Bloomsbury Studies in Contemporary Rhetoric – serie

The Rhetorical Invention of America’s National Security State examines the rhetoric and discourse produced by and constitutive of America’s national security state. Hasian, Lawson, and McFarlane illustrate the importance of rhetoric to the expansion of the American national security state in the post-9/11 era through their examination of the global war on terrorism, enhanced interrogation techniques, drone crew stress, activities of Edward Snowden, rise of Special Forces, and popular representations of counterterrorism. The coauthors contend this expansion was not the result of lone, imperial executives or a nefarious state within a state, but was co-produced by elite and non-elite Americans alike who not only condoned, but also in many cases demanded, the expansion of the national security state. This work will be of interest to scholars in communication studies and political science.

Rhetoric of Femininity: Female Body Image, Media, and Gender Role Stress/Conflict offers critical and social identity intersectionalities approach to interpretations of femininity among three generations of women for a rhetorical examination of how femininity is made to mean by media and popular culture. Amplified are voices of women across multiple age, ethnic, and sexual orientation groups who shared in focus groups and interviews their perceptions of femininity and feminine ideals. Femininity is explored using theories from communication and mass media, psychology, sociology, and feminist and gender studies. Donnalyn Pompper explores femininities as shaped by cultural rituals and industries, at home and at work in organizations, on sporting fields and arenas, and in politics.

World War I, Mass Death, and the Birth of the Modern US Soldier: A Rhetorical History examines the United States government’s postwar ideological and rhetorical project in establishing permanent national military cemeteries abroad. Constructed throughout Europe where citizen-soldiers had fought and perished, and sacralized as American sites, these burial grounds simultaneously linked the nation’s war dead back to American soil and the national purpose rooted there, expressed the nation’s emerging prominent role on the world’s stage, and advanced the burgeoning icon of the “sacrificial, universal” US soldier. It draws upon untapped archival and historical materials from the WWI and interwar periods, as well as original on-site research, to show how the cemeteries came to display and advance the vision of the modern US soldier as “a global force for good.” Ultimately, within the visual display of overseas cemeteries we can detect the birth of “the modern US soldier”—a potent icon in which divergent emotions, memories, beliefs, and arguments of Americans and non-Americans have been expressed for a century.

Social entrepreneurship increasingly assumes a position of strength in the dynamic milieu of late-modern democratic societies. A plethora of companies have now arisen—everything from mighty social enterprises like Warby Parker and TOMS to tiny outfits like Clean Slate and Bright Endeavors—whose business-focused approach to social problems is not merely additive but integral to their missions. These companies respond not only to a felt proliferation of humanitarian and environmental predicaments, but also to enormous shifts in in public feelings and technological sensibilities. These predicaments and make social entrepreneurships urgently needed and remarkably complicated. But if social entrepreneurs deal with that complexity with a business-as-usual approach to making the world better—imitating, for example, corporate social responsibility initiatives by transnational companies—they will lose their vital distinctiveness and efficacy. Drawing on a transdisciplinary perspective, close rhetorical analysis, and qualitative interviews with social entrepreneurs, this book argues that one good way to keep social business disruptive is to rethink how organizations model their communication. Instead of assuming a conventional theory of communication, neatly organized around the relations of senders and receivers, social entrepreneurship should enact a performative model of communication in which messaging and action are affectively woven. This book offers suggestions for making this performative model sustainably disruptive in relation to questions that pester social entrepreneurs: how to tell the company story, how to raise awareness, how to address complex audiences, and how to solve problems.

Social entrepreneurship increasingly assumes a position of strength in the dynamic milieu of late-modern democratic societies. A plethora of companies have now arisen—everything from mighty social enterprises like Warby Parker and TOMS to tiny outfits like Clean Slate and Bright Endeavors—whose business-focused approach to social problems is not merely additive but integral to their missions. These companies respond not only to a felt proliferation of humanitarian and environmental predicaments, but also to enormous shifts in in public feelings and technological sensibilities. These predicaments and make social entrepreneurships urgently needed and remarkably complicated. But if social entrepreneurs deal with that complexity with a business-as-usual approach to making the world better—imitating, for example, corporate social responsibility initiatives by transnational companies—they will lose their vital distinctiveness and efficacy. Drawing on a transdisciplinary perspective, close rhetorical analysis, and qualitative interviews with social entrepreneurs, this book argues that one good way to keep social business disruptive is to rethink how organizations model their communication. Instead of assuming a conventional theory of communication, neatly organized around the relations of senders and receivers, social entrepreneurship should enact a performative model of communication in which messaging and action are affectively woven. This book offers suggestions for making this performative model sustainably disruptive in relation to questions that pester social entrepreneurs: how to tell the company story, how to raise awareness, how to address complex audiences, and how to solve problems.

US Public Memory, Rhetoric, and the National Mall examines “the nation’s front yard,” understanding it as both a public face the United States presents to the world and a site where its less apparent moral story is told. This book provides a uniquely thorough, interdisciplinary, and integrated examination of how the National Mall shares a moral story of the United States and, in so doing, reveals the soul of the nation. The contributors explore 11 different memorials, monuments, and museums found across the Mall, considering how each rhetorically remembers a key element of the nation’s past, what the rhetorical memory tells us about the nation’s soul, and how each site must thus be understood in relation to the commemorative landscape of the Mall.

Rhetorics Haunting the National Mall: Displaced and Ephemeral Public Memories vividly illustrates that a nation’s history is more complicated than the simple binary of remembered/forgotten. Some parts of history, while not formally recognized within a commemorative landscape, haunt those landscapes by virtue of their ephemeral or displaced presence. Rather than being discretely contained within a formal sites, these memories remain public by lingering along the edges and within the crevices of commemorative landscapes. By integrating theories of haunting, place, and public memory, this collection demonstrates that the National Mall, often referred to as “the nation’s front yard,” might better be understood as “the nation’s attic” because it hides those issues we do not want to address but cannot dismiss. The neatly ordered installations and landscaping of the National Mall, if one looks and listens closely, reveal the messiness of US history. From the ephemeral memories of protests on the Mall to the displaced but persistent presences of inequality, each chapter in this book examines the ways in which contemporary public life in the US is haunted by incomplete efforts to close the book on the past.

The Corruption of Ethos in Fortress America: Billionaires, Bureaucrats, and Body Slams argues that authoritarian strains of U.S. governance violate the idea of ethos in its ancient, collectivist sense. Christopher Carter posits that this corrupts the cultural “dwelling place” through public relations strategies, policies on race and immigration, and a general disregard for environmental concerns. Donald Trump’s presidency provides a signal instance of the problem, refashioning the dwelling place as a fortress while promoting sweeping forms of exclusion and appealing to power for power’s sake. Carter’s analysis shows that, emboldened by the purported flexibility of truth, Trump’s authoritarian rhetoric underwrites unrestrained policing, militarized borders, populist nationalism, and relentless assaults on investigative journalism. These trends bode ill for human rights and critical education as well as progressive social movements and the forms of life they entail. Worse yet, the corruption of ethos threatens life in general by privileging corporate prerogatives over ecological attunement. In response to those tendencies, Carter highlights modes of activism that merge antiracist and labor rhetoric to offer a more fluid, unpredictably emergent vision of social space, allying with ecofeminism in ways that make that vision durable. Scholars of rhetoric, political science, history, ecology, race studies, and American studies will find this book particularly useful.

Rhetoric and Governance under Trump: Proclamations from the Bullshit Pulpit analyzes the rhetoric of Donald Trump to argue that Trump’s deeply illiberal rhetoric, cruel policies, corruption, disruptive foreign policy, and disdain for the rule of law makes him a textbook populist. However, his embrace of mainstream conservative policies and the culture war narratives that come with them made him a rather conventional Republican. Being more plutocrat than populist, Trump had to bridge this fundamental contradiction by employing populist and polarizing rhetoric, alongside fabricated crises, to uphold the veneer of being an anti-status quo politician. Bernd Kaussler, Lars J. Kristiansen, and Jeffrey Delbert argue that, for Trump, bullshit, confrontational politics, and fear has emerged as a vital political strategy. Through an analysis of Trump’s first three years in office, the authors find that President Trump governed using a communication strategy that a) denied facts, relied heavily on bullshit, lies, and fabricated counter-narratives; b) attacked news outlets and the opposition to foster identity-based polarization in order to sideline critics and stir up factions for specific political ends; and c) dismissed legitimate criticism of policies and the conduct of the administration and the president himself as “fake news.” Kaussler, Kristiansen, and Delbert argue that the repeated use of this strategy, along with a mixture of public complacency and concerted efforts on the part of his own party, has allowed Trump to work toward normalizing these lies and cover-ups throughout his tenure, only further exacerbating the highly polarized and partisan political environment in the United States. Scholars of rhetoric, communication, political science, and media studies will find this book particularly useful.

Rhetoric and Governance under Trump: Proclamations from the Bullshit Pulpit analyzes the rhetoric of Donald Trump to argue that Trump’s deeply illiberal rhetoric, cruel policies, corruption, disruptive foreign policy, and disdain for the rule of law makes him a textbook populist. However, his embrace of mainstream conservative policies and the culture war narratives that come with them made him a rather conventional Republican. Being more plutocrat than populist, Trump had to bridge this fundamental contradiction by employing populist and polarizing rhetoric, alongside fabricated crises, to uphold the veneer of being an anti-status quo politician. Bernd Kaussler, Lars J. Kristiansen, and Jeffrey Delbert argue that, for Trump, bullshit, confrontational politics, and fear has emerged as a vital political strategy. Through an analysis of Trump’s first three years in office, the authors find that President Trump governed using a communication strategy that a) denied facts, relied heavily on bullshit, lies, and fabricated counter-narratives; b) attacked news outlets and the opposition to foster identity-based polarization in order to sideline critics and stir up factions for specific political ends; and c) dismissed legitimate criticism of policies and the conduct of the administration and the president himself as “fake news.” Kaussler, Kristiansen, and Delbert argue that the repeated use of this strategy, along with a mixture of public complacency and concerted efforts on the part of his own party, has allowed Trump to work toward normalizing these lies and cover-ups throughout his tenure, only further exacerbating the highly polarized and partisan political environment in the United States. Scholars of rhetoric, communication, political science, and media studies will find this book particularly useful.

In Nikki Haley's Lessons from the New South, Wanda Little Fenimore traces the resurrection of the phrase “New South” with South Carolina’s former governor, Nikki Haley. Through analyzing speeches, Fenimore demonstrates how politicians use historical terms in new ways that obscure their roots but remain oppressive in the twenty-first century. This book reveals how Nikki Haley manufactured her “New South” as progressive, and forward-thinking, yet the term functions as a form of inferential racism, ultimately, reproducing traditional conservatism rooted in white supremacy. Scholars of rhetoric, communication, political science, and women’s studies will find this book of particular interest.

Ethics in Contact Rhetoric re-orients communication theory by centering touch and de-centering symbolic acts. Inspired by MLK’s tradition of nonviolent power, a contact orientation highlights the incarnate and immediate ground of communication ethics. Ethical interactions are defined as bio-relational dances arcing steps of nurture, respect, justice, and too often, violence. Centering humanity’s physical mutuality is a vital move today. Communication is a thoroughly interactive art, but the West’s ancient “instrumental” tradition of rhetoric and its accompanying utilitarian ethic valorize individual agency over joint action. This book re-balances rhetorical theory by enabling critique of embodied relational patterns. Special emphasis is placed on engaging material injustice and discerning the role of rhetoric in social transformation. Critical case studies demonstrate contact rhetoric’s rich heuristic and diverse applications.

Ethics in Contact Rhetoric re-orients communication theory by centering touch and de-centering symbolic acts. Inspired by MLK’s tradition of nonviolent power, a contact orientation highlights the incarnate and immediate ground of communication ethics. Ethical interactions are defined as bio-relational dances arcing steps of nurture, respect, justice, and too often, violence. Centering humanity’s physical mutuality is a vital move today. Communication is a thoroughly interactive art, but the West’s ancient “instrumental” tradition of rhetoric and its accompanying utilitarian ethic valorize individual agency over joint action. This book re-balances rhetorical theory by enabling critique of embodied relational patterns. Special emphasis is placed on engaging material injustice and discerning the role of rhetoric in social transformation. Critical case studies demonstrate contact rhetoric’s rich heuristic and diverse applications.

Rhetoric and Public Memory in the Science of Disaster grapples with the role of science in the public memory of natural disasters. Taking a psychoanalytic and genealogical approach to the rhetoric of disaster science throughout the twentieth century, this book explores how we remember natural disasters by analyzing how we try to prevent them. Chapters track the development of predictive modeling methods alongside some of the worst and most consequential natural disasters in the history of the United States. From miniaturized physical scale models, to cartographic renderings within a burgeoning statistical science, to ever more complex simulation scenarios, disaster science has long created imaginary versions of horrific events in the effort to prevent them. Through an exploration of these hypothetical disasters, this book theorizes how science itself becomes a site of public memory, an increasingly important question in a world of changing weather.

Quiet Defiance: The Rhetoric of Silent Protest focuses on the rhetorical dimensions and power of silent protest. Bridging the gap between the study of protest and the study of rhetorical silence (strategic silence meant to communicate to and influence an audience), this book is the first of its kind to concentrate solely on the phenomenon and tradition of silent protest. The contributors to this volume hail from different cultures, disciplines, and fields. They examine past and present-day cases of silent protest with different research questions and paradigmatic perspectives in mind and methodological approaches at hand. Collectively, however, their original chapters offer a rich, multifaceted understanding of the potentialities, limits, nature, effects, risks, and rewards of silent acts of protest—individual or otherwise—against oppressive, unjust regimes and systems of power.

Quiet Defiance: The Rhetoric of Silent Protest focuses on the rhetorical dimensions and power of silent protest. Bridging the gap between the study of protest and the study of rhetorical silence (strategic silence meant to communicate to and influence an audience), this book is the first of its kind to concentrate solely on the phenomenon and tradition of silent protest. The contributors to this volume hail from different cultures, disciplines, and fields. They examine past and present-day cases of silent protest with different research questions and paradigmatic perspectives in mind and methodological approaches at hand. Collectively, however, their original chapters offer a rich, multifaceted understanding of the potentialities, limits, nature, effects, risks, and rewards of silent acts of protest—individual or otherwise—against oppressive, unjust regimes and systems of power.

This collection of essays expands upon an emerging topic within and beyond the field of communication studies that challenges students and scholars of the built environment to peer beyond the somewhat typical collection of monuments, museums, and memories often found in essays related to space and place, to consider the role of ruins as lenses upon modernity.These locales, which include economic ghost towns, industrial relics, prison sites, and other places associated with so-called dark tourism generally conjure feelings of melancholy, connotations of failure. While their assemblages of moldy floors, waterlogged walls, shattered windows, and sagging roofs do not make for traditional tourist snapshots, ruins possess a potential to inspire awe, an awareness of the tenuous nature of modern confidence, a reverence for the passing of things. In their inquiry and investigation, one may encounter oddly sublime traces and fragments of the contemporary age.Seeking to better understand the rhetoric and performances of ruins, contributors to this book have crafted chapters that are theoretically sophisticated and vividly authored. The resulting collection of nine essays surveys ruins within and beyond the United States to examine a unique and unexpected constellation of ideas related to authenticity, identity, memory, representation, and power.

This collection of essays expands upon an emerging topic within and beyond the field of communication studies that challenges students and scholars of the built environment to peer beyond the somewhat typical collection of monuments, museums, and memories often found in essays related to space and place, to consider the role of ruins as lenses upon modernity. These locales, which include economic ghost towns, industrial relics, prison sites, and other places associated with so-called dark tourism generally conjure feelings of melancholy, connotations of failure. While their assemblages of moldy floors, waterlogged walls, shattered windows, and sagging roofs do not make for traditional tourist snapshots, ruins possess a potential to inspire awe, an awareness of the tenuous nature of modern confidence, a reverence for the passing of things. In their inquiry and investigation, one may encounter oddly sublime traces and fragments of the contemporary age. Seeking to better understand the rhetoric and performances of ruins, contributors to this book have crafted chapters that are theoretically sophisticated and vividly authored. The resulting collection of nine essays surveys ruins within and beyond the United States to examine a unique and unexpected constellation of ideas related to authenticity, identity, memory, representation, and power.

A Rhetoric of Ruins contributes to an interdisciplinary conversation about the role of wrecked and abandoned places in modern life. Topics in this book stretch from retro- and post-human futures to a Jeremiadic analysis of the role of ruins in American presidential discourse. From that foundation, A Rhetoric of Ruins employs hauntology to visit a California ghost-town, psychogeography to confront Detroit ruins, heterochrony to survey Pennsylvania’s once (and future) Graffiti Highway, an expanded articulation of heterotopia to explore the pleasurable contamination of Chernobyl, and an evening in Turkmenistan’s Doorway to Hell that stretches across time from Homer’s Iliad to Little Richard’s “Long Tall Sally.” Written to engage scholars and students of communication studies, cultural geography, anthropology, landscape studies, performance studies, public memory, urban studies, and tourism studies, A Rhetoric of Ruins is a conceptually rich and vividly written account of how broken and derelict places help us manage our fears in the modern era.

Rhetoric of the Opioid Epidemic demonstrates that framing the epidemic as a medical issue instead of an effect of moral failing holds more potential for solving the epidemic through medical treatment and reconnecting sufferers back to society. This rhetorical move separates the opioid epidemic from the criminal and immoral frames that were cast upon the crack epidemic and initial framing of the AIDS epidemic. Popular culture and governmental response case studies include: President Trump’s March 19, 2018 address to the nation, ODMAP produced by the Washington/Baltimore High Intensity Drug Trafficking in January 2017, news stories from national sources dating from 2015 to 2020 about the chronic pain management debate, two documentaries, Heroin(e) (2017) and One Nation Under Stress: Deaths of Despair in the United States (2019), and Ben is Back (2018).