysts interested in seeing what they can learn from the tradition and practice of rhetorical analysis.

Theorizing Digital Rhetoric takes up the intersection of rhetorical theory and digital technology to explore the ways in which rhetoric is challenged by new technologies and how rhetorical theory can illuminate discursive expression in digital contexts. The volume combines complex rhetorical theory with personal anecdotes about the use of technologies to create a larger philosophical and rhetorical account of how theorists approach the examinations of new and future digital technologies. This collection of essays emphasizes the ways that digital technology intrudes upon rhetorical theory and how readers can be everyday rhetorical critics within an era of ever-increasing use of digital technology. Each chapter effectively blends theorizing between rhetoric and digital technology, informing readers of the potentiality between the two ideas. The theoretical perspectives informed by digital media studies, rhetorical theory, and personal/professional use provide a robust accounting of digital rhetoric that is timely, personable, and useful.

Fifty Years of Rhetoric Society Quarterly: Selected Readings, 1968-2018 celebrates the semicentennial of Rhetoric Society Quarterly, bringing together the most influential essays included in the journal over the past fifty years. Assessed by members of the Rhetoric Society of America, this collection provides advanced undergraduate and graduate students with a balanced perspective on rhetorical theory and practice from scholars in both communication studies and rhetoric and writing studies. The volume covers a range of themes, from the history of rhetorical studies, writing and speaking pedagogy, and feminism, to the work of Kenneth Burke, the rhetoric of science, and rhetorical agency.

Community Literacy and the Rhetoric of Public Engagement explores the critical practice of intercultural inquiry and rhetorical problem-solving that encourages urban writers and college mentors alike to take literate action. Author Linda Flower documents an innovative experiment in community literacy, the Community Literacy Center in Pittsburgh, and posits a powerful and distinctively rhetorical model of community engagement and pedagogy for both marginalized and privileged writers and speakers. In addition, she articulates a theory of local publics and explores the transformative potential of alternative discourses and counter-public performances. In presenting a comprehensive pedagogy for literate action, the volume offers strategies for talking and collaborating across difference, forconducting an intercultural inquiry that draws out situated knowledge and rival interpretations of shared problems, and for writing and speaking to advocate for personal and public transformation. Flower describes the competing scripts for social engagement, empowerment, public deliberation, and agency that characterize the interdisciplinary debate over models of social engagement. Extending the Community Literacy Center’s initial vision of community literacy first published a decade ago, Community Literacy and the Rhetoric of Public Engagement makes an important contribution to theoretical conversations about the nature of the public sphere while providing practical instruction in how all people can speak publicly for values and visions of change. Winner, 2009 Rhetoric Society of America Book Award

The SAGE Handbook of Rhetorical Studies surveys the latest advances in rhetorical scholarship, synthesizing theories and practices across major areas of study in the field and pointing the way for future studies. Edited by Andrea A. Lunsford and Associate Editors Kirt H. Wilson and Rosa A. Eberly, the Handbook aims to introduce a new generation of students to rhetorical study and provide a deeply informed and ready resource for scholars currently working in the field.

A one-stop source for scholars and advanced students who want to get the latest and best overview and discussion of how organizations use rhetoric While the disciplinary study of rhetoric is alive and well, there has been curiously little specific interest in the rhetoric of organizations. This book seeks to remedy that omission. It presents a research collection created by the insights of leading scholars on rhetoric and organizations while discussing state-of-the-art insights from disciplines that have and will continue to use rhetoric. Beginning with an introduction to the topic, The Handbook of Organizational Rhetoric and Communication offers coverage of the foundations and macro-contexts of rhetoric—as well as its use in organizational communication, public relations, marketing, management and organization theory. It then looks at intellectual and moral foundations without which rhetoric could not have occurred, discussing key concepts in rhetorical theory. The book then goes on to analyze the processes of rhetoric and the challenges and strategies involved. A section is also devoted to discussing rhetorical areas or genres—namely contextual application of rhetoric and the challenges that arise, such as strategic issues for management and corporate social responsibility. The final part seeks to answer questions about the book’s contribution to the understanding of organizational rhetoric. It also examines what perspectives are lacking, and what the future might hold for the study of organizational rhetoric. Examines the advantages and perils of organizations that seek to project their voices in order to shape society to their benefits Contains chapters working in the tradition of rhetorical criticism that ask whether organizations’ rhetorical strategies have fulfilled their organizational and societal value Discusses the importance of obvious, traditional, nuanced, and critically valued strategies such as rhetorical interaction in ways that benefit discourse Explores the potential, risks, paradoxes, and requirements of engagement Reflects the views of a team of scholars from across the globe Features contributions from organization-centered fields such as organizational communication, public relations, marketing, management, and organization theory The Handbook of Organizational Rhetoric and Communication will be an ideal resource for advanced undergraduate students, graduate students, and scholars studying organizational communications, public relations, management, and rhetoric.