The Ethos of Rhetoric

In The "Ethos" of Rhetoric, fourteen noted rhetorical theorists and critics answer a summons to return ethics from abstraction to the particular. They discuss and explore a meaning of ethos that predates its more familiar translation as "moral character" and "ethics." Attentive to this more primordial meaning of the term, the contributors understand the phrase "the ethos of rhetoric" to relate to the way discourse is used to transform space and time into "dwelling places" where people can deliberate about and collectively understand some matter of interest. Such dwelling places define the grounds, abodes, and habitats where a person's ethics and moral character take form and develop. Together the contributors define ethical discourse and describe what its practice looks like in particular communities. In the volume's introduction, Michael J. Hyde maintains that the ethos of rhetoric provides a foundation for all else that can be said about the discipline. Craig R. Smith, Margaret D. Zulick, and Robert Wade Kenny explore in their essays the relationship between place and the performance of communal discourse. Barbara Warnick, in a contribution addressing how an expansion of ethos might enrich the critic's understanding of rhetoric, rounds out the theoretical grounding of the book. The final seven essays turn to the ethos of metoric's manifestations in everyday existence. Case studies by Walter Jost, John Poulakos, Eric King Watts, Martin J. Medhurst, David Zarefsky, Carole Blair and Neil Michel, and Carolyn R. Miller develop the idea of ethos as genius loci of region, nation, and tribal identity. Among the phenomena these contributors examine are the rhetoric of a Black Arts movement leader, the 2000 presidential campaign, President George W. Bush's response to the September 11th terrorist attack, and the cold war computer culture.

ISBN 1570035385   Pages 236 ISBN13 9781570035388 (What's this?)   Volumes 1 Publisher University of South Carolina Press   Weight (grammes) 572 Imprint University of South Carolina Press   Published in South Carolina Format Hardback   Series editor Benson, Thomas W., Benson, Thomas W., Benson, Thomas W. Publication date 30 Jun 2004   Series title Studies in Rhetoric/Communication Writer of foreword Calvin O. Schrag   Height (mm) 230 Library of Congress P301 \.E84 2004   Width (mm) 152 DEWEY 808   Spine width (mm) 23 DEWEY edition DC22   Academic level Tertiary education, Undergraduate, Postgraduate, Professional / Scholarly

		Introduction : rhetorically, we dwell by Michael J. Hyde
		Ethos dwells pervasively : a hermeneutic reading of Aristotle on credibility by Craig R. Smith		1
		The Ethos of invention : the dialogue of ethics and aesthetics in Kenneth Burke and Mikhail Bakhtin by Margaret D. Zulick		20
		Truth as metaphor : imaginative vision and the ethos of rhetoric by Robert Wade Kenny		34
		The Ethos of rhetorical criticism : enlarging the dwelling place of critical praxis by Barbara Warnick		56
		Sweating the little things in Sidney Lumet's 12 angry men by Walter Jost		75
		Special delivery : rhetoric, letter writing, and the question of beauty by John Poulakos		89
		The Ethos of a Black aesthetic : an exploration of Larry Neal's visions of a liberated future by Eric King Watts		98
		Religious rhetoric and the ethos of democracy : a case study of the 2000 presidential campaign by Martin J. Medhurst		114
		George W. Bush discovers rhetoric : September 20, 2001, and the U.S. response to terrorism by David Zarefsky		136
		The Rushmore effect : Ethos and national collective identity by Carole Blair and Neil Michel		156
		Expertise and agency : transformations of Ethos in human-computer interaction by Carolyn R. Miller		197

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