New Handbook of Rhetoric: Inverting the Classical Vocabulary

Rhetorical Studies relies on a technical vocabulary developed in the classical world, but this handbook addresses critiques of their relevance, explanatory power, and exclusionary effects. By applying the alpha privative to classical rhetoric terms, the book builds a new vocabulary for rhetorical inquiry. Essays explore long-standing disciplinary habits, reveal denials and privileges, and theorize new problems and methods. The book unsettles ancient Greek rhetorical terms, opening new avenues for studying values, norms, and phenomena.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 224 pages
Publication date: 15 September 2021
Publisher: Pennsylvania State University Press

Rhetorical Studies, like every discipline, employs a specialized vocabulary to convey intricate concepts. However, few fields rely as heavily on a set of terms that date back centuries. These terms, such as pathos, kairos, doxa, and topos, originate from the classical world, which has bestowed upon them an excessive authority. While it is not feasible to discard these rhetorical terms entirely, this handbook aims to address critiques regarding their ongoing relevance, explanatory power, and exclusionary effects.

A New Handbook of Rhetoric takes a unique approach by inverting the terms of classical rhetoric by applying the alpha privative, a prefix that signifies absence. The contributors to this volume augment more than a dozen crucial terms in the field with the prefix α, thereby creating a new vocabulary for rhetorical inquiry. Essays on topics such as apathy, akairos, adoxa, and atopos delve into long-standing disciplinary habits, expose the denials and privileges inherent in traditional rhetorical inquiry, and propose novel problems and methods. By employing this vocabulary in an analysis of contemporary politics, media, and technology, the essays shed light on aspects of modern culture that traditional rhetorical theory often overlooks.

Innovative and groundbreaking, A New Handbook of Rhetoric simultaneously draws on and challenges ancient Greek rhetorical terms, opening up new avenues for studying values, norms, and phenomena that have often been hindered by tradition. In addition to the editor, the contributors to this handbook include Caddie Alford, Benjamin Firgens, Cory Geraths, Anthony J. Irizarry, Mari Lee Mifsud, John Muckelbauer, Bess R. H. Myers, Damien Smith Pfister, Nathaniel A. Rivers, and Alessandra Von Burg.

Weight: 352g
Dimension: 153 x 228 x 20 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780271091839