Re/Orienting Writing Studies is an exploration of the intersections among queer theory, rhetoric, and research methods in writing studies. Focusing careful theoretical attention on common research practices, this collection demonstrates how queer rhetorics of writing/composing, textual analysis, history, assessment, and embodiment/identity significantly alter both methods and methodologies in writing studies. The chapters represent a diverse set of research locations and experiences from which to articulate a new set of innovative research practices. While the humanities have engaged queer theory extensively, research methods have often been hermeneutic or interpretive. At the same time, social science approaches in composition research have foregrounded inquiry on human participants but have often struggled to understand where lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people fit into empirical research projects. Re/Orienting Writing Studies works at the intersections of humanities and social science methodologies to offer new insight into using queer methods for data collection and queer practices for framing research. Contributors: Chanon Adsanatham, Jean Bessette, Nicole I. Caswell, Michael J. Faris, Hillery Glasby, Deborah Kuzawa, Maria Novotny, G Patterson, Stacey Waite, Stephanie West-Puckett

The Encyclopedia of Rhetoric is a comprehensive survey of the latest research--as well as the foundational teachings--in this broad field. Featuring 150 original, signed articles by leading scholars from many different fields of study it brings together knowledge from classics, philosophy, literature, literary theory, cultural studies, speech and communications. The Encyclopedia surveys basic concepts (speaker, style and audience); elements; genres; terms (fallacies, figures of speech); and the rhetoric of non-Western cultures and cultural movements. It covers rhetoric as the art of proof and persuasion; as the language of public speech and communication; and as a theoretical approach and critical tool used in the study of literature, art, and culture at large, including new forms of communication such as the internet. The Encyclopedia is the most wide ranging reference work of its kind, combining theory, history, and practice, with a special emphasis on public speaking, performance and communication. Cross-references, bibliographies after each article, and synoptic and topical indexes further enhance the work. Written for students, teachers, scholars and writers the Encyclopedia of Rhetoric is the definitive reference work on this powerful discipline.

This book offers a new account of the relationship between empiricism and the essay in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Exploring topics such as trust, testimony, virtue, and language, it offers new perspectives on connections between philosophy and literature, empiricism and transcendentalism, and Enlightenment and Romanticism.

The authors of this book set out on an expedition of sorts to study rival hypothesis thinking or "rivaling," an important literate practice in which people explore open questions through an analysis of multiple perspectives and evidence.

Winner of the 2022 Association for the Rhetoric of Science, Technology, and Medicine (ARSTM) Book Award Winner of the 2022 Winifred Bryan Horner Outstanding Book Award from the Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition What It Feels Like interrogates an underexamined reason for our failure to abolish rape in the United States: the way we communicate about it. Using affective and feminist materialist approaches to rhetorical criticism, Stephanie Larson examines how discourses about rape and sexual assault rely on strategies of containment, denying the felt experiences of victims and ultimately stalling broader claims for justice. Investigating anti-pornography debates from the 1980s, Violence Against Women Act advocacy materials, sexual assault forensic kits, public performances, and the #MeToo movement, Larson reveals how our language privileges male perspectives and, more deeply, how it is shaped by systems of power—patriarchy, white supremacy, ableism, and heteronormativity. Interrogating how these systems work to propagate masculine commitments to “science” and “hard evidence,” Larson finds that US culture holds a general mistrust of testimony by women, stereotyping it as “emotional.” But she also gives us hope for change, arguing that testimonies grounded in the bodily, material expression of violation are necessary for giving voice to victims of sexual violence and presenting, accurately, the scale of these crimes. Larson makes a case for visceral rhetorics, theorizing them as powerful forms of communication and persuasion. Demonstrating the communicative power of bodily feeling, Larson challenges the long-held commitment to detached, distant, rationalized discourses of sexual harassment and rape. Timely and poignant, the book offers a much-needed corrective to our legal and political discourses.

A cutting-edge scholarly review of how the Pentateuch functions as a scripture, and how it came to be ritualized in this way. Understanding the Pentateuch as a Scripture is a unique account of the first five books of the Bible, describing how Jews and Christians ritualize the Pentateuch as a scripture by interpreting it, by performing its text and contents, and by venerating the physical scroll and book. Pentateuchal studies are known for intense focus on questions of how and when the first five books of the Bible were composed, edited, and canonized as scripture. Rather than such purely historical, literary, or theological approaches, Hebrew Bible scholar James W. Watts organizes this description of the Pentateuch from the perspectives of comparative scriptures and religious studies. He describes how the Pentateuch has been used in the centuries since it began to function as a scripture in the time of Ezra, and the origins of its ritualization before that time. The book: Analyzes the semantic contents of the Pentateuch as oral rhetoric that takes the form of stories followed by lists of laws and sanctions Gives equal space to its ritualization in the iconic and performative dimensions as to its semantic interpretation Fully integrates the cultural history of the Pentateuch and Bible with its influence on Jewish and Christian ritual, and in art, music, theatre, and film Understanding the Pentateuch as a Scripture is a groundbreaking work that highlights new research data and organizes the material to focus attention on the Pentateuch’s—and Bible’s— function as a scripture.