New Approaches to Rhetoric

New Approaches to Rhetoric provides fresh perspectives on the study of rhetoric and its ability to affect change in today's society.  Although traditional approaches (e.g., neo-Aristotelian) to the study of rhetoric have utility for the twenty-first century, communication in a complex, mass-mediated postmodern age calls for new critical approaches. The contributors of this volume, including James Darsey, Kathryn M. Olson and G. Thomas Goodnight, George Cheney, Dana Cloud, and Barry Brummett, explore possibilities for bridging rhetorical studies of the past with rhetorical studies of the future. The original essays invite students to join rhetorical theorists and critics in an ongoing dialogue concerning what it means to study communication in a postmodern world.

New Approaches to Rhetoric is ideal for upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses in Rhetoric and in Political Communication in departments of Communication, English, and Political Science. This book is suitable for use as either a primary or supplemental course text and will be invaluable as a general reference for scholars of rhetoric, social movements, and public sphere studies.