Rhetoric, Race, Religion, and the Charleston Shootings

Rhetoric, Race, Religion, and the Charleston Shootings
Author: Sean Patrick O'Rourke
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2019-11-12
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1498550622

Rhetoric, Race, Religion, and the Charleston Shootings: Was Blind but Now I See is a collection focusing on the Charleston shootings written by leading scholars in the field who consider the rhetoric surrounding the shootings. This book offers an appraisal of the discourses – speeches, editorials, social media posts, visual images, prayers, songs, silence, demonstrations, and protests – that constituted, contested, and reconstituted the shootings in American civic life and cultural memory. It answers recent calls for local and regional studies and opens new fields of inquiry in the rhetoric, sociology, and history of mass killings, gun violence, and race relations—and it does so while forging new connections between and among on-going scholarly conversations about rhetoric, race, and religion. Contributors argue that Charleston was different from other mass shootings in America, and that this difference was made manifest through what was spoken and unspoken in its rhetorical aftermath. Scholars of race, religion, rhetoric, communication, and sociology will find this book particularly useful.

Rhetoric, Race, Religion, and the Charleston Shootings

Rhetoric, Race, Religion, and the Charleston Shootings
Author: Sean Patrick O'Rourke
Publisher:
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2019-11-12
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9781498550611

This book considers the 2015 Charleston mass shooting from a rhetorical perspective and offers an appraisal of the discourses that cradled and emerged from it. It argues that Charleston was different from other mass shootings in America and that the differences can be heard and seen in that rhetoric.

The Black God Trope and Rhetorical Resistance

The Black God Trope and Rhetorical Resistance
Author: Armondo Collins
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 153
Release: 2023-05-08
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1666921572

In The Black God Trope and Rhetorical Resistance: A Tradition of Race and Religion, Armondo R. Collins theorizes Black Nationalist rhetorical strategies as an avenue to better understanding African American communication practices. The author demonstrates how Black rhetors use writing about God to create a language that reflects African Americans’ shifting subjectivity within the American experience. This book highlights how the Black God trope and Black Nationalist religious rhetoric function as an embodied rhetoric. Collins also addresses how the Black God trope functions as a gendered critique of white western patriarchy, to demonstrate how an ideological position like womanism is voiced by authors using the Black God trope as a means of public address. Scholars of rhetoric, African American literature, and religious studies will find this book of particular interest.

Womanist Ethical Rhetoric

Womanist Ethical Rhetoric
Author: Annette D. Madlock
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 133
Release: 2021-01-14
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1793613567

Womanist thought remains of critical importance given contemporary issues of social justice and advocacy. Womanist Ethical Rhetoric centers discourses of religious rhetoric and its influence on Black women’s aims for voice, empowerment, and social justice in these turbulent times. The chapters utilize womanism, in conjunction with other frames, to examine how Black women incorporate different aspects of their identities into struggles for empowerment and celebrations of who they are in holistic ways that center love and community. This approach embraces both the commonalities and differences between womanists through theoretical and applied contexts. It advances the work of womanist predecessors and pays homage to them, most notably Rev. Dr. Katie Cannon’s work on womanism and religion. Topics analyzed include Black women’s spiritual and professional identities in religious organizations, the role of Black churches in Black Lives Matter, and the inclusion of all Black women in racial academic achievement gaps. Chapters also examine Black women’s leadership and activism, including church leaders and representations in popular culture, and women’s inclusion in the beloved community. This collection centralizes the plurality of Black women’s lives, which is key to advancing their voices.

The Reverend Albert Cleage Jr. and the Black Prophetic Tradition

The Reverend Albert Cleage Jr. and the Black Prophetic Tradition
Author: Earle J. Fisher
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 177
Release: 2021-11-05
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1793631069

Reverend Albert Cleage Jr. and the Black Prophetic Tradition: A Reintroduction of The Black Messiah considers how Albert Cleage Jr., in his groundbreaking book of sermons, The Black Messiah (1969), reconfigures the rules of the game as it relates to Christianity and the social political realities of Black people in Detroit and across the country. Taking a rhetorical approach, this book explores how and what The Black Messiah (1969) has contributed to the broader scope of Black Liberation Theology and Black religious rhetoric. Scholars of rhetoric, communication, religious studies, and African American history will find this book particularly useful.

Reframing Rhetorical History

Reframing Rhetorical History
Author: Kathleen J. Turner
Publisher: University of Alabama Press
Total Pages: 440
Release: 2022-05-17
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0817360506

"Collection of essays that reassesses history as rhetoric and rhetorical history as practice "--

Phillis Wheatley as Prophetic Poet

Phillis Wheatley as Prophetic Poet
Author: Wallis C. Baxter III
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 155
Release: 2022-05-04
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1793641218

In You Must Be Born Again: Phillis Wheatley as Prophetic Poet, the author argues that Phillis Wheatley is the mother of liberation theology. The author uses Wheatley’s poetry and life experiences to create a portrait of Wheatley beyond that of a poet. Wheatley is described as both poet and visionary who wrestles with God during the creative process. The lyrical expressions of Wheatley’s poetry unlock the spiritual impressions on her heart. The author sets up the racial dynamics of Wheatley’s time and her engagement with those politics. As a preacher, Wheatley combats the immoral undercurrent that erodes the community’s social, economic, and spiritual foundation as well as its political systems. The author positions Wheatley as one uniquely qualified to address the hypocrisy within her world and, by implication, present-day society by calling for immersion into a radical understanding of love and justice, resulting in a renewed hope for equality and a pathway toward equity.

The Rhetoric of Judging Well

The Rhetoric of Judging Well
Author: David A. Frank
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 295
Release: 2023-03-12
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0271096144

Known as the “swing justice,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy provided the key vote determining which way the Supreme Court would decide on some of the most controversial cases in US history. Though criticized for his unpredictable rulings, Kennedy also gained a reputation for his opinion writing and, more so, for his legal rhetoric. This book examines Justice Kennedy’s legacy through the lenses of rhetoric, linguistics, and constitutional law. Essays analyze Kennedy’s opinion writing in landmark cases such as Romer v. Evans, Obergefell v. Hodges, and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Using the Justice’s rhetoric as an entry point into his legal philosophy, this volume reveals Kennedy as a justice with contradictions and blind spots—especially on race, women’s rights, and immigration—but also as a man of empathy deeply committed to American citizenship. A sophisticated assessment of Justice Kennedy’s jurisprudence, this book provides new insight into Kennedy’s legacy on the Court and into the role that rhetoric plays in judging and in communicating judgment. In addition to the editors, the contributors to this volume are Ashutosh Bhagwat, Elizabeth C. Britt, Martin Camper, Michael Gagarin, James A. Gardner, Eugene Garver, Leslie Gielow Jacobs, Sean Patrick O’Rourke, Susan E. Provenzano, Clarke Rountree, Leticia M. Saucedo, Darien Shanske, Kathryn Stanchi, and Rebecca E. Zietlow.

After Gun Violence

After Gun Violence
Author: Craig Rood
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 201
Release: 2019-05-30
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0271085479

Mass shootings have become the “new normal” in American life. The same can be said for the public debate that follows a shooting: blame is cast, political postures are assumed, but no meaningful policy changes are enacted. In After Gun Violence, Craig Rood argues that this cycle is the result of a communication problem. Without advocating for specific policies, Rood examines how Americans talk about gun violence and suggests how we might discuss the issues more productively and move beyond our current, tragic impasse. Exploring the ways advocacy groups, community leaders, politicians, and everyday citizens talk about gun violence, Rood reveals how the gun debate is about far more than just guns. He details the role of public memory in shaping the discourse, showing how memories of the victims of gun violence, the Second Amendment, and race relations influence how gun policy is discussed. In doing so, Rood argues that forgetting and misremembering this history leads interest groups and public officials to entrenched positions and political failure and drives the public further apart. Timely and innovative, After Gun Violence advances our understanding of public discourse in an age of gridlock by illustrating how public deliberation and public memory shape and misshape one another. It is a search to understand why public discourse fails and how we can do better.

On Fire

On Fire
Author: Sean Patrick O'Rourke
Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
Total Pages: 138
Release: 2021-02-01
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1643361627

The social, political, and legal struggles that made up the American civil rights movement of the mid-twentieth century produced and refined a wide range of rhetorical strategies and tactics. Arguably the most astonishing and certainly the least understood are the sit-in protests that swept the nation at the beginning of the 1960s. A companion to Like Wildfire: The Rhetoric of the Civil Rights Sit-Ins, this concentrated collection of essays examines the origins and rhetorical methods of five distinct civil rights sit-ins of 1960. For students of rhetoric, protest, and sociopolitical movements, this volume demonstrates how we can read the sit-ins by using diverse rhetorical lenses as essentially persuasive conflicts in which participants invented and deployed arguments and actions in attempts to change segregated communities and the attitudes, traditions, and policies that maintained segregation.