Rhetoric, Royalty, and Reality

Rhetoric, Royalty, and Reality
Author: Alasdair A. MacDonald
Publisher:
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2005
Genre: Art
ISBN:

This volume contains twelve studies, all dealing with aspects of the literature and culture of Scotland during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Most of these contributions began life as papers delivered at an international conference on that subject, held at Rolduc Abbey, The Netherlands, in 2002. Much new light is shed on canonical Middle Scots writers: Alastair Fowler and David Parkinson, both on Gavin Douglas; David Moses on Robert Henryson; Ruben Valdes Miyares on William Dunbar. The essay by Rod Lyall, on the anonymous Three Prestis of Peblis, and that of Eleanor Commander, on the Originale Chronicle by Andrew Wyntoun, both illuminate unperceived aspects of well-known fifteenth-century texts. Both Janet Hadley Williams and Alan Swanson significantly advance our knowledge of the poet, Sir David Lyndsay. Women's contribution to culture is the subject of the essays by Marguerite Corporaal (on poetry by Queen Mary Stewart and by Mary Beaton) and of Marie-Claude Tucker (on the calligrapher Esther Inglis). In the area of Scottish Gaelic literature and culture, William Gillies explores the connections between a prose tale and poem on the topic of the land of the Little People. In the final study, Jamie Reid-Baxter contextualises and expounds a hitherto unknown Renaissance sonnet sequence, The Nyne Muses, by John Dykes. In each of the contributions in this volume rhetoric and reality loom large; royalty, the third term of the title, is the ever-present final parameter of culture in the Middle Ages and Renaissance.

Rhetoric and the Early Royal Society

Rhetoric and the Early Royal Society
Author: Tina Skouen
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2014-11-27
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004283706

The Royal Society’s establishment in 1660 signaled a new beginning for the rhetoric of science, mainly because the organization’s founders advocated a modern plain style for scientific communication. Rhetoric and the Early Royal Society aims to initiate fresh debates about this watershed event in the history of rhetoric and science. In the last twenty years, scholars in numerous disciplines have produced significant work, ranging from theoretical essays to case studies of founding members such as Wilkins, Hooke and Boyle. This is the first book to collect in one volume the key contributions. The newly written introduction by editors Skouen and Stark places the reprinted essays into perspective by evaluating the Society’s pioneering role in shaping modern scholarly communication.

From Rhetoric to Reality

From Rhetoric to Reality
Author: Margaret Simey
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
Total Pages: 160
Release: 2005-06-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1846313155

This book is an account of how a disillusioned minister, Frederick D’Aeth came to Liverpool and ended up making a unique contribution to the social welfare of the city. It is both a personal and a political story of this previously uncelebrated man, whose interests and gifts contributed greatly to the transformation of social welfare in the early part of the 20th century. Margaret Simey charts how in 1905 D’Aeth came to this city, becoming the first paid lecturer in newly formed social science department in Liverpool University and later in 1909, became the Director of Reports for the newly formed Liverpool Council for Voluntary Aid. This was also one of the first of such coordinating councils, emerging from the Report on the Royal Commission on Poor Laws, with D’Aeth responding to this challenge with vigour and a wealth of ideas. Although it is part biography, the book is also an important journey into past and present debates over social welfare. D’Aeth represents a particularly interesting figure, as his work clearly bridged the period of transition between victorian philanthropism, and the growing influence of the welfare state. The author reveals the talent D’Aeth developed in the as yet undefined field of Social Administration and his particular verve for co-ordination. Such a focus was crucial with a tide of diverse and fairly uncoordinated charitable organisations. Margaret Simey concludes that D’Aeth largely succeeded in harnessing these diverse groups in Liverpool and from further afield and, in doing so, demonstrated the structural value of truly independent voluntary sector effort within society and the potential of the active ‘citizenship’, as a essential balance to government provision.

Rhetorical Realism

Rhetorical Realism
Author: Scot Barnett
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 394
Release: 2016-11-10
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1317235371

Rhetorical Realism responds to the surging interest in nonhumans across the humanities by exploring how realist commitments have historically accompanied understandings of rhetoric from antiquity to the present. For a discipline that often defines itself according to human speech and writing, the nonhuman turn poses a number of challenges and opportunities for rhetoric. To date, many of the responses to the nonhuman turn in rhetoric have sought to address rhetoric’s compatibility with new conceptions of materiality. In Rhetorical Realism, Scot Barnett extends this work by transforming it into a new historiographic methodology attuned to the presence and occlusion of things in rhetorical history. Through investigations of rhetoric’s place in Aristotelian metaphysics, the language invention movement of the seventeenth century, and postmodern conceptions of rhetoric as an epistemic art, Barnett’s study expands the scope of rhetorical inquiry by showing how realist ideas have worked to frame rhetoric’s scope and meanings during key moments in its history. Ultimately, Barnett argues that all versions of rhetoric depend upon some realist assumptions about the world. Rather than conceive of the nonhuman as a dramatic turning point in rhetorical theory, Rhetorical Realism encourages rhetorical theorists to turn another eye toward what rhetoricians have always done—defining and configuring rhetoric within a broader ontology of things.

Scottish Philosophy of Rhetoric

Scottish Philosophy of Rhetoric
Author: Rosaleen Keefe
Publisher: Andrews UK Limited
Total Pages: 212
Release: 2014-03-25
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1845407539

The popular and successful rhetorical textbooks produced by the 18th century Scottish philosophical tradition, such as George Campbell's The Philosophy of Rhetoric (1776), Hugh Blair's Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres (1783), and Alexander Bain's English Composition and Rhetoric (1877) have been widely accorded a role in the trajectories of 19th and 20th century literary theory. Scholars have generally overlooked them, however, as philosophical works. The selected writings chosen for this volume show how these rhetorical textbooks were a practical extension of the philosophy of language developed by 18th century Scottish philosophers. Francis Hutcheson, Adam Smith, Thomas Reid, Adam Ferguson, Alexander Gerard, and Henry Home, Lord Kames, advanced a radically new paradigm of language as an inherently mediated practice, directed simultaneously to personal and social, moral and aesthetic uses. This Scottish philosophy of rhetoric powerfully influenced the teaching of language and literacy as tools for social and educational innovation. This volume - the first of its kind - offers a wide variety of writings on rhetoric and rhetorical theory, selected in a way that reveals their intimate connection with the Scottish philosophical tradition.

Rhetoric and Reality in Early Modern Spain

Rhetoric and Reality in Early Modern Spain
Author: Richard Pym
Publisher: Tamesis Books
Total Pages: 198
Release: 2006
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9781855661271

Early modern Spain's insistent rhetorics of nation and kingship, of a monolithic body of shared values and beliefs, especially in respect of racial and gender stereotypes, and of a centralized and ostensibly absolutist legislative apparatus did not map unproblematically onto the complex topography of everyday life. This volume explores the extent to which these rhetorics and the ideology they helped to construct or underpin reflected or failed to reflect the realities of social, economic, and cultural life. It sets against their typically exorbitant claims the lived, messy, and sometimes contradictory experience of Spaniards across a broad social spectrum, both at the centre and at the margins, not just of peninsular society, but of the Hispanic world overseas. Confronting ideology were questions of economic pragmatism, executive feasibility, jurisdictional competence, and, above all, the social and political complexity of the Spain of the period. Contributors: TREVOR J. DADSON, MARGARET RICH GREER, BARRY IFE, ALISTAIR MALCOLM, MELVEENA MCKENDRICK, RICHARD J. PYM, HELEN RAWLINGS, ALEXANDER SAMSON, JULES WHICKER RICHARD J. PYM is Senior Lecturer in Hispanic Studies at Royal Holloway, University of London.

Rhetoric in Human Rights Advocacy

Rhetoric in Human Rights Advocacy
Author: Richard K. Ghere
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 283
Release: 2015-04-22
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0739193945

This book examines the rhetoric of various “exemplars” who advocate for causes and actions pertaining to human rights in particular contexts. Although some of these exemplars champion human rights, others are human rights antagonists. Simply put, the argument here is that concern for how particular individuals advocate for human rights causes—as well as how antagonists obstruct such initiatives—adds significant value to understanding the successes and failures of human rights efforts in particular cultural and national contexts. On one hand, we can grasp how specific international organizations and actors function to develop norms (for example, the rights of the child) and how rights are subsequently articulated in universal declarations and formal codes. But on the other, it becomes apparent that the actualmeaning of those rights mutate when “accepted” within particular cultures. A complementary facet of this argument relates to the centrality of rhetoric in observing how rights advocates function in practice; specifically, rhetoric focuses upon the art of argumentation and the various strategies and techniques enlisted therein. In that much of the “reality” surrounding human rights (from the standpoints of advocates and antagonists alike) is fundamentally interpretive, rhetorical (or argumentative) skill is of vital importance for advocates as competent pragma-dialecticians in presenting the case that a rights ideal can enhance life in a culture predisposed to reject that ideal. This book includes case studies focusing on the rhetoric of the following individuals or groups as either human rights advocates or antagonists: Mary B. Anderson, Rwandan “hate radio” broadcasters, politicians and military officials connected with the Kent State University and Tiananmen Square student protest tragedies, Iqbal Masih, Pussy Riot, Lyndon Johnson, Julian Assange, Geert Wilders, Daniel Barenboim, Joe Arpaio, and Lucius Banda.

Law and (Dis)Order in the Ancient Near East

Law and (Dis)Order in the Ancient Near East
Author: Katrien De Graef
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 386
Release: 2021-05-27
Genre: History
ISBN: 1646021185

Mesopotamia is often considered to be the birthplace of law codes. In recognition of this fact and motivated by the perennial interest in the topic among Assyriologists, the 59th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale was organized in Ghent in 2013 around the theme “Law and (Dis)Order in the Ancient Near East.” Based on papers delivered at that meeting, this volume contains twenty-six essays that focus on archaeological, philological, and historical topics related to order and chaos in the Ancient Near East. Written by a diverse array of international scholars, the contributions to this book explore laws and legal practices in the Ur III, Old Babylonian, Middle Assyrian, and Neo-Assyrian periods in Mesopotamia, as well as in Nuzi and the Hebrew Bible. Among the subjects covered are the Code of Hammurabi, legal phraseology, the archaeological traces of the organization of community life, and biblical law. The volume also contains essays that explore the concepts of chaos/disorder and law/order in divinatory texts and literature. Wide-ranging and cutting-edge, the essays in this collection will be of interest to Assyriologists, especially members of the International Association for Assyriology.

Cultures of Diplomacy and Literary Writing in the Early Modern World

Cultures of Diplomacy and Literary Writing in the Early Modern World
Author: Tracey A. Sowerby
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 445
Release: 2019-06-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 0192572636

This interdisciplinary volume explores core emerging themes in the study of early modern literary-diplomatic relations, developing essential methods of analysis and theoretical approaches that will shape future research in the field. Contributions focus on three intimately related areas: the impact of diplomatic protocol on literary production; the role of texts in diplomatic practice, particularly those that operated as 'textual ambassadors'; and the impact of changes in the literary sphere on diplomatic culture. The literary sphere held such a central place because it gave diplomats the tools to negotiate the pervasive ambiguities of diplomacy; simultaneously literary depictions of diplomacy and international law provided genre-shaped places for cultural reflection on the rapidly changing and expanding diplomatic sphere. Translations exemplify the potential of literary texts both to provoke competition and to promote cultural convergence between political communities, revealing the existence of diplomatic third spaces in which ritual, symbolic, or written conventions and semantics converged despite particular oppositions and differences. The increasing public consumption of diplomatic material in Europe illuminates diplomatic and literary communities, and exposes the translocal, as well as the transnational, geographies of literary-diplomatic exchanges. Diplomatic texts possessed symbolic capital. They were produced, archived, and even redeployed in creative tension with the social and ceremonial worlds that produced them. Appreciating the generic conventions of specific types of diplomatic texts can radically reshape our interpretation of diplomatic encounters, just as exploring the afterlives of diplomatic records can transform our appreciation of the histories and literatures they inspired.

Composition and the Rhetoric of Science

Composition and the Rhetoric of Science
Author: Michael J Zerbe
Publisher: SIU Press
Total Pages: 233
Release: 2007-03-21
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0809387441

Composition and the Rhetoric of Science: Engaging the Dominant Discourse calls for instructors of first-year writing courses to employ primary scientific discourse in their teaching and for rhetoricians of science to think about teaching scientific discourse as a literacy skill. Author Michael J. Zerbe argues that inclusion of scientific discourse is crucial because of this rhetoric’s status as the dominant discourse in western culture. The volume draws on Lyotard, Žižek, Foucault, and Althusser to argue that while important theorists such as these have recognized the dominance of scientific discourse, rhetoric and composition has not—to its detriment. The textillustrates that scientific discourse remains a miniscule part of the enterprise of rhetoric and composition and thus the field is not fulfilling its mission of providing students with the writing and reading skills they need to live and work in a science- and technology-dependent society. Zerbe provides an analysis of science popularizations and demonstrates how these works can be used to contextualize primary scientific research. He also presents three pedagogical scenarios, each built around a carefully chosen, accessible example of scientific discourse, that demonstrate how articles from scientific journals can be used in writing courses. Only by gaining a meaningful fluency in this discourse—one that is not offered by science textbooks—can a more sophisticated scientific literacy be assured. Composition and the Rhetoric of Science effectively explores the relatively limited amount of work done in rhetoric and composition on scientific discourse and questions this state of affairs. Zerbe presents for the first time cultural studies and science literacy as gateways for incorporating scientific discourse into first-year writing courses.