Rhetoric Commons^™

Sciene Plays Defense: Natural Resource Management In The Bush Administration, Holly Doremus

Holly Doremus

The George W. Bush Administration has been criticized by scientists for its use of science in the policy arena generally, and for politicizing science. However, the problem is more one of the scientizing of politics, as the administration has shown that the rhetoric of science can be used defensively, as a barrier to regulation. Key methods used by the administration to pursue its strategy of defensive science in natural resource management are detailed. A more normatively defensible, and a more politically effective, strategy for conservationists would emphasize the need to bring transparency and a commitment to updating into the regulatory …

Sokal’S Hermeneutic Hoax: Physics And The New Inquisition, Babette Babich

Babette Babich

“The Hermeneutics of a Hoax: Physics and the New Inquisition” offers a rhetorical analysis and hermeneutics reading of the parodic character of Sokal's "hoax." From the perspective of a philosopher of science, it is argued that it is important to attend both to the rhetorical level of philosophy and science. In addition it is important to consider the culture of status (Bourdieu) as well as the self-reflective weaknesses of the culture of physics including those of (traditionally) physics-dominated philosophy of science. Echoing some of the criticisms and highlighting the points of social advocacy of the late Paul Feyerabend underscores the …

Zu Nietzsches Stil, Babette Babich

Babette Babich

Das Thema von Nietzsches Stil ist hier sowohl von Bedeutung als Frage nach dem Wesen jenes Stils wie auch als Frage danach, was er in philosophischer, nicht einfach in asthetischer oder literarischer Hinsicht erreicht hat. Hier wird nachgelegt, dass die Kunst des Lesens, die technische Kunst des hörens als eine Art des Hörens in einer philosophischen Seinsweise zu verstehen sei. Damit setzt sie nicht allein eine diskursive Kunst musikalischen Gespürs seitens des schreibenden, sondern eigentlich auch seitens des Lesenden voraus. Untersucht wird vor allem, Nietzsches Aphorismos im Rahmen des Antisemitismus. Diese außerordentlich komplexe innere Ausrichtung von Nietzsches Stil ist die …

Interpretation And Construction In Altering Rules, Gregory Klass

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This essay is a response to Ian Ayres's, "Regulating Opt-Out: An Economic Theory of Altering Rules," 121 Yale L.J. 2032 (2012). Ayres identifies an important question: How does the law decide when parties have opted-out of a contractual default? Unfortunately, his article tells only half of the story about such altering rules. Ayres cares about rules designed to instruct parties on how to get the terms that they want. By focusing on such rules he ignores altering rules designed instead to interpret the nonlegal meaning of the parties' acts or agreement. This limited vision is characteristic of economic approaches to …

Scully And Me: Or, The X-Files, Revisited, Rita Malenczyk

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

This essay reflects on the longevity of The X-Files phenomenon through the lens, primarily, of gender. The common interpretation of the two agents' roles as reversing traditional male/female stereotypes--Scully, the female, is rational, while the male Mulder is imaginative--has never seemed particularly right to me, especially when one throws Scully's Catholicism into the mix. Rather, it seems that, throughout the series, two belief systems come into conflict; while Mulder's appears privileged because of his gender, the show subtly critiques that privilege through its portrayal of Scully's Catholicism.(I suppose this essay is, in a way, an attempt to figure out what's …

Things Are Happening!, Harlot Editors

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

No abstract provided.

Like Me, Like Me Not, Paul Muhlhauser, Andrea Campbell

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

For us the lack of a "Dislike" button on Fb creates an important asymmetry in communication and promotes a particular Fb worldview. As you pluck our petals, you'll get to see the ways we interpret the presence of "Like" and the absence of "Dislike" buttons.

On Silence, Daisy Levy

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

I wrote this piece as a way to try to reconcile some difficult events in my life as a teacher, a scholar, and a person living in a complicated world. I wanted to make visible the collage effect of all these things, and so a collage essay was the most interesting form for me. I examine the politics surrounding subjectivity, authority, and the role of voice, in and out of the classroom, in daily life.The events I am drawing on are related: comments from a student on institutional course evaluations, rejection letters from a prominent university's graduate writing program, reflection …

Call For Submissions: Sonic Rhetorics, Harlot Editors

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

No abstract provided.

Comedy As A Feminist Rhetoric, Liz Lemon Style, Risa Polansky Shiman

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

Given the stereotypes that come along with traditional feminist activism – She's a feminist. She looks angry, and I can see from here she's not wearing a bra – and the frustration feminists often face as a result, comedy is an entertaining, and therefore presumably palatable, way to expose contemporary feminist issues to broad audiences. But is it effective? A fan of ironic, silly, and sometimes (shhh, don't tell) lewd humor, I'm no stranger to The Looks, which range from “I don't get it" to “You're not as funny as you think you are" to “I am both disgusted and …

"I Had An Abortion": A Feminist Analysis Of The Abortion Debate, Elizabeth Fleitz Kuechenmeister

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

This article explores the rhetoric surrounding the controversial “I Had an Abortion" t-shirt, sold by Planned Parenthood in 2005-2006. In order to understand the rhetorical impact of the t-shirt, Burkean dramatism is used to identify what terms are added and what terms are overlooked. A dramatism analysis of both pro-choice and pro-life rhetoric is included to position the t-shirt in the abortion debate.

#Definerhetoric, Harlot Editors

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

No abstract provided.

"When Did We Start Just Making Shit Up": Origins Of U. S. Pseudocracy, Hans Ostrom, William Haltom

All Faculty Scholarship

Early in 2011, a colleague asked, “When did we start just making shit up?” By “we,” she meant Americans but also, more specifically, those involved in politics—directly or as in­terested parties.

We an­swer her question variously in this paper.[1] But our overarching answer is that poli­ti­cos started flatly concocting misin­for­ma­tion when our propaganda polity mutated into a pseudocracy.

We wend our way to that answer as follows. After reviewing an­swers we deem insuffi­cient, we provide two sorts of tentative, rough an­swers. Our first answer is that the stretch­ing of what counts as an untruth combined with the lengthening of …

Religion And The Academy: Report On The Western Conference On British Studies Roundtable, Robert Ellison

Robert Ellison

This article is a report of a roundtable I moderated at the 2006 meeting of the Western Conference on British Studies. It proposes some directions religious studies might take in the 21st century; it is also the first publication to mention of the British Pulpit Online, an emerging digital resource for the study of the sermon from 1688-1901.

“’National Apostasy,’ Tracts For The Times, And Plain Sermons: John Keble's Tractarian Prose.”, Robert Ellison

Robert Ellison

John Keble is perhaps best known for The Christian Year and his work as Professor of Poetry at Oxford from 1831 to 1841. In this essay, I argue that his prose is worthy of study as well. I focus on "National Apostasy," the sermon that John Henry Newman saw as the inauguration of the Oxford Movement; the 8 pieces he contributed to the Tracts for the Times; and his many contributions to the Plain Sermons, by Contributors to the "Tracts for the Times."

The Tractarians' Political Rhetoric, Robert Ellison

Robert Ellison

This article examines the political speaking and writing of John Keble, John Henry Newman, and other leading figures of the Oxford Movement. It argues that while they were essentially conservative in the pulpit, where they spoke as official representatives of the Established Church, they were more critical and outspoken in other works, where they enjoyed more of the freedom afforded to private citizens.

Introduction To A New History Of The Sermon : The Nineteenth Century, Robert Ellison

Robert Ellison

This is the introduction to A New History of the Sermon:The Nineteenth Century, a collection of essays I edited for Brill Academic Publishers. It discusses the concept and history of "rhetorical criticism," and seeks to lay a foundation for the rhetorical study of the Anglo-American pulpit.

The Tractarians' Sermons And Other Speeches, Robert Ellison

Robert Ellison

This is the first chapter of A New History of the Sermon: The Nineteenth Century, a collection of essays I edited for Brill Academic Publishers. It provides an overview of the Tractarians' homiletic theory, and examines the various genres of their oratory: sermons (both "plain" and "university"), lectures, and episcopal charges.

Prophecy And Anti-Popery In Victorian London: John Cumming Reconsidered, Robert Ellison, Carol Herringer

Robert Ellison

John Cumming (1807-1881) was the popular minister of the Crown Court Church of Scotland in London's Covent Garden. This article examines his views on the end times and the Roman Catholic Church, two of the favorite subjects of his preaching.

Prisons Before Modernity: Incarceration In The Medieval Indo-Mediterranean, Rebecca Gould

Rebecca Gould

No abstract provided.