Current Issue
Volume 3, Spring 2012
Welcome to the third volume of Relevant Rhetoric: A New Journal of Rhetorical Studies. We had more submissions than ever this year, and due to the quality and number of submissions, we were able to accept/publish a total of seven essays. Each submission is carefully peer reviewed by members of the Editorial Board. For submission information, please visit the relevant tab from the menu above. Enjoy the essays in Volume 3, just click on the title to read the article (it will open in a new window as a .pdf file).
We continue with our Forum feature this year. This year’s interactive essay is written by Dr. Joseph Valenzano, III, from the University of Dayton, “Conscience of a Conservative (Professor).” The essay is linked below. You can read the essay and then post your reactions and responses to it on the Discussion Forum. To post on the Forum, you will need to register. Click on the Forum tab above and follow instructions there. If you are interested in submitting an essay for next year’s Forum, please contact the editor, Nancy J. Legge at editor@relevantrhetoric.com.
If you’re looking for previous volumes/articles, please visit the Archives tab above. The other tabs provide information about the journal’s philosophy, submissions for future volumes, and the editorial board.
Index of articles for Volume 3:
- Jonathan Hunt, From Cacemphaton to Cher: Foul Language and Evidence in the Rhetorical Tradition
–Although foul language has been a topic of lively discussion by authorities and scholars alike, it has received little attention from rhetoricians. When rhetoricians treat coarse, taboo, or obscene language, the approach is generally normative and pedagogical, foreclosing the possibility that we might, like other fields, see the rhetorical character and impact of foul language. - Jeffrey B. Kurtz, Civility, American Style
–Public anger may be the new zeitgeist of our age. If the incivility at the core of our public talk is familiar, it merits continued scrutiny. Of keen importance is to reflect on rhetorical acts that may challenge our received understandings of civility itself. This essay first situates civility in particular scholarly and historical contexts. I then undertake interpretive readings of incivility and civility as these have been given expression in three recent cases: Representative Joe Wilson’s “You lie!” outburst during President Barack Obama’s September 2009 healthcare address; the rhetorical soundings of Sarah Palin in her 28 August 2010 speech at the “Restoring Honor” rally in Washington, D.C.; and the intersection of violence and civility in President Barack Obama’s memorial address for the victims of the shooting in Tucson, Arizona, in January 2011. By closely attending to the putative incivility and civility characterizing these cases, I will suggest ways by which authenticity, real pluralism, and rhetorical courage might become new hallmarks of our rhetorical landscape. - James Beitler, Making More of the Middle Ground: Desmond Tutu and the Ethos of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission
–This article explores Desmond Tutu’s role in shaping the institutional ethos of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Through analysis of Tutu’s introduction to the commission’s final report, it highlights three distinct middle ground arguments that Tutu uses to construct the commission’s institutional ethos and to appeal to multiple audiences in South Africa simultaneously. Such findings complicate popular conceptions of Tutu’s contributions to the TRC process and highlight strategies that rhetors may employ to persuade politically diverse audiences. - Jason A. Edwards and Liza Anne Cabrel, Managing an Economic Crisis: President Clinton and the Mexican Peso Crisis
–This essay examines President Bill Clinton’s 1995 Mexican Peso Crisis rhetoric. We argue that Clinton managed the crisis through three overarching themes: defining the nature of the crisis, magnifying its potential harms, and promoting solutions to limit its broader impact. The strategies used by Clinton differ from traditional characteristics of crisis rhetoric. These strategies serve as a theoretical basis for examining presidential economic crisis rhetoric. Moreover, this essay provides a deeper appreciation of Clinton’s political legacy in managing the first major crisis in an era of globalization. - Monica Brasted, MoveOn: The Rhetoric of Polarization
–The media environment has changed dramatically since King and Anderson (1971) first articulated their conceptualization of the rhetoric of polarization. With the advent of the user friendly World Wide Web in the 1990s came a new interactive form of media that is now used as a tool by politicians and activists. According to Chadwick, one group that has been successful in creating a network of citizens by using the internet has been MoveOn.org. This paper examines how MoveOn.org has used the rhetoric of polarization within its member emails to create feelings of solidarity amongst themselves and opposition to a common foe. - Justin Eckstein, Client 9: Spitzer and Hypocrisy
–On March 10, 2008, the story broke that New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was patronizing the Emperor’s Club V.I.P., a high cost prostitution service. New Yorkers were shocked, disappointed, and upset. Reacting to Spitzer’s affair, national and international newspapers called the Governor a hypocrite. But what exactly is a hypocrite? This paper explores this definitional question, by asking; what constitutes hypocrisy? And, are there different definitions of hypocrisy? A rhetorical analysis of the opinion editorials released in the days between the news of the scandal and Spitzer’s resignation, yielded two different accusations of hypocrisy: exemption, which emphasized his “do as I say, not as I do” attitude; and betrayal, which attempted to hide his contradiction between his words and deeds. I argue that the combination of these two accusations of hypocrisy created an insurmountable exigency, requiring Spitzer to resign. - Sarah Partlow-Lefevre, Bridging the First and Second Waves: Rhetorical Constructions of First Wave Feminism in Ms. Magazine, 1972-1980
–During the second wave of feminism in the United States, writers sought to reclaim feminist history to ground their beliefs. In this essay I argue that Ms. magazine, the first mass mediated feminist periodical in the United States, published articles that rhetorically reproduced the ideals of the first wave of feminism in the United States. I focus on the rhetorical function of these historical constructions for women in the second wave including: the crafting of relationships between first and second wave feminists; the reclaiming of ideas as foundational feminist history; the articulation of points of commonality which allowed second wave feminists to identify themselves with the first wave feminists; and, the construction of first wave activists as heroines who paved the way for the second wave. - Joseph Valenzano III, Conscience of a Conservative (Professor)
–Essay featured on the Discussion Forum. Please read and post your comments.
