Rhetoric and rhetorical theory have been gaining in prominence throughout the 20th century. As leaders in all fields give careful attention to issues in communication, rhetoric becomes increasingly central to a range of disciplines. Many of these leaders have shaped rhetorical theory through their work in other fields, and rhetoric becomes more and more difficult to define and delimit. This reference is a guide to major trends and developments in rhetoric and rhetorical theory during the last 100 years. Included are alphabetically arranged entries for major and minor rhetoricians, such as Mikhail Bakhtin, Roland Barthes, Wayne Booth, Paul de Man, Jacques Derrida, Peter Elbow, and Linda Flower. Each entry is written by an expert contributor and includes a brief biography, an analysis of the figure's rhetorical theory, and a current bibliography of primary and secondary sources. The figures included represent a range of rhetorical schools. An extensive introduction discusses these schools, and the volume concludes with extensive bibliographical material.

Kuypers, King, and their contributors explore the conception of rhetoric of eleven key American rhetoricians through analyses of their life's work. Each chapter provides a sense of that scholar's conception of rhetoric, be it through criticism, theory, or teaching. The communication discipline often highlights the work of others outside the discipline; however, it rarely acclaims the work of its own critics, teachers, and theorists. In this collection, the essays explore the innate mode of perception that guided the rhetorical understanding of the early critics. In so doing, this work dispels the myth that the discipline of Speech Communication was spawned from a monolithic and rigid center that came to be called neo-Aristotelianism. Scholars and researchers involved with the history of rhetoric, rhetorical criticism and theory, and American public address uill find this title to be a necessary addition to their collection.

Alphabetically arranged entries on roughly 60 leading rhetoricians of antiquity detail their lives and writings and cite works for further reading.

Rhetoric and rhetorical theory have been gaining in prominence throughout the 20th century. As leaders in all fields give careful attention to issues in communication, rhetoric becomes increasingly central to a range of disciplines. Many of these leaders have shaped rhetorical theory through their work in other fields, and rhetoric becomes more and more difficult to define and delimit. This reference is a guide to major trends and developments in rhetoric and rhetorical theory during the last 100 years. Included are alphabetically arranged entries for major and minor rhetoricians, such as Mikhail Bakhtin, Roland Barthes, Wayne Booth, Paul de Man, Jacques Derrida, Peter Elbow, and Linda Flower. Each entry is written by an expert contributor and includes a brief biography, an analysis of the figure's rhetorical theory, and a current bibliography of primary and secondary sources. The figures included represent a range of rhetorical schools. An extensive introduction discusses these schools, and the volume concludes with extensive bibliographical material.

Self-help authors like Tom Peters and Stephen Covey, who have dominated best-seller lists over the last two decades, have exercised increasing influence on political, governmental, and educational organizations. By contrast, the topic of American success books-- texts that promise to help readers succeed by retrofitting their identity to meet workplace demands--has been ignored by scholars since the 1980s. John Ramage challenges the neglect of this hugely popular literature and revives a once-lively conversation among eminent critics about the social phenomenon represented in the work of Bruce Barton, Dale Carnegie, and Norman Vincent Peale, among others. Using literary texts from Don Quixote to Catch-22 to gloss the discussion, Ramage utilizes Kenneth Burke's rhetorical theory to understand symbolic acts and social issues and brings together earlier commentaries within a new critical framework. He considers the problematic and paradoxical nature of success and examines its meaning in terms of its traditional dialectic partner, happiness. A synopsis of seventeenth- to nineteenth-century forerunners prefaces this analysis in which Ramage links literary code heroes with the activities of twentieth-century business leaders to determine whether, in the search for authenticity, the heroic individual or the corporation is ultimately served. This comprehensive study chronicles the legitimation of the success book genre, enumerates rhetorical strategies used to win over readers, and supplies the historical context that renders each book's message timely. After considering some of the dangers of crossing disciplinary borders, as exemplified by Deborah Tannen's work, Ramage critiques Stanley Fish's theoretical strictures against this practice, finally summoning academic critics to action with a strong call to exert greater influence within the popular marketplace.

A broadly interdisciplinary study of the pervasive secrecy in America cultural, political, and religious discourse. The occult has traditionally been understood as the study of secrets of the practice of mysticism or magic. This book broadens our understanding of the occult by treating it as a rhetorical phenomenon tied to language and symbols and more central to American culture than is commonly assumed. Joshua Gunn approaches the occult as an idiom, examining the ways in which acts of textual criticism and interpretation are occultic in nature, as evident in practices as diverse as academic scholarship, Freemasonry, and television production. Gunn probes, for instance, the ways in which jargon employed by various social and professional groups creates barriers and fosters secrecy. From the theory wars of cultural studies to the Satanic Panic that swept the national mass media in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Gunn shows how the paradox of a hidden, buried, or secret meaning that cannot be expressed in language appears time and time again in Western culture. These recurrent patterns, Gunn argues, arise from a generalized, popular anxiety about language and its limitations. Ultimately, Modern Occult Rhetoric demonstrates the indissoluble relationship between language, secrecy, and publicity, and the centrality of suspicion in our daily lives.

This reference provides critical overviews and bibliographic information for all major and many minor British and American rhetoricians of the eighteenth century.