The anniversary edition marks thirty years of offering an indispensable review and analysis of thinkers who have exerted a profound influence on contemporary rhetorical theory: I. A. Richards, Ernesto Grassi, Chaïm Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca, Stephen Toulmin, Richard Weaver, Kenneth Burke, Jürgen Habermas, bell hooks, Jean Baudrillard, and Michel Foucault. The brief biographical sketches locate the theorists in time and place, showing how life experiences influenced perspectives on rhetorical thought. The concise explanations of complex concepts are clear, engaging, insightful, and highly accessible, serving as an excellent primer for reading the major works of these scholars. The critical commentary is carefully chosen to highlight implications and to place the theories within a broader rhetorical context. Each chapter ends with a complete bibliography of works by the theorists.

This indispensable text brings together important essays on the themes, issues, and controversies that have shaped the development of rhetorical theory since the late 1960s. An extensive introduction and epilogue by the editors thoughtfully examine the current state of the field and its future directions, focusing in particular on how theorists are negotiating the tensions between modernist and postmodernist considerations. Each of the volume's eight main sections comprises a brief explanatory introduction, four to six essays selected for their enduring significance, and suggestions for further reading. Topics addressed include problems of defining rhetoric, the relationship between rhetoric and epistemology, the rhetorical situation, reason and public morality, the nature of the audience, the role of discourse in social change, rhetoric in the mass media, and challenges to rhetorical theory from the margins. An extensive subject index facilitates comparison of key concepts and principles across all of the essays featured.

With a broad conceptualization of rhetorical scholarship and theory in mind, editors Karen A. Foss, Sonja K. Foss, and Cindy L. Griffin have compiled essays and readings by feminist theorists whose work has relevance for rhetorical theory. This volume introduces readers to multiple feminist voices and perspectives and contextualizes theory as a way of framing experiences and events. The editors provide readers with an inclusive, accessible collection of readings by key contemporary feminist theorists as well as spirited, approachable introductions to their work and their lives. Readings in Feminist Rhetorical Theory features and pays homage to the work of nine influential theorists: Cheris Kramarae, bell hooks, Gloria Anzaldúa, Mary Daly, Starhawk, Paula Gunn Allen, Trinh T. Minh-ha, Sally Miller Gearhart, and Sonia Johnson. As the editors explain in their Introduction, these feminist theorists are featured because they have sufficiently large bodies of work that constitute coherent theories about communication or rhetoric and contribute to the re-conceptualization and transformation of rhetorical constructs and theories. The editors introduce each theorist historically and conceptually through a brief biography and a discussion of the key ideas in the pieces selected. The works of each theorist · represent the general content and form of the theorist′s body of work; · span the time period over which the theorist has been writing, tracing the evolution of her ideas; · directly address concerns relevant to rhetorical theory or symbol use; · vary in terms of types of work (essays, poems, short stories) to capture the range of each theorist′s genre. Readings in Feminist Rhetorical Theory is ideal for students in upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses in Communication Studies, Women′s Studies, and English and is an excellent companion volume to Feminist Rhetorical Theory.

A Theory of Contemporary Rhetoric describes, explains, and argues the overarching theory of contemporary rhetoric. This current view of rhetoric brings together themes in the communication arts, including political literary criticism; bi- and multi-lingualism; multimodality; framing as an artistic and sociological device for composition and interpretation; literacy in the digital age; and the division between fiction and ‘non-fiction’ in language/literature studies. Chapters explore the implications of rhetoric for particular aspects of the field. Discussions throughout the book provide illustrations that ground the material in practice. As an overarching theory in the communication arts, rhetoric is elegant as a theoretical solution and simple as a practical one. It asks such questions as who is speaking/writing/composing? to whom? why? what is being conveyed? and how is it being conveyed? Acknowledging the dirth of recent works addressing the theory of rhetoric, this book aims to fill the existing theoretical gap and at the same time move the field of language/literature studies forward into new territory. It provides the keynote theoretical guide for a generation of teachers, teacher educators and researchers in the fields of English as a subject; English as a second, foreign or additional language; and language study in general.