Literature in English, Anglophone outside British Isles and North America Commons^™

Epideictic Rhetoric And British Citizenship Practices Remembering British Heroes From The 1857 Indian Uprising At Civic Celebrations, Danielle Nielsen

Faculty & Staff Research and Creative Activity

Epideixis is generally understood as ceremonial rhetoric that praises or blames. When examined through the lens of civic celebrations such as the Coronation Durbars in fin de siècle colonial India or the protection of Confederate monuments, epideictic rhetoric instructs the audience to uphold what are purported to be the community’s common values.This educational epideixis, however, also exposes veiled anxieties not commonly associated with a seemingly ceremonial speech act. This new understanding of epideictic should encourage rhetoricians to further question rhetors’ use of epideixis and interrogate other aims in those speech acts.